Paranoia, anyone?

When does a joke stop being humorous and start being offensive?

Muhammad Hassan--real name Mark Copani--is a WWE wrestler. His shows got cancelled because his actions (or mere presence?) was deemed offensive in light of the London bombings.

The American Anti-Arab Discrimination Committee also thought his carousing around the stage beating up the undertaker and then having his assistant--who acted dead--be carried out over their heads like a martyr before rushing back to choke the undertaker was done in severely bad taste.

Frankly...I don't get it.

Sure, it could be indelicate. It could be offensive. But in light of how people have reacted in the past...isn't this just another day on the ring?

Aren't wrestlers supposed to beat each other up? If he'd been, say, some random white dude wrestler named Saw, would he have receieved the same kind of negative attention?

Was it because he was portraying an Arab? Are the people so dumb that they think some wrestler who goes by a Muslim name beating opponents up on national television is how every Muslim believes?

Maybe. We are talking about people who suddenly thought Muslims=Terrorists after 9/11.

Had it been against their religion, I would have understood it. I would have found it annoying if a wrestler named The Priest came up there then started saying mass while beating people up. But some Italian American dude who just took up an Arab screen name...

What's next? Maybe we should just pull out every Muslim show on TV because it might offend somebody. Let's alienate all of them, because their terrorists. Flush them out, because their too violent.

It's so easy to go from one thought to another. It's so easy to build hate just by planting a small seed of doubt in an already scared populace.

By not wanting to offend one nation, you've managed to offend a whole lot of others. Just goes to show where the priorities lie at the moment.