Westboro Church and Islam

So I know what I am posting is quite polarizing and honestly quite easy for all of us to dismiss. But the fact of the matter is that the Westboro Baptist Church's rhetoric is still in action and is illustrative of a lot of the concepts and terms Robin outlines in his essay.

http://www.godhatesislam.com/-watch the video

First of all, this is a church. He's a pastor. Those are two pieces of cultural context that are crucial in understanding how his rhetoric works. He keeps appealing to the religious side of who is watching the video, well aware which religion he is preaching for as well as against. He knows where he stands on the issue, and he knows exactly what the people who follow him expect him to say. I find it interesting that he struggles(or maybe on purpose) to pronounce certain words related to Islam, while his enucniation of words relating to his own faith is flawless. I would like to think this is a type of "covert prestige" that Robin discussed in his work. Now the definition Robin gives of covert prestige is "power gained in flouting the practices of the dominant culture". I would argue that by mispronouncing the words related to Islam, the pastor is engaging in an act of covert prestige. His statements and rhetoric gain power by simply refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of Arabic words and names. Now these terms might not be part of the "dominant culture", but our mainstream media would make sure these terms were pronounced correctly. So the dominant media is what this pastor is battling back against as well. The people who watch these videos feel the same way. They don't know how to pronounce Arabic words, they don't need to know how, they just are going to go burn a Qu'ran in protest.

I think this last bit can be connected with Bordieu's conception of habitus that Robin gives us in the essay. These people are part of a church. A close knit church. They convene regularly, I am sure children are raised within the church, and its where they form their worldview. It is also where a sort of collective habitus forms, especially because the group is so extreme. They are expected to act a certain way because of their association with this group. To quote Robin, "The habitus is his general term for all of our dispositions to act in particular ways in particular settings" The Westboro Church has a habitus, and the pastor in the video is only displaying this habitus. It is extreme and polarizing, but this IS the Westboro Baptist Church. Thats what they do, we all know that. So this video is their take on the whole Islam situation and a certain historical event in Iraq. It is an extreme piece of rhetoric but I would argue it convinces who it is supposed to convince. By appealing to the extreme side of the issues, and all the core beliefs of their church, this video brings personal identity into the issue. We all know when identity gets involved, people tend to get invested.

They know where they stand in the issue, and they know what kind of reactions they will see when they protest. They are completely engaged in the cultural and linguistic market and they know what they are selling. So as I have already said, regardless of how little they actually know about Islam or other events, the rhetoric appeals to people who see themselves as having similar core beliefs.