'Shaming gymnastics'! Vox's Max Fisher: If you praised badass woman fighting ISIS, you're a racist

Just when you thought you’d seen Max Fisher scrape the bottom of the intellectual barrel, he goes and outdoes himself:

https://twitter.com/Max_Fisher/status/515534209515933696

https://twitter.com/Max_Fisher/status/515552693772103680

Hey, Max, those tweets are mind-blowingly stupid. On multiple levels:

Oh, look. @voxdotcom thinks praising a female pilot from the UAE is actually racist. http://t.co/ZfJUE3c89T

— RBe (@RBPundit) September 26, 2014

https://twitter.com/Mistressnancy/status/515554213229641728

Islam isn’t a race, you paste eater. https://t.co/SA4Jp3MKBA

— ℝ?????? ????????? (@RexHarrisonsHat) September 26, 2014

Dear @Max_Fisher, radical, terroristic, beheading, genital mutilating, Islamic Jihadists are NOT a race. #TruthAche https://t.co/C63XIvEn6U

— Chris Loesch (@ChrisLoesch) September 26, 2014

https://twitter.com/Coondawg68/status/515554755452891136

.@Max_Fisher No, it's not racist. Read about her…she's incredible. And read about the positive effect she's had on her division.

— Color Me Red ? (@ColorMeRed) September 26, 2014

But what happens when you try to navigate the actual post? Here’s how it kicks off:

In the three days since United Arab Emirates air force Major Maryam al-Mansouri flew in the American-led mission to bomb ISIS targets in Syria, there have been many rounds of congratulations and chest-thumping in the United States over this triumph of feminism and humiliation of ISIS.

Mansouri’s accomplishment and importance as one of the first-ever female fighter pilots in the Emirates and in the Gulf is real. So is the progress she represents for Emirati women. But the American celebration of Mansouri has been grounded in some embarrassing misconceptions, and has echoed common Western prejudices and stereotypes about Arabs that are condescending at best and racist and misogynist at worst.

There are two sets of American misconceptions here. The first is to play up Mansouri as representative of the UAE as a champion of gender equality, when in fact the UAE is objectively quite bad on women’s rights, and the fact that we allow them such a lowered bar represents a soft bigotry of lowered expectations. The second is to repeatedly contrast the UAE with Saudi Arabia in a way that explicitly frames Saudi gender restrictions as the default for Arab and Muslim societies, when in fact Saudi restrictions are freakishly unique and widely reviled in the Muslim world.

The gist of Fisher’s article appears to be this: It’s racist and misogynistic to celebrate the fact that a women is helping to kick ISIS’ ass, because she comes from a Muslim-led country whose lousy women’s rights record shouldn’t be ignored. But, if you point out that Muslim-led countries have lousy women’s rights records, you’re a racist Islamophobe.

Get it? Neither do we:

.@Max_Fisher if I understand you correctly it is racist to believe women have equal rights in UAE as well as believing the opposite?

— Meine Weltsicht (@weltsichtig) September 26, 2014

https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/515559744057397248

The only thing missing was a Voxsplanation about how Israel is somehow behind all of this.