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Muslim WFU Law Student Writes...

geez, this is sad


After 9/11, my community became the most investigated community in America. My entire family, most of my Muslim American friends and hundreds of thousands of Muslim Americans have been interviewed by the FBI since 9/11. I still cringe when I recall the moment when a federal agent pressed me to admit whether I had "any ill will towards the United States." He must not have noticed the American flag I had flying outside my home.

After 9/11, I have not stepped inside the Community Mosque of Winston-Salem without wondering if a federal agent would be peering over my shoulder. When I sit down to pray at the Community Mosque — where Muslims have peacefully worshipped for the past three decades — I sometimes wonder if the person I'm sitting next to is an undercover federal agent.
 
as always, newspaper comment sections (and youtube comment sections) make me sad that people out there actually think like that
 
fuheel said:
as always, newspaper comment sections (and youtube comment sections) make me sad that people out there actually think like that
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Is it ok to call any of these folks redneck bigots? Shorty? Rednecks?
 
what is with people? Can they not get out of their own heads and their own fear long enough to understand that bin Laden fucked things up for Muslims too, and that they are not all followers? embarrassed to be an American when I read the comments under that piece. Good job by the author - i wish him well.
 
There are lots of reasons why people like that are the way they are. I mean number one is they are dumb as shit. Also though they are the type that fear what they don't know, so they don't know any muslims, they don't understand the religion, and so they go by the most publicized minority group crazy terrorists. I think on the other side muslims do a poor job of separating themselves from the crazy minority groups, being out and open, and having large public condemning of other muslims for their actions. People see all muslim countries and the news that is coming out of those countries and before the recent uprisings simple complacency of the majority while the minority crazies go about their business. Yet this is most likely over thinking of things and to return to my first point the majority of Americans are dumb as shit, and it is even more apparent now that their views can reach millions through the internet where before they were confined to bean supper with Joe after church.
 
The young man will some day become a good advocate. Unfortunately he is silent on a key issue, one that is primarily responsible for his complaints. Namely, all of the people harbouring and financially supporting OBL were Muslims. If Muslims don't want to be associated with terrorism committed in the name of Islam, which I'm sure most don't, they need to do a better job of policing their own.

I will leave aside the fact that OBL was found less than a mile from the main Pakistani officer training university, where he had been living undisturbed for at least the last five years.
 
sailordeac said:
The young man will some day become a good advocate. Unfortunately he is silent on a key issue, one that is primarily responsible for his complaints. Namely, all of the people harbouring and financially supporting OBL were Muslims. If Muslims don't want to be associated with terrorism committed in the name of Islam, which I'm sure most don't, they need to do a better job of policing their own.

I will leave aside the fact that OBL was found less than a mile from the main Pakistani officer training university, where he had been living undisturbed for at least the last five years.
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Islam is a religion of 1.6 billion people. The vast vast vast majority of those who support OBL and other terrorists live thousands of miles away on the other side of oceans. I don't really know what this Lewisville resident is supposed to do.

I'm a Christian, and I doubt that others judge me based on Westboro Baptist or the Florida Koran-burner.
 
sailordeac said:
The young man will some day become a good advocate. Unfortunately he is silent on a key issue, one that is primarily responsible for his complaints. Namely, all of the people harbouring and financially supporting OBL were Muslims. If Muslims don't want to be associated with terrorism committed in the name of Islam, which I'm sure most don't, they need to do a better job of policing their own.

I will leave aside the fact that OBL was found less than a mile from the main Pakistani officer training university, where he had been living undisturbed for at least the last five years.
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Homerun, circle the bases. I firmly believe we would all have much greater rapport if only there were vocal Muslim groups condemning the Radical elements...the response to date has been tepid at best.

Until then I will freely stand with Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul, and Christopher Hitchens among other brave intellectuals who have lived with and seen through the "facade".
 
ThinkingWithMyDeac said:
There are lots of reasons why people like that are the way they are. I mean number one is they are dumb as shit. Also though they are the type that fear what they don't know, so they don't know any muslims, they don't understand the religion, and so they go by the most publicized minority group crazy terrorists. I think on the other side muslims do a poor job of separating themselves from the crazy minority groups, being out and open, and having large public condemning of other muslims for their actions. People see all muslim countries and the news that is coming out of those countries and before the recent uprisings simple complacency of the majority while the minority crazies go about their business. Yet this is most likely over thinking of things and to return to my first point the majority of Americans are dumb as shit, and it is even more apparent now that their views can reach millions through the internet where before they were confined to bean supper with Joe after church.
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Muslim-Americans have a pretty tough task dealing with ignorant Americans. They're almost powerless to do anything about how they're perceived. They have a different problem than other racial and religious groups. Americans don't base their opinions of Jews solely on what's happening in Israel. They don't base their opinions of Mexicans based on what's happening in Mexico. They don't base their opinions of blacks based on Africa. Yet Muslim-Americans are primarily judged based on what happens in the Middle East, a region that is home to only 20% of Muslims. What's a guy living outside of Winston supposed to do about the public perception of his religion by people who are content to judge based on limited information?

And Muslims who are working to build better relations between Muslim-Americans and the larger American population have to endure enhanced security to get on planes if they can get on at all and people telling them they can't build mosques were they already live and worship. There's nothing they can do to combat these stereotypes. They're just living their lives.
 
Shooshmoo said:
Is it ok to call any of these folks redneck bigots? Shorty? Rednecks?
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As always, I'm hesitant to ask you for a clarification, but I have to admit, I don't get the connection to the other thread. Are you asking me if it's OK to call muslims like the author of the op ed a redneck?

I thought the opinion piece was very well written. Obviously I have no personal frame of reference here, but I'm sure muslim-Americans have encountered issues that they could never have imagined prior to 9/11. Judeo-Christian America needs to try harder.

But imams and other muslim leaders need to try harder, too. They need to be at least as vocal as muslims recently staging funerals for bin Laden in the UK and calling for further violence to avenge his "murder". Their silence gives oxygen to radical Islam.
 
I'm a known liberal here and while I do respect his feelings and opinions- they reflect those I've seen from friends and even a family member who is Islamic- I do have to remind all of us of one thing. This is nothing new or particularly endemic to Muslims alone. The Japanese, Germans, and even the Irish can attest to that. Though I will admit that in the recent decades and most likely the coming ones, those who are "unwelcomed" here tend to be more darker-skinned.

Each epoch of history marked by strife brings, among many tragedies, the scapegoating and unfair blame for many innocent people(s). This isn't the first time and it won't be the last. Sure, some of the most vocally passionate anger towards the likes of Bin Laden and Hussein come from those who have been ethnically or internally targeted by them.

My concern or doubt is to whether this will ever pass as it has with other "suspect classes." Certainly the crimes and insults committed against Americans by the British, Japanese, and Germans have been resolved and marginalized as time has passed. I just don't know if it will ever happen between the West and Islamic theocracies and cultures.
 
fuheel said:
I'm a Christian, and I doubt that others judge me based on Westboro Baptist or the Florida Koran-burner.
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Oh, some do. But not anyone I'd consider thoughtful.

--------------

To the point of where do the biases come from, it's not really hard to understand. Just look over the photos in the "London-istan" article on the other thread. A steady diet of that will have an influence. Especially when compounded by actual terrorist activity, perpetrated by Muslims in the name of their religion.

And it's not for absolutely nothing that we might worry some. Sure, the vast majority of Muslims aren't terrorists. But a sizable portion in many places still see suicide bombings aimed at civilians as at least sometimes justified. And have some confidence it terrorists like OBL. Thankfully, the numbers seem to be declining, but they're not what I'd consider minuscule or unimportant. Link to some data/discussion of this sort.

More recent Bin Laden opinion numbers.

In the U.S., most Muslims are, I think, not so very "different" from many other U.S. citizens. Certainly it is very wrong to consider every Muslim to be a terrorist sympathizer, much less a terrorist. Still, some of the survey data doesn't leave me feeling confident that there's not a too significant degree of support for terrorism, even among U.S. Muslims (see Chapter 7 of this report). No, not a majority, but not a tiny number, IMO. And seems to be more so among younger Muslims, where about 25 % think suicide bombing targeting civilians can be justified.

Anyhow, I feel for the writer of the piece in the op. I think it would be challenging to be a Muslim in the U.S. And I'm fairly certain I'd feel the society was prejudiced against me. And while some of what I've written might be seen as a defense of the nuts that are vitriolically anti-Muslim, that's not been my intention. Really just trying to suggest that there's likely a complex picture wrt much of this topic on both the side of Muslims and non-Muslims. Of course, for some nuts, the world and any particular topic is never complex but always black/white. Those, of course, are usually the people we ought to worry about on any "side".
 
I thought the point of his piece was to let the average non-Muslim American know that Osama bin Laden really screwed up his life here in America - not to solicit sympathy or whine about the ways in which he did. I didn't take that he was seeking anyone's pity for his plight, just giving the reader perspective on bin Laden's crimes and his death from an American Muslim. The responses on this thread indicate to me that y'all took it differently. Like: "hey man, it sucks, but here is what you should have done..."

I could be wrong
 
fuheel said:
Islam is a religion of 1.6 billion people. The vast vast vast majority of those who support OBL and other terrorists live thousands of miles away on the other side of oceans. I don't really know what this Lewisville resident is supposed to do.

I'm a Christian, and I doubt that others judge me based on Westboro Baptist or the Florida Koran-burner.
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I agree with you that people saying they should "police their own" are ignoring a multitude of factors that make such an action impossible.

As to the bolded portion, read this board (or any other) long enough and you will watch it happen. Even outside the boards bubble I have heard dozens of ignorant remarks about "baptists" and/or Christians based on what Westboro does. People are typically only indignant about stereotypes they disagree with. No matter how much we try to avoid them, they invariably creep into our life in some fashion no matter what. Look no further than rj's thread on the muslims getting kicked off the plane in which he rants against such a thing while calling people "bigoted rednecks."

In the interest of full disclosure (and to be fair), I personally tend to stereotype all people from the NE as arrogant douches and all people from the West Coast as meddling hippies. I know its not fair or correct, but as I was raised on a farm in rural NC, they probably discount my opinion as that of an uneducated bigoted redneck.
 
WakeandBake said:
I thought the point of his piece was to let the average non-Muslim American know that Osama bin Laden really screwed up his life here in America - not to solicit sympathy or whine about the ways in which he did. I didn't take that he was seeking anyone's pity for his plight, just giving the reader perspective on bin Laden's crimes and his death from an American Muslim. The responses on this thread indicate to me that y'all took it differently. Like: "hey man, it sucks, but here is what you should have done..."

I could be wrong
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I think your reading is probably right. But there's not really a firm line between helping people to understand "the fires of anti-Muslim prejudice that have engulfed my country" post 9/11 and eliciting sympathy and/or defensiveness. And so away we go...
 
It's a stereotype if you see someone and they are X.

It's not a stereotype if someone actually does something as happened on the othere thread.
 
It doesn't help that American Muslims and non-Muslims don't see eye-to-eye on Israel.
 
ConnorEl said:
I think your reading is probably right. But there's not really a firm line between helping people to understand "the fires of anti-Muslim prejudice that have engulfed my country" post 9/11 and eliciting sympathy and/or defensiveness. And so away we go...
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Correct. I don't doubt that he's been treated poorly by the fires of prejudice that have engulfed his country post 9/11, but it compares poorly to the fires that engulfed the twin towers, Pentagon and that field in Pennsylvania.

There's a reason the Amish don't bitch, whine and moan about prejudice.
 
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