March 28, 2011
Courtesy Of "Red and Black"
A video has surfaced on YouTube. It shows a mob hurling verbalized hatred at Muslim families attending a benefit for a women’s homeless shelter in California.
Led by elected Republican officials, the crowd mourned the state of America and the perverted nature of Islam. Silent Muslim American families walked to their minivans, strapped their children into car seats and drove quickly past the rabid crowd.
MCBRIDE
Recently, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) held Congressional hearings investigating the threat of “homegrown Islamic terror.” He feels this is a looming threat brewing in mosques and Muslim Student Associations across America.
In December, an FBI undercover agent attempted to infiltrate a mosque in Orange County, Calif. His open references to jihad led worshipers to contact the FBI and report their own agent.
Republican State Sen. Gerald Allen proposed a ban on Shariah law given in the Quran for the state of Alabama. But when questioned by a local paper, Allen couldn’t define “Shariah law” and his bill actually plagiarized the definition given on Wikipedia.
These politicians are forsaking their duties to the American people to chase down a unicorn. By putting Islam on trial, they fuel hate and promote ignorance.
American Islamic groups regularly condemn terrorist attacks.
It is ludicrous for our politicians to investigate a nonexistent framework for Islamic terrorism when there are many other problems in America.
What has happened to us?
Elected politicians tell us Islam is an anti-intellectual religion of sexual perversion and jihad.
This, when the Muslim scholars of the European “Dark Ages” paved the way for the Enlightenment.
And jihad — often translated “holy war” — actually refers to the struggle for purity, justice and knowledge, in addition to political struggle.
Even the most level-headed of the Religious Right would consider these four goals lofty.
The ideological spectrum of Islam is as vast as the spectrum of Christian beliefs: there are fundamentalists, moderates, progressives and feminists.
There are Muslims fighting both for and against human rights, just as there are Christians who do both.
Instead of investigating an imaginary network of terrorists, why not examine the underground sex slave trade in America?
Why not examine Sovereign Citizen — a white anarchist group — which gorges itself on a diet of supremacist literature and scams gun stores to increase its arms stockpiles, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
One member, Kevin Harpham, just this year planted a bomb along the route of a Spokane, Wash., MLK Day parade route.
Why is it that Muslim Americans can’t buy fertilizer for their lawns without their names going onto a federal database, but supremacists can stock up on 20 assault rifles at a time?
Why do we gaze with suspicion at Georgia mosques, when Atlanta is vying for its title as child prostitution capital of America, according to the FBI?
Why do our politicians continue the Islamic witch hunt?
Because we — the American people — let them.
We stereotype and judge, until Muslims become automatic suspects in America.
Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the “Ground Zero Mosque,” said Osama bin Laden was “created in America.” When you consider how our politicians have treated Muslims in America, you have to wonder — maybe he’s right.
— Jake McBride is a sophomore from Columbus majoring
in mathematics
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