The De-Americanization of Barack Obama
The recent McCain-Palin strategy that has fomented hate toward Barack Obama is shameful. The Republican ticket’s campaign audiences have shouted hate speech toward Muslims, screamed crazy allegations of terrorism, and spewed frightening violent threats toward Senator Obama. This “othering” of Senator Obama is reminiscent of the hate that was directed toward Arabs and Muslims in the United States after September 11, 2001. Recalling that hate challenges us to speak out against the McCain-Palin strategy of de-Americanization and the encouragement of vigilante racism.
Within hours of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans of Muslim, Middle Eastern, and South Asian descent found themselves targeted for acts of hate and racial profiling. In a suburb of Chicago three hundred protestors, many waving American flags and chanting “USA! USA!” marched on a mosque. One 19-year-old demonstrator exclaimed, “I’m proud to be an American and I hate Arabs and I always have.” In Huntington, New York, a 75-year-old man tried to run over a Pakistani woman in the parking lot of a shopping mall. He then followed the woman into a store and threatened to kill her for “destroying my country.” In San Diego, a Sikh woman was attacked by a knife-wielding man, shouting “This is what you get for what you’ve done to us.” A Sikh family was followed out of a restaurant by two White men who screamed to the family, “Go back to your country.” Soon, arrests were made of individuals who were racially profiled, and by October, over 1,100 suspicious individuals, mostly Arab Americans, were detained, without access to family or counsel. By November, the Department of Justice developed a list of five thousand Middle Eastern men, between the ages of 18 and 33, who were to be “voluntarily” interviewed. Although the men were supposed to have entered on non-immigrant visas after January, 2000, numerous reports indicated that law enforcement officials were also contacting lawful permanent residents and U.S. citizens of Arab descent.
In contemplating this targeting of Muslim, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Americans by private individuals and official government policies after September 11, a clear theme emerges. In spite of the fact that these communities have been part of the fabric of our country for some time, in the eyes of many, those among us of Muslim, Middle Eastern, and South Asian background are not real Americans.
The fact that hateful acts and words of private citizens are followed up with official regimes of detention and profiling only reaffirms the subordination of the victims through suspicion of loyalty. The governmental imprimatur helps to “marginalize” the victims in U.S. society. And McCain and Palin’s endorsement and encouragement of this marginalization on breeds justified hate in the minds of their misguided supporters.
The message is one of exclusion: “You Muslims, Middle Easterners, and South Asians are not true Americans.” Certainly, de-Americanization is a process that involves racism, but unlike the racism directed at African Americans, with its foundations in the historically held beliefs of inferiority, de-Americanizers base their assault on loyalty and foreignness. In the minds of the private actors, who are nothing more than lawless vigilantes, self-appointed enforcers of true Americanism, their victims are immigrants or foreigners even though they may in fact be citizens by birth or through naturalization. Irrespective of the victim community’s possible longstanding status in the country, its members are regarded as perpetual foreigners. The victim community is forever regarded as immigrant America, as opposed to simply part of America and its diversity.
What has been happening to Muslims, Middle Easterners, and South Asians in the United States in the wake of September 11 is a process of ostracism from the American community – a de-Americanization process – that we have witnessed before. The process often involves two aspects – (1) the actions of private individuals and (2) official government-sanctioned actions. On the private side, the process involves identifying the victims as foreigners, sometimes mistakenly, other times simply treating the person as a foreigner knowing otherwise. De-Americanization is a twisted brand of xenophobia that is not simply hatred of foreigners, but also hatred of those who in fact may not be foreigners but whom the vigilantes would prefer being removed from the country anyway. In fact, we have seen this process not long ago with respect to Arabs and others of Middle Eastern descent following the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Immediately after that attack, media and officials wrongly speculated that an Islamic terrorist might have been responsible. The culprit turned out to be a White supremacist, Timothy McVeigh. The official side of the process involves laws or enforcement strategies that broadly focus on the entire group either without adequate basis or at least in an overly-broad manner.
The nation’s public relations position is that we are a proud nation of immigrants inclusive of all. Yes, we take steps in the direction of inclusiveness. But we take steps backwards in that regards as well. We learn and unlearn, and in the process, the bad behavior of vigilante racism is reinforced. In the process, we de-Americanize many communities of color, perpetuating their image as immigrant Americans rather than full Americans. The McCain-Palin strategy to de-Americanize Barack Obama represents a huge step backwards in our nation’s important journey toward mutual respect for the diverse communities that make up the United States. Those of us who believe in an inclusive, diverse country, must stand up for our beliefs and speak out against the divisive McCain-Palin strategy.
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