Vigilante Racism and the De-Americanization of Muslim Americans

Last week I posted a story on an ugly incident at an amusement park where a Muslim woman with a headscarf was attacked. Here’s my reflection on the incident from Huffington Post:

We are told at a young age that we are a land of immigrants. But we are reminded all too often that we are a land intolerant of diversity.

Consider the experience of the Muslim American Society in Westchester County, New York, this past Tuesday. In celebration of Eid-ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, the group organized a daylong event at Rye Playland amusement park. The celebration ended with baton-wielding police officers pounding Muslim women to the ground.

The mess began when Haifa Ali, wearing her traditionally hijab headscarf attempted to board a rollercoaster. A park employee asked her to remove the hijab, citing a park rule that loose items had to be removed for safety reasons. Ali explained that it was against her religion to remove the scarf and that she had been permitted to wear the scarf on other similar rides. When the attendant stood firm, Ali and other women in the group decided to go ask for a refund. But someone grabbed her hijab from behind to pull it off then a park ranger wrestled another one of the women in the group to the ground. From there, other law enforcement officers began to converge on the group, hitting them with batons and pinning some of the women to the ground. An independent eyewitness heard one female police officer yell, “I don’t give a f*ck about your culture.” And one blogger commented the next day, “This is Playland, not Prayland. Thanks to some trusty batons and nine different police agencies, the rides (and the funnel cakes, God bless ’em) stayed 100% American yesterday.”

Unfortunately, the incident, occurring shortly before the 10-year anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11, is a stark reminder of the expanded profiling of Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians by officials and misguided civilians in the past decade.

. . . .
There are two Americas when it comes to race, ethnic background, and who is an American. One is an all-embracing America on the matter of who is an American. This vision recognizes that the United States is a land of immigrants, and that in spite of exclusionary policies aimed at different groups throughout its history, the country is comprised of members of all different shades and ethnic backgrounds. The other America is narrow in its view of who is an American. This second vision is Euro-centric, excluding those of Latin and Asian descent, and as we have witnessed since 9/11, excluding those of Muslim, Arab, or South Asian background.

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. Click here for the entire piece.

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