Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Is Being A "Muslim" or "Arab" an Insult in U.S. politics?

This year we have seen some of the most interesting political campaigns in the U.S. Many are cautiously watch this election, wondering exactly who should we vote for, and what happens if you don't want to vote either of them.

I am not gonna tell you who you should vote for and why. What I want to tell you is that I am kind of disturbed how many see being a "Muslim" or being an "Arab" is a bad thing. Why should that be? Don't you see that this is a form of racism? With this type of mentality, you are oppressing Arabs and Muslims, when in fact you and they can benefit or learn from each other.

About one week ago, a lady tells John McCain that she didn't want Barack Obama to be president of the U.S. because he is an Arab. Ummm...what is that supposed to mean? We are living in 2008, not 1868 or even 1968. I thought we have come a long way from that kind of thinking.

Many people will say, yeah but Faten, look what happened in 9/11, etc. I say ok, but you can't hold every single person from that same ethnic group responsible. It is not fair or realistic. Then every human on this planet would be just as guilty. Now tell me what a child had to do with a tragedy? That is what I thought.

A fantastic article I think every person should read is Commentary: So what if Obama were a Muslim or an Arab?. I give Campbell Brown kudos for this awesome piece that she wrote. I appreciate her attempts on educating the public on deconstructing the myth of equalizing Arab and Muslims with insults and "bad". Good job Campbell--you just gained a faithful reader.

2 comments:

Carolyn Erickson said...

Faten, good points. And I started a response that became too long for the comments section, so I might have to make it a post! :)

Anonymous said...

The woman that made the comment is a Republican party supporter. They constantly refer to the source of the War in Iraq as being 9/11 when in fact it's the war in Afghanistan that's supposedly looking for those responsible for 9/11. If the leaders of the Republican party don't get it right, how can their supporters be expected to know better?

I'm non-American and I can see that whether Obama is black, white, arab or muslim, his message is what the US needs right now. But then, although I'm from a country where although terrorism isn't unknown, our political parties don't use fear of terrorism attacks as their political platform.