I read this AP analysis the other day and tried to figure out exactly why it bothered me. Then I realized: The theme of the article is that there is no big anti-Muslim backlash after the Boston bombers turned out to be Muslims. But does the AP think it’s because, well, Americans don’t go out and randomly harm or murder any Muslim because a few of them attack Americans? No, that’s not what the AP says.
The change may only reflect the circumstances of this particular attack. The two suspects are white and from an area of the world, Russia’s turbulent Caucasus region, that unlike the Mideast, Americans know little about. Investigators say Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother, Dzhokhar, 19, who had lived in the U.S. for about a decade, carried out the bombings, although it’s not clear why.
Oh, so Americans are too stupid to understand that Chechnyan Muslim terrorists are different from al Qaeda Muslim terrorists? That’s why legions of angry Americans didn’t beat, burn, and murder random American Muslims?
Not quite.
But U.S. Muslims also credit a new generation of leaders in their communities with helping keep tempers in check after the attack. Many are the American-born children of immigrants who saw the impact of the 2001 terror attacks on their faith and have strived ever since to build ties with other Americans.
“There seems to be a much more mature, sophisticated response to this tragedy than in the past 12 years,” said Wajahat Ali, 32, an attorney and co-author of “Fear, Inc.,” a report by the Center for American Progress on the strategies of anti-Muslim groups in the United States. “We really do see a palpable shift.”
Oh, so the more mature, sohpisticated response is noting that Americans don’t randomly beat, burn, and murder Muslims when their co-religionists attack and murder Americans?
No.
As they have after any national tragedy since Sept. 11, Muslim groups issued a flurry of statements condemning the attack, organized blood drives and thanked law enforcement for protecting the country. The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, in the city’s Roxbury section, held vigils and formed medical teams to help with the wounded. On his Facebook page, Imam Suhaib Webb, who leads the mosque, posted a black ribbon and banner across his Facebook page with the statement, “We’re Bostonians — We mourn with the city.”
“I offered my home to house stranded runners, spread information on fundraising for the victims through social media, and attended a candlelight vigil in Harvard Yard,” said Zeba Khan, who lives in Cambridge. “That is exactly where I am focusing my attention — on the victims and on the safety of my neighbors and my city.”
You see, the main reason Americans didn’t randomly beat, burn, and murder Muslims is because of the outreach done by Muslims in America. Oh, that’s why there were so few anti-Muslim attacks. And not just Muslim groups, non-Muslims told Americans that they shouldn’t randomly beat, burn, and murder Muslims as a result of the Boston Marathon bombers. You see, it isn’t that Americans simply aren’t coming out in droves to massacre Muslims in response to Muslims murdering Americans. No. It’s because outreach efforts have convinced Americans that gee, Muslims are people, too.
Non-Muslims echoed the message. Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley said in his Sunday sermon after the tragedy, “The crimes of the two young men must not be the justification for prejudice against Muslims and against immigrants.” Online, a post by comedian and actor Patton Oswalt went viral, calling the attack “beyond religion or creed or nation.”
“When you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will,'” Oswalt wrote.
That’s not exactly what Patton meant. The AP writer cherry-picked Oswalt’s words to fit the spin of the article. Here are the words in context. He wasn’t calling the attack “beyond religion or creed or nation”. He was talking about the response to the attack.
But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago.
Do you follow now? The angle of the AP news story is that there was no anti-Muslim backlash of note after the Boston bombings, but not because Americans don’t do that sort of thing. It’s because of people telling Americans they shouldn’t do that sort of thing.
There has been no anti-Muslim backlash of note since 9/11, but that’s not the narrative. The narrative, foisted on an uncritical media by CAIR (an organization whose members have been tied to the Muslim Brotherhood and deported and jailed on terrorism charges), is that Americans are always attacking innocent Muslims for the crimes of their co-religionists. And it’s not true.
The truth is that attacks are extremely rare. Muslims, like all Americans, are protected by the laws of this nation. “Islamophobia” is the greatest modern con pulled on Americans and Westerners.
But that doesn’t stop the media from dusting off their anti-Muslim backlash stories. The problem for them is trying to squeeze a lack of backlash into the narrative. Well done, AP spin artists. Well done.
Yes, but there’s no harm in giving American Muslim outreach some credit. I personally know a lot of people who have said in the past that American Muslims are no different from terrorist Muslims because they support the terrorists “with their silence.” It’s stupid and absurd of them to say that, but the outreach these American Muslims are doing is valuable because correcting those impressionism is good for American society (even though the people saying those awful things would never go out an personally attack a Muslim).
The AP put a bad spin on the article, but it’s still important encourage and publicize Muslims condemning terrorism.