A few days ago, a Facebook friend invited me to join a Cause: STOP THE BUILDING OF MOSQUE NEAR GROUND ZERO SITE!!!!
I can’t even begin to describe the anger that literally burned through me as I read this Cause page. First of all, I thought Causes were supposed to be legitimate 501c(3) organizations. Apparently Facebook is now letting the masses run rampant. But second — and most importantly — of all, it angered me because it just screams racial profiling, yet again.
Don’t even try to tell me that this cause isn’t, because its description reads:
To send a message to our government that we don’t want this place of worship to be built near the very place they attacked us at.
and
I am trying to send a message to the Government that anything that is to be built that has any involvement with terrorist “i.e. a Mosque” near to the Ground Zero attacks should not just be a Government vote it should be a vote that american people can participate in also.
I simply cannot understand why anyone thinks that Muslim people are the same people as terrorists. That kind of thinking would be like me thinking that just because my neighbor is black, they are going to break into my house. It almost physically sickens me when someone uses the phrase “towel head” or insinuates that the Muslim-American owner of a gas station is plotting to blow us up. (It also pisses me off that anyone these days uses the N word, but that’s another rant for another day.)
Anyone with an actual knowledge of the Islamic religion knows that it’s in actuality a very peaceful religion. You know that Buddhist friend of yours? Islam is pretty similar. It’s based on several principles that say things like, “Don’t brag,” and “Be good to other people.”
Terrorists, on the other hand, are extremist groups pretending to be Muslim, but actual Muslims do not approve of terrorists or anything they stand for. A real Muslim would not call herself a terrorist, and any terrorist who tries to call himself a Muslim is full of shit. Don’t believe me? Go to the book store or library and take out a book on Islam. I am forever grateful to my eighth grade English and religion teacher, Mrs. Barra, who, immediately after 9/11, taught us about the Muslim culture and Islamic religion. She wanted us to understand the difference between a Muslim and a terrorist, and even though I paid little attention to anything that year — it was a rough year — I did pay attention to those lessons.
However, there are too many people right now who are uneducated, and who choose not to believe anything other than what they have been told or have absorbed from the people around them and the media. A perfect example:
Why in the world would we want them there and why would they wanbt to be there unless it is to pour salt in our wound. We have helped and trusted these peopel and look what we get for it. I know that not all of them are anti american but how can you tell one from the other until it is to late. I know we need to relie on God but I also think that he wants us to stand up for our selves. Come on American, wake up! I heard a guy said that he wished he could open a hog farm next door to them… I agree. What kind of president do we have that would let this happen??? Oh yeah.. I almost forgot.
I’m not even going to touch the comment on the President, because I have no way of telling for sure whether she is insinuating he is allowing it because he is black or because his middle name is Hussein (which is an African name as well as a Middle Eastern name, and President Obama’s father is African). However, this person scares me. Why? Because she thinks that because you can’t tell a terrorist from a good Muslim-American, we should just not allow any of them here. This kind of thinking is what led to Japanese- and German-Americans being encamped during World War II. Don’t believe me? You don’t even have to go to the library to get the facts; Google it.
Fear and lack of education leads to drastic reactions. One guy even posted to the Causes page saying:
iam from yew york, go and do it see what will go down,faster then it went up!!..
Going back to the previous comment, the reasons for wanting to build this mosque have been made quite clear by the Muslim-American man who wants to build it:
- there is a high population of Muslim-Americans in NYC
- the mosque leader (for lack of a better term) has worked for several years with local Christian and Jewish leaders to promote interfaith understanding, and the mosque would help further that work
I understand that my fellow Americans still see 9/11 as a fresh wound. But don’t you think that it hurts your fellow Muslim-Americans, too? After all, since there are so many Muslim-Americans living in NYC, many of their lives were also lost or affected in some way on that day — and Muslim-Americans as a whole have been affected since. They deal with suspicious stares and whispers, racist comments (I once saw an episode of Cash Cab where one of the contestants got into the cab and said, “A cab driver whose native language is English!”), and persecution similar to the Salem Witch Trials, the Holocaust, and American encampments for Japanese- and German-American citizens*. Can you imagine everyone thinking that you were part of 9/11? And don’t say that it’s their own fault, because it’s not. As Faiqa said, all people of Middle Eastern decent don’t jump onto Skype at the same time and plot the next bombing, just like not all Christians are part of the Ku Klux Klan, not all black people steal and do drugs, and not all single mothers are strippers.
I have heard a lot of people say that building a mosque near Ground Zero — mind you, it’s not being proposed ON Ground Zero, just NEAR — is indecent. Why? A couple of people have even said if anything is to be built there, it should be nondenominational. Let’s toss aside the fact that the mosque wouldn’t be ON Ground Zero, and just concentrate on the issue of whether a mosque would be indecent.
As I said, there is a high population of Muslim-Americans in NYC. Statistically speaking, I have no idea how many exactly, nor do I know how many lost their lives on 9/11, but they did, and they’ve been affected in other ways even after the body count was finished. Building a mosque in that area — near or on — would not actually hurt anyone. If you live in NYC, you don’t have to look at it — just like you don’t have to look at the synagogues or guitarists if they bother you. No one is forcing you to convert. No one is even asking you to donate to the construction of the mosque. All you are being asked is to acknowledge that a group of Americans can construct a place of worship in the center of NYC, where space is available. Let’s face it. If a Baptist church were being proposed, no one would even complain. Even the people that think there shouldn’t be a particular religious building in that area wouldn’t so much as open their mouths. Honestly. The church would go up and that would be that.
If you really think otherwise, please say so and tell me why. Please explain to me why a group of Americans can’t worship where they want. I mean, fuck, I’m not even religious, nor am I of Middle Eastern decent, and yet I feel so strongly about this. Let them build their mosque. It’s not hurting you. If anything, it will help heal our country, because we have got to stop getting so riled up when “the Muslims” want to do something. I’ll leave you with what another commenter on the Causes page said, because his last few sentences sum my feelings up perfectly:
I don’t think I have ever been more ashamed of my country than I am now. “A slap in the face of all Americans.” How about the muslim american victims of the World Trade Center? NYC has one of the largest muslim populations in the country and as a new yorker, I have never met a more peaceful group of people. I think if we are going to dictate where people could build their place of worship, we should get in our time machines and tell the pilgrims to fuck themselves and stop whining that they want religious freedom. Now I understand many people live in parts of the country that are NOT considered melting pots, but here in NYC, that is what makes this the greatest city on earth. Following 9/11, there were blood drives, donations, volunteer efforts from muslim groups in the city….as were there from many other groups. We did not refuse their help then and it’s “unamerican” for us to tell them where they can and can not worship.
*Obviously they are not being slain, but the singling out is the same.
