My daughters friends Mom felt compelled to tell me that she's not Muslim.

(She's Bolivian but her husband's from Jordan.)

I feel ashamed.

are keeping a low profile, and I know some are very very afraid.

Read an interesting story on muslimwakeup.com about an incident that happened in Michigan. The car was pulled over, and the cop could give no reason-except the way the women were dressed.

:(

and found the latest entry addresses this very subject. I've posted all but the first two paragraphs. She's talking about a Lebanese restaurant.

1/10/2005
Flags
<snip>
Pulling up to the place recently, I noticed for the first time, two very large American flags draped across the entrance. It's a strange sight, incongruous with the modest and humble décor. The flags nearly block out the windows, they are so big. Not just one, but two. It is as if there was a need to emphasize the American-ness of the place. "We are American." Says the first flag. "No, we really are!" says the second. It struck me as enormously sad, somehow tragic and awkward. Had something happened that would make the flags, the statement, necessary? Had this Middle Eastern eatery become the target of misplaced anger at the situation in the Middle East? Or were the flags put up in order to deflect racial tension, as if to brace for the worst, akin to Floridians nailing boards over their windows before the hurricanes hit. Were people dumb enough to actually vent their frustration at Iraq on a restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley? I am sure that they are, and that makes me sick and cynical.

What do they think that American is anyway? If America is for Americans, then we must remember America as being everything that lies between its borders. Nothing can be thrown out because in our philosophical underpinnings nothing is exempt. America is free, America is brave. But having to remind others of your American status, fear of being connected to the enemy because of ancestral ties, the threat so prevalent that it makes you put not one but two giant flags outside is not right. It shows how deeply un-American America has become.

We have allowed racist and alarmist attitudes to take us hostage, and if these impulses are not kept in check they will behead us all.

http://www.margaretcho.net/blog