Anti-Muslim blogger Pam Geller, co-founder of Stop Islamization of America, cited the Post’s story with her headline “Jihadi arrested in horrific Boston bombing” deliberately conflating the ethnicity of the Trojan Horse “Saudi.” A day after the bombing, Geller revealed “…the most important piece of evidence if the Saudi national proves to be connected to the terror bombing in Boston. ‘He’s a quiet, devout Muslim.’” (Original bold). Tea Party Nation head Judson Phillips, another Islamophobe preternaturally gifted with clairvoyance, echoed: “It is a pretty safe bet right now that this attack was carried out by an Islamist.”

Pentagon officials and those with actual law enforcement credentials say there are still no suspects and no indication of al-Qaeda or foreign connections. The Pakistani Taliban denied responsibility as well.

Of course, this reckless scapegoating evokes memories of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that took 168 lives, including 19 children. Before law enforcement had any suspects, discredited counter-terrorism expert Steve Emerson stated the attack had a “Middle Eastern trait” because it was carried out “with intent to inflict as many casualties as possible.”  The perpetrator was Timothy McVeigh: a white supremacist, anti-government radical.

Emerson’s history of manufactured evidence, public embarrassment, and fear-mongering has not stopped C-SPAN from inviting him to comment on the Boston bombings. Emerson offered this gem: “[The Saudi] has not been convicted, but the burns on his skin match the explosive residue of the bomb that exploded.”  Later, Emerson went on Fox News and admitted the Saudi suspect had been ruled out after the announcement by Boston Police.

The unnamed “Saudi,” a student in his 20s studying at a Boston university on a Saudi scholarship, is in the hospital being treated for serious burn injuries sustained from the blast. In accordance with stealth jihadist behavior and subterfuge, he fully cooperated with law enforcement and volunteered to have his apartment searched.

The Saudi suspect fiasco teaches those who are “Muslimy” to run away from life-threatening explosions in a calm, friendly manner as to not arouse suspicion.  Another option includes running towards life-threatening explosions, but risk being falsely accused of orchestrating the violence. A third option is to stay in place with a smile plastered on your face; unfortunately, your well-intentioned attempts to placate hysteria will instead bemistaken as celebration.

The safest and best option is to freeze, smile widely, wave your American flags wildly, and repeat the mantra “I love America” patriotically. Also, because Islamophobes will forever accuse you of never condemning terrorism, please vociferously continue offering condemnations, like you always have, knowing full well they will fall on deaf, ignorant ears.

Say all of this – unless you have a foreign accent, in which case please remain silent in public. Two passengers headed to Chicago from Logan Airport were de-boarded a day after the Boston tragedy because passengers expressed concern hearing them speak Arabic.

This behavior persists despite terrorist incidents involving American Muslims declining for the third straight year. Furthermore, recent studies show American Muslims help law enforcement and are more likely to reject violence than any other U.S. religious community, and that nearly all American Muslims have no sympathy or loyalty for al-Qaida. Also, acts of extremism and radicalized violence are not unique to American Muslims. In the past year, multiple mass shooting tragedies in America have killed 66 Americans, compared to 33 fatalities resulting from Muslim-American terrorism in the decade since September 11.

Despite all this — and a rich history that traces back to the founding of the country — American Muslims are asked to investigate, defend, explain, self-police and apologize for our own identity and communities to absolve ourselves of guilt by association. In front of a nameless, faceless hostile judge and jury, we are interrogated to prove beyond an unreasonable, irrational doubt that we are indeed loyal, patriotic, America-holic, justifiably outraged and remorseful for acts of violence “we” did not commit– all 1.5 billion of us along with millions lumped in as “Muslimy,” including Sikhs, Arab Christians, Hindus and Persian Jews.

Some have suggested that “Muslimy” communities should not complain because scapegoating happens to all people, regardless of color, citing the media hazing of heroic security guard Richard Jewell, who was wrongfully accused as the bombing suspect in the aftermath of the 1996 Olympic bombing that killed one woman and injured 111 people.

The critical difference, however, is the powerful privilege of whiteness: when a white individual is accused of committing an act of terror he alone bears the brunt of responsibility for his crime, and the collective burden is not assigned on those who share his features. This privilege should belong to all citizens, regardless of ethnicity and religious identification, instead of being earned by surviving an unending gauntlet of pre-emptive and reactive questions, assumptions and apologies.

White people wear a Teflon cloak whereas minorities wear a flimsy, moth-eaten cape of kryptonite and a “Kick Me” sign. In other words, white people are like Bugs Bunny allowed to observe the chaos at a distance, eat a carrot and make witty quips — but never asked to prove their loyalty or investigate and defend their own whiteness. Minorities are like Daffy Duck, forever doomed to have the anvil fall on our heads regardless of our individual guilt or innocence.

Read the rest…

I tweeted my appreciation that the LGBT community in San Francisco is standing up against her efforts to drive a wedge between LGBT folks and Muslims. Soon after, Geller retweeted me, claiming that she in fact has “huge support in Gay community.” Immediately, her supporters began to lob insults and even threats at me; Spencer himself suggested that I should be rewarded for supporting Muslims by someone “saw[ing] off [my] head.” (Meanwhile, though Geller, Spencer and their supporters kept tweeting at me that Muslims “hate gays” and want to kill me, many Muslim friends and strangers alike tweeted love and support for LGBT equality at me.)

As things settled down, I realized that Geller had stopped responding to me when I requested more information to back up her assertion that she has “huge support in Gay community,” after the only evidence she provided was a link to a Facebook group with 72 members. I’ve since asked her repeatedly for more information, but have not gotten a response.

I couldn’t think of a single LGBT person in my life that would support her work, but I didn’t want to go off of my own judgment alone. So I started asking around. It wasn’t hard to find prominent members of the LGBT community who do not share Geller’s views.

“The idea that the LGBT community should support Islamophobia is offensive and absurd,” said Joseph Ward III, director of Believe Out Loud, an organization that empowers Christians to work for LGBT equality. “[American Muslims] are our allies as we share a common struggle to overcome stereotypes and misconceptions in America.”

“Trying to drive a wedge between the LGBT community and other communities is old, tired and [it] doesn’t work,” said Ross Murray, director of News and Faith Initiatives for GLAAD. “Pitting two communities [like the Muslim and LGBT communities] against one another is an attempt to keep both oppressed. Wedge strategies are offensive and, in the long run, they do not work. Geller is not an LGBT ally — she’s posing as one because it is convenient to her [anti-Muslim] agenda.”

“As with any attempts at a wedge, these efforts seek to erase the real and powerful reality of LGBT Muslims and seek to create a false dichotomy: All the LGBT people are non-Muslim/Islamophobic and all the Muslims are straight and homophobic,” said Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, program director of the Institute for Welcoming Resources at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “Particularly given the oppression, marginalization, hatred and violence visited upon the LGBTQ community, it is critically important that we use our spiritual, communal and political power to speak out against the victimization and vilification of any other community. As a Christian lesbian, I must stand against any attempts to victimize another because of their personhood.”

“There’s no doubt that there’s a great deal of religion-based bigotry against LGBT people, although it’s hardly limited to Islam. The Hebrew Scriptures also prescribe the death penalty for some homosexual conduct, but you don’t typically see people using this to inflame anti-Semitic or anti-Christian sentiment,” said John Corvino, author of “What’s Wrong With Homosexuality?” and coauthor of “Debating Same-Sex Marriage.” “To single out Muslims in this way is both unhelpful and unfair.”

Despite her claim, the work of Geller and her colleagues has plenty of opposition in the LGBT community. Why?

For starters, it’s wrong.

As Junaid Jahangir writes in a recent piece at the Huffington Post, “[Geller’s] selective references provide a misguided view of the current Muslim position on queer rights issues.” He rightly notes that her advertisements lift up the views of a controversial Muslim cleric, but ignore the “over 2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries [that] not only called for an international treaty to counter such clerics, but also called for a tribunal set by the United Nations Security Council to put them on trial for inciting violence.” In his piece, which is a must-read, Jahangir goes on to quote many influential, pro-equality Muslim leaders. Pointing to the activism they are doing to support LGBT rights, he demonstrates that Geller is unfairly — and dangerously — presenting a skewed picture of Muslim views on LGBT people.

“There’s no question that homophobia is rampant among the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims — but that doesn’t negate the fact that there are huge groups of Muslims who have easily reconciled their faith and sexual orientation, like LGBT people in other faith communities,” said Reza Aslan, author of “No God but God” and “Beyond Fundamentalism,” in a recent phone interview. “For a woman who leads an organization that has been labeled a hate group to try to reach out to a community like the LGBT community, by trying to make a connection based on bigotry, is harmful and ridiculous. Bigotry is not a bridge.”

Of course, members of the LGBT community are right to be concerned about the dangers of religious extremism and totalitarianism — whether it is Christian, Muslim or any other expression. But demonizing another community won’t help reduce the influence of religious fundamentalism.

You can be honest about your disagreements without being hateful. I’m a queer atheist, and I believe that there are ideas and practices promoted by Muslims in the name of Islam that are not only false — they’re extremely harmful. But to rally against Muslims and Islam as if they and it are some monolithic bloc is counterproductive; it creates enemies where we need allies. There are many Muslims who oppose cruelty and violence done in the name of Islam and favor equality for all people, and they are positioned to create change. We should be working with them, not standing against all of Islam. Based on my own experiences, I know that this is a much more constructive approach. In my book “Faitheist,” I tell several stories about Muslim friends who are not only accepting of my sexual orientation, but are also fierce allies for LGBT equality.

That’s the problem with Geller’s advertisements, and with sweeping, generalizing statements about entire groups of people: They don’t account for the diversity of ideas and traditions that exist within any given community. Geller focuses on a ridiculously tiny minority of Muslim extremists in order to paint her picture of Islam, and in doing so she neglects to account for the rich and varied traditions of generosity, selflessness, social progress and forgiveness present within Islam. Not only that, but her efforts alienate key allies — Muslim and non-Muslim alike — who share her concerns about Muslim extremists, but who also recognize that her narrow approach is unfair and dishonest.

Instead of adopting Geller’s approach, LGBT people should focus on building relationships. After all, support for marriage equality more than doubles among people who know a gay person. The Pew Research Center reports that of the 14 percent of Americans who changed their mind and decided to support gay marriage in the last decade, 37 percent (the largest category) cited having “friends/family/acquaintances who are gay/lesbian” as the primary reason. The second largest group in this astounding shift, at 25 percent, said they became more tolerant, learned more and became more aware.

In 2011, I wrote an essay encouraging more cooperation and solidarity between the LGBT community and the Muslim community:

[In 2009], a Gallup poll demonstrated something the LGBTQ community has known for some time: People are significantly more inclined to oppose gay marriage if they do not know anyone who is gay. Similarly, a Time Magazine cover story featured revealing numbers that speak volumes about the correlation between positive relationships and civic support. Per their survey, 46 percent of Americans think Islam is more violent than other faiths and 61 percent oppose Park51, but only 37 percent even know a Muslim American. Another survey, by Pew, reported that 55 percent of Americans know “not very much” or “nothing at all” about Islam. The disconnect is clear: When only 37 percent of Americans know a Muslim American, and 55 percent claim to know very little or nothing about Islam, the negative stereotypes about the Muslim community go unchallenged.

The Muslim and LGBTQ communities face common challenges that stem from the same problem—that diverse communities don’t have robust and durable civic ties. This is why the Muslim and LGBTQ communities ought to be strong allies.

I continue to believe this, and Geller’s work isn’t helping. Geller, Spencer, and their supporters are wrong to try to pit the queer community against Muslims. Their efforts to force a wedge between us and the Muslim community are little more than fear-mongering — a tactic that has long been used to keep the LGBT community marginalized and oppressed.

Read the rest…

Watch, via MediaMatters:

Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com.MORE JILLIAN RAYFIELD.

So you want to rebrand a word. It’s hard to think of a more difficult rebranding project than “jihad.”

Since Sept. 11, the term has become synonymous with terrorism and villainy — but now a group of Muslims is trying to reclaim the word from the extremists, and redefine “jihad” to mean something normal and peaceful and good. They realize this won’t be easy.

The campaign hinges on the idea that “jihad” has two commonly accepted usages. One is the violent, physical struggle most of us are familiar with. The other, which many Muslims and Islamic scholars consider the more correct definition, refers to the inner struggle to do good and follow God’s teaching; Muslims strive to attain this every day. This is the “proper meaning” being promoted by My Jihad, a public education campaign recently launched on billboards and on buses in Chicago.

“The campaign is about reclaiming Islam, and not just ‘jihad,’ from both Muslim and non-Muslim extremists,” said Ahmed Rehab, the leader of the effort, in an interview. “Whether it’s the bin Ladens and the al-Qaidas of the Muslim world, or the Pam Gellers and Frank Gaffneys of the non-Muslim world, ironically — even though they come from the two opposite ends of the spectrum — they agree exactly on the same definition of ‘jihad’ and on the same worldview of Islam versus the rest of the world.”

In fact, the ads were directly inspired by Geller, the anti-Muslim blogger and activist, who has plastered her own billboards on subways and buses in New York. They label Muslims as “savages” and incite viewers to “defeat Jihad.”

“Everybody was talking about the ‘savage’ part, but to me, that’s just sort of an insult — she thinks I’m a savage, I think she’s an idiot, we’re even,” he said. “But the problem for me was the use of the word ‘jihad.’ When no one seemed to care about that, I realized that we have a problem.”

In billboards on buses and subways, smiling Muslims and non-Muslims share universal human aspirations, personalized by the individual “jihads” of the non-actor volunteers who share their struggles. In this context, a jihad is no more threatening than a New Year’s resolution. “My jihad is to stay fit despite my busy schedule,” one woman with a headscarf and a barbell says. Others deal with raising children, doing well at work, and making friendships with different kinds of people. To Rehab, jihad means that when you are “confronted with two choices, you make the right choice and not the easy one.”

Close

Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon’s political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald.

Or is he out for justice, committed to avenging the death of young Issa? Entrusted to Brody for his English-language training, Issa apparently won a place in the stoic Marine’s heart. When a U.S. drone strike kills Issa and dozens of other children and, still worse, when the U.S. vice-president denies the incident on TV, Brody realizes that he and Abu Nazir share the same mission: revenge. Are we really supposed to believe that a Marine sniper inured to the brutalities of war would be pushed over the edge by the killing of civilians or a politician’s lie?  The whole war in Iraq was based on political deceptions and defended with denials. Moreover, anywhere between 150,000 to 1 million Iraqis were killed in the war. But I guess Issa was one Muslim boy too far.

Or, most consistently, is Brody a terrorist because he’s Muslim? When being fitted by his terrorist tailor for his suicide bomb vest, Brody shifts into a morbid trance and reflects on how, when a suicide bomber detonates himself, his head is blown off and up, often remaining unharmed and reflecting his state of spiritual tranquility. “People will see you as you truly are,” the tailor remarks in Arabic. So Brody is truly a Muslim terrorist, despite his character’s conflicts?

“Homeland” leaves little doubt that, regardless of the other red herring motivations of justice and psychological manipulation, it is being Muslim that makes someone dangerous.  Brody is able to resist Abu Nazir’s machinations when he wants, and his desire to avenge Issa ultimately is overcome by his love for his own daughter.  But nothing can rid him of his Muslimness, and so, like a child molester, he will always be a threat to the audience. When his wife discovers Brody is a Muslim who has been praying in that most sinister of man-caves, the garage, she tears through its contents like she is looking for his kiddie-porn stash. When she finds his Quran, she points angrily at it, shouting, “These are the people who tortured you!”  These are the people who, if they found out Brody’s daughter was having sex, “would stone her to death in a soccer stadium!” She thought that Brody had put all the “crazy stuff” behind him, but he can only look sheepish and ashamed. The Quran, the sacred text of billions of people throughout history, is nothing more or less than terrorism and medieval justice embodied. Brody had it all, his wife implies: white, a hero, a family man, but he threw it all away by becoming a Muslim.

2. Muslims are infiltrating America!

Then there’s Roya Hammad, who was introduced to us in the Season 2 premiere. An Oxford-educated television reporter, she is so successful and well-respected (think Christiane Amanpour) that she’s able to arrange interviews with members of Congress and senior CIA officials at the drop of a hat (not for professional purposes, we find out, but to act as a distraction while Brody carries out a sinister task for Abu Nazir). Sexy, self-assured and thoroughly modern, Hammad is also a loyal lieutenant of the Muslim fanatic leader (so much for trusting Oxbridge degrees and tight skirts). She reveals to Brody that she knows Abu Nazir because “our families have been close since 1947. They were refugees from Palestine together.” Since the show doesn’t bother explaining how they became refugees or what that might have meant for their families (their plight, after all, is irrelevant), viewers are left to believe that Muslims/Arabs participate in terrorist networks like Americans send holiday cards. The implicit message is that millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants (or all Muslims since they are interchangeable on “Homeland”) can pose a similar threat merely because of their backgrounds. And perhaps the even more insidious implication is one that Michele Bachmann would love: that Muslims, no matter how successful, well-placed and integrated, are a hidden danger to their fellow Americans.

“It does not matter whether they are rich, smart, discreetly enjoying a Western lifestyle or attractive: All are to be suspected,” writes Peter Beaumont in the Guardian (“Homeland” has also attracted a large following in the U.K.).

Roya, of course, was not the first character of this type. Last season, viewers met a quiet, bespectacled professor, Raqim Faisel, and his blond American wife, Aileen. The couple cynically uses the quintessential symbol of patriotism, an American flag, as a secret terrorist code. The message, once again, seems to be that Muslim terrorists are lurking under every stone, especially in places of power and influence, from top television news networks and universities to the halls of Congress and even the presidential ticket.

3. Getting it wrong

Speaking of Raqim Faisel, one of my pet peeves about this show is the many mistakes it makes when it comes to Islam and Arab culture. Where to start? The name Raqim does not actually exist in the Arabic language (perhaps they mean Rahim?). Unless the character’s parents were unusually influenced by ’80s hip-hop, I’m not sure where they could have gotten the name.

Similarly, it’s hard to take the show seriously, as an Arabic speaker, when the name of the boy whose death Brody is so semi-committed to avenging is mangled by everyone from Brody to the boy’s father himself (one Abu Nazir).  Issa, the Arabic name for Jesus, is pronounced Eee-sa, not Eye-sa. And Roya is a name common with Iranians, not Arabs.

Meanwhile, after Jessica throws Brody’s copy of the Quran in a fit, the episode bizarrely ends with Brody burying the holy book, telling his daughter he had to so because it had been “desecrated.”  Thankfully, for Muslim suburban homeowners and urban garden-patch keepers everywhere, a copy of the Quran cannot be so horribly desecrated by touching the floor that it has to be enclosed in clay.

Perhaps this may seem like nitpicking to some, but part of the show’s appeal is that it is supposed to reflect the reality of the world we live in (the opening credits cut between references to 9/11, the Pan Am bombing and footage of Colin Powell testifying before the U.N.). Part of its sell is that we’re supposed to feel like it all really could happen. But for anyone who knows anything about the Middle East or even the world outside the U.S., these mistakes are glaring. Given the show’s popularity and presumably generous budget, one would think there could at least be a line item for an Arab cultural consultant.

Another absurd and perhaps much more important mistake the show makes is in conflating the goals and intentions of various Arab, Middle Eastern and Islamist groups from al-Qaida to Hezbollah, without providing any context about their backgrounds or motivations. In the real world, the animosity and mistrust between the Sunni extremist al-Qaida and Shia Hezbollah is so great that it’s highly unlikely they would ever cooperate. But in the world of “Homeland,” Hezbollah, which has never threatened an attack on U.S. soil, is not only a close ally of Abu Nazir, but is able to deploy heavily armed commando units to attack a CIA team in rural Pennsylvania.

Then there’s the show’s portrayal of the cosmopolitan city of Beirut. The upscale neighborhood of Hamra’s streets are lined with cafes, nightclubs and European clothing stores like H &M. But in “Homeland,” you enter a Taliban den-like place where men in checkered headdresses and women in full hijab shop in ancient souks and machine-gun-wielding thugs roam the streets. While in reality Beirut is the plastic surgery capital of the Middle East and fake (and some real) blondes are a common sight, in “Homeland” Carrie is forced to become a brunette and wear brown contact lenses during her trip there to avoid detection. The portrayal so angered Lebanese officials that they threatened a lawsuit.

Najla Said, a New York-based Arab American actress, auditioned for the role of Roya months ago. She was troubled enough by the Beirut episode that she emailed her friend,”Homeland” star Mandy Patinkin, who plays veteran CIA agent Saul Berenson. “I think I’d actually call it bad research, coupled with orientalist fantasies,” she wrote. “What they have ended up with is just a complete mockery of the ‘culture’ of that city.” She said Patinkin promised to relay her observations to the producers. Said told me that she is concerned that the inaccuracies in “Homeland,” which is based on an Israeli show (“Hatufim” or “Prisoners of War”) and has a number of Israelis on its team including the show’s creator and writer Gideon Raff, will only “foster misunderstanding” and lead Arabs to say, “See everyone hates us.”

4. Racial profiling is OK

It wasn’t always this way. Despite its flaws, Season 1 at least attempted to show how Islam could potentially give Brody peace in the form of his secret, nightly prayers in the garage. “Before I accepted the job, I said I’d feel uneasy if there was any lazy association drawn between violence and Islam,” said Damian Lewis, the actor who portrays Brody. “And wouldn’t it be more subversive if Islam actually became something sustaining for him, was a force for good in his life, poetic, even … nurturing for him.”

But that nuance has all but disappeared in the second season, which has instead been overwhelmed by the twists and turns of the plot, one that’s often asked viewers to suspend their disbelief.

One of the questions the show likes to tackle is whom do you look out for when tracking terrorists? This came to a head early this season when the CIA gang discovered congressman Brody’s allegiance to Abu Nazir and were trying to figure out who Brody’s contact is among the dozens of people he meets with daily. Saul brusquely explains that they will look at all the Middle Easterners and Africans first (“the dark-skinned ones”). “That’s straight-up racial profiling,” a quiet voice pipes up from the corner. “It’s actual profiling,” Saul retorts.

Just when you think you’ve found a silver lining in “Homeland” – that you can’t judge evil by the color of its skin (you do it by its religion!) — you’re reminded that racial profiling still saves time.

While some may say these are hypersensitive complaints in a politically correct obsessed era, the reality is that “Homeland” is not just any show. It has racked up Emmys and attracted an enthusiastic audience, it is being exported around the world, and one of its biggest fans is President Barack Obama.

Most significantly, a little-publicized online campaign to raise the $250,000 needed to rebuild the mosque has produced extremely quick and impressive results. Yesterday, when Al Jazeera’s The Stream wrote about the then-hours-old campaign, it had already raised 1/5 of the money needed ($51,000). When the campaign was first brought to my attention last night and I tweeted a link to it, it had already raised $75,000. As of this morning, barely 24 hours after the campaign began, just over half of the money needed ($126,000) has been raised. Having this Southwest Missouri mosque be able to quickly raise the money needed to re-build — all from small donations of people on the Internet disgusted by these attacks — would be a powerful statement indeed, and I really encourage everyone who can do so to donate.

This is, of course, far from the only incident of its kind; to the contrary, in a trend largely ignored by the American media, hate crimes against American Muslims are at epidemic levels. After a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee triggered intense community opposition when it attempted to expand in 2010, a fire that was ruled to be arson damaged the mosque; after facing years of vandalism, bomb threats, and efforts by local and state officials (including state judges) to block its expansion, the mosque was finally able to open only this week only after the DOJ and a federal judge (to their credit) intervened on the ground that the mosque’s religious liberty was being infringed.

In October of last year, a Texas man pled guilty “to a hate crime charge stemming from an arson of a children’s playground at the Dar El-Eman Islamic Center in Arlington,” and admitted that the fire was “part of a series of ethnically-motivated acts directed at individuals of Arab or Middle Eastern descent associated with the mosque.” In August of last year, an Oregon man was indicted “on federal hate crime and arson charges for intentionally setting fire to the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center.” In May of last year, a fire at a mosque in Stockton, California was ruled to be arson. Last year in southwest Houston, surveillance cameras “captured images of a group of at least three men in masks” attempting to set fire to a local mosque; “prayer rugs at the back of the mosque were doused with gasoline.”

Last year in Dearborn, Michigan, a serious attack on one of the nation’s largest mosques was thwarted when a man was arrested carrying large amounts of explosives. In Massachusetts last year, the Islamic Society of Greater Worcester was set on fire by a man apprehended before the fire could spread. A fire that seriously damaged a mosque in Wichita, Kansas on Halloween night last year was ruled to be arson. In July of this year, a South Carolina mosque was vandalized; such vandalism against American mosques is incredibly common. On the 4th of July this year, the home of a Pakistani Muslim family in Texas, who have lived in the U.S. for 15 years, had the word “Terrorist” spray-painted onto it and then had ignited fireworks left on their doorstep. Attacks this common and dangerous on churches or synagogues would be a national scandal.

All of this reveals a broader truth: Islamophobia in the United States is pervasive and intense, and worse, is as ignored and tolerated as it is destructive. The greatest harm from these incidents is not to the property they damage. It’s the climate of fear that is created for Muslims living in the United States. As I’ve written about before, it’s hard to put into words how palpable and paralyzing this fear is in American Muslim communities. It’s infuriating to behold: perfectly law-abiding citizens and legal residents feeling — rationally and accurately — that they are subjected to constant surveillance, monitoring, suspicion, denial of basic rights, hostility and worse solely because of their religion and ethnicity.

This happens because overt expression of Islamophobia is, far and away, the most accepted form of bigotry in mainstream American precincts. Now and then, certain expressions of it are so extreme as to embarrass mainstream circles — Peter King’s Congressional investigation into The Enemy Within or the Michele Bachmann attacks on Hillary Clinton’s Muslim aide — and are thus roundly condemend, but more often than not, they are perfectly acceptable.

The Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank today suddenly realizedthat Andrew McCarthy — the former federal prosecutor and oft-quoted “legal expert” now writing obsessive anti-Muslim screeds for National Review – is a hatemongering crackpot with exactly the right last name. The NYPD is exposed for indiscriminately targeting innocent Muslims with mass surveillance and infiltration in their communities, and almost every mainstream state and city politician — led by Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and the Democratic mayoral front-runner Christine Quinn — cheers. When demands were made that an Islamic community center be moved away from Ground Zero in Manhattan — as though Muslims generally were to blame for the 9/11 attack — even some prominent liberal politicians supported that demand. And, as Iwrote about yesterday, America’s foreign policy is, and for the last decade has been, driven by endless violence against Muslims in numerous predominantly Muslim countries, sending a message loudly and clearly to the American citizenry about the Real Enemy.

This is why enabling this Joplin mosque quickly to raise all the funds it needs to re-build would be a powerful and important statement. It would be a potent demonstration of widespread support for a small Muslim community under siege, and an expression of disgust both for those responsible for the attacks they have suffered and the broader anti-Muslim bigotry that rears its ugly head in so many damaging ways. Those inclined and able to donate can do so here.