October 2015


www.hamptonroadsmessenger.com Your Opinion Matters


Dr. Ben Carson Might Want to Brush Up on the Long and Active History of Muslims in America


surrounding Muslim Americans and the role their religion has played for some time in American politics, as well as the layer of vicious anti-blackness in the debate.


Which means that the bigot-inspired debate (as disturbing as it is) should present a national opportunity to shed needed light on the nation’s Muslims, as opposed to a conversation consumed by ratchet sound bites. Contrary to popular assumptions,


Muslim-American


elected officials do exist. Two of them are sitting black members of Congress: Rep.


Keith BY CHARLES D. ELLISON


We are finding ourselves in yet another visceral


episode of


American-style anti-Muslim rage. If your local science-hacking Muslim teenager isn’t handcuffed for trying to take clocks to their next level, your friendly


soap-boxing Republican


presidential candidate is telling him he can’t be president.


Not surprisingly, there has been a


complicated morass of Islamophobia for some time, especially since 9/11. But more recently, GOP hopefuls have been warming up to a comfortable, partywide Muslim-bashing rant to get the base riled up, with ample amounts of “the jihadists are coming” fearmongering in these first months of the campaign season. It all came to a head this past week in an eerie (but expected)


McCain’s admirable hand slap of a froth-at-the-mouth


alternate replay of John Birther in 2008.


This time it’s a supporter of Republican front-runner Donald Trump who swore up and down that President Barack Obama “ ... is one.”


“We have a problem in this


country; it’s called Muslims,” said the questioner, with no interruption or pushback from Trump. “When can we get rid of them?”


Then the anti-Muslim rhetoric


spiraled out of control as Ben Carson doubled meeting


litmus test


down on Muslims not an imaginary


for the presidency. He attempted a clumsy “What I really meant was ... ” walk-back on Fox News’ Hannity this past Monday, asserting that if a Muslim denounced Shariah, or Islamic law, he or she might be acceptable, but Carson is still defending the gist of what he first said.


soft-luster


And, to Carson, why not? His debate


performance last


week just knocked him down to third place in polls (pdf), behind surging Carly Fiorina. Bashing Muslims should do the trick, right? HuffPost- YouGov’s April “Muslim


Life in


America” poll found that 55 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Islam (even though 87 percent have never stepped inside a mosque), including 76 percent of Republicans. For this primary season, it just works.


“Carson’s beliefs that being


Muslim bars Americans from being civically


engaged, upholding our


nation’s laws or serving in elected positions of leadership comes from a place of bigotry,” Robert McCaw, gov- ernment-affairs manager at the Council


on American-Islamic The Root.


Relations, told


it’s not just Republicans, either. It’s comfortable


But it’s not just bigotry. And societywide


ignorance


of that rather vibrant Muslim political community in the United States. While it’s already fact-checked


incorrect


to claim that a Muslim can’t be president, it’s borderline imbecilic to act as if Muslims have never been a part of American political life. “CAIR itself has built a list of some 500,000 registered American Muslim voters,” McCaw noted. “Generally, Muslim voters in swing states such as Florida, Virginia and Ohio continue to play a critical role in tipping the elections to candidates that the community favors.”


As a result, Carson’s original


comments are not only undemocratic and unprincipled but also a slap in the face of the history of Muslims in U.S. political


life.


Focused so much on our dominant Judeo-Christian culture,


This is nothing new: American


schools aren’t necessarily jumping up to point out the significance of Muslim history in the United States. There was white anxiety over Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali’s activism in the 1960s, and it hasn’t changed today, with rising nervousness over the approach of the Million Man March 20th anniversary.


Not only is there evidence that Muslims have been in the Americas since before Columbus, as pointed out by Howard University African- studies


Chair Sulayman Nyang and


others, but rough estimates noted in the Encyclopedia of Religion in the South claim that anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of African slaves forced into Christian Muslim.


conversion were originally


Of the 7 million Muslims in the U.S., nearly a quarter are black; blacks make up the highest proportion of native-born Muslims, 40 percent, and an overwhelming majority of the Muslim politicians whom we do know of (since it’s not a requirement for elected officials to state their religion) are African American.


That’s nothing new: Black


Muslims have been among the most vocal—if not controversial—and active participants in American political and cultural life for some time now (from enslaved Senegalese scholar Omar Ibn Said to modern-day advocacy in the form of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam and athlete-turned-commentator Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). So an accurate reading of history illuminates levels of idiocy and misinformation


the Ellison (D-Minn.) and


Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.). Both are multiterm re-elected congressmen from major urban districts sitting on key House committees, such as Financial Services and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.


Ironically, Carson—the open Muslim that he is—sits on one of the most sensitive national-security committees in Congress.


Body Worn Camera FROM PAGE 1


responsible for developing a plan for long-term storage, including the cost of storing data.


In addition to funds to help purchase body-worn cameras and train officers in their use, grants under the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA’s) Smart Policing


The Hampton Roads Messenger 11 The presence of Carson and


Ellison in Congress might not be


proportional to the overall American Muslim community’s share of the national


population (which is just over 2 percent), but it speaks to the emerging political influence of Muslims in the U.S. McCaw claims that during the 2014 congressional elections, Muslim voters “turned out at almost twice the average of all American voters in previous midterm elections,” with 20 percent or more of the Muslim electorate supporting Republican gubernatorial


candidates


like Florida’s now-Gov. Rick Scott. Perhaps, from a purely strategic


standpoint, Muslims in candidates America


pose a problem for Republicans, since nearly three-quarters supported Democratic


in 2014.


Enough Muslim Americans are voting overall (76 percent in the last cycle) that


candidates like Carson should


practice a bit of political caution before lashing out. It may be one reason presidential hopefuls Sen. Ted Cruz


(R-Texas) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are playing it smart, quickly rebuking Carson before that high Muslim-voter turnout reaches them. But if you were a politician who knew how many major mosques there were in states like Texas and South Carolina, you would, too.


event honored law enforcement


officers and young people who are leading efforts to improve relationships between law enforcement and youth in their communities.


BJA


comprehensive consolidates


Initiative


will support police departments in Miami, Milwaukee and Phoenix as they examine the impact of body-worn cameras on citizen complaints, internal investigations,


privacy, community


relationships and cost effectiveness. Each of these three departments will partner with a research institution to gain insight on the merits of deploying body-worn camera programs.


Lynch announced the award today


during a White House Champions of Change event co-hosted by OJP and the


Community Oriented Policing Services Office (COPS Office). The


has launched a online


toolkit research, that promising


practices, model policies and other tools that address issues surrounding body-worn cameras, implementation


including


retention; concerns of policy makers, prosecutors, victim


advocates; and community engagement and funding considerations.


requirements; image and privacy The


toolkit is available at www.bja.gov/ bwc/.


is collecting camera


OJP’s Bureau of Justice Statistics data


on body-worn


law enforcement agencies. designing data


usage through surveys of It is also


collection forms for


future surveys of prosecutors and public defenders to measure how body-worn camera footage is being used by the courts in criminal cases.


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