Juan Williams and the Fear of Flying in Muslim and Arab Garb
Juan Williams, the well-known radio and TV commentator, told a conservative TV network host recently that he gets nervous boarding planes when he sees people put on “Muslim garb.”
The commentator said the fear stems from the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001, when 19 Muslim Arabs hijacked four planes and crashed three of them into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
But there is so much wrong with what Juan Williams said, and not just the obvious racism that he evokes with his prejudiced fears.
I’ve been to many clothing stores, including many at the world’s largest Mall of the Emirates in Dubai. And when I ask for the Muslim garb section, they look at me strangely. They don’t have a Muslim garb section.
I was more disappointed in Juan Williams because he is African-American, although his first name is Hispanic.
When I was growing up in America in the 1960s, most white people used to say that they feared going into black neighborhoods because, well, you know, blacks spend all their time murdering people to pay for their drug addictions.
It was that kind of racist and prejudiced stereotype that swept fear in the minds of most Americans and resulted in racial classes and conflict for years, forcing the government to adopt civil rights legislation. That civil rights legislation that protects black Americans today helped get Juan Williams out of the ghetto to make millions as a media superstar. Although some how I doubt Williams ever lived in a ghetto, except one maybe in his mind.
Williams knew he was walking into bad territory when he said it and tried to soften the blow, adding that, of course, everyone in America has rights, including those Arabs and Muslims in their Muslim garbs.
But it doesn’t cut it.
Juan Williams was fired by NPR, although it appears that his racism wasn’t the main reason.
NPR, a liberal media institution, is upset because he appeared on a competing media network that is ultra conservative — FOX News.
Many Americans are upset that Williams was fired for making his racist comments. They were not upset when allegations of racism and prejudice and inappropriateness were directed against people that Williams must think do wear Muslim garb, like Helen Thomas, Octavia Nasr and Rick Sanchez. All three were fired because they made comments either critical of Israel or that Israelis and American Jews were not very happy with.
There is a campaign in the U.S. now to boycott NPR for firing Williams because, well, most Americans don’t care when you are racist against Arabs or Muslims.
I guess racism in America is a lot like beauty. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. Its racist to criticize Israel or feel sad that a Muslim leader has died, but it is not racist to criticize Arabs and Muslims who terrorize America in their Muslim garb.
The only problem in all of this is that I saw the pictures of the 19 hijackers, crazed fanatics who claimed that their actions were done in the name of Islam. Who appointed them as the spokespeople for Islam? I don’t know, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
Yet, I don’t think that the 19 terrorists were dressed in Muslim garb at all. In fact, if I remember correctly, most were wearing blue jeans. One had a cardigan college sweater. Another few had two-piece pinstripe suits, the kind you find on the terrorists in the banking industry who rip Americans off by charging excessive interest rates on credit cards, or their robber baron cousins in the insurance industry, who do the same.
None of these 19 terrorists was wearing Muslim or Arab garb at all.
They were wearing Western garb, something that you can find in every mall around the world.
I’ll remember to shiver the next time I am boarding a plane and I see someone next to me wearing a college cheerleader’s outfit.
Oh, those people in their Western garb. They can be oh-so-frightening sometimes.
Ray Hanania