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Miami Herald Book Review – November 7, 2006
Muslims in U.S. carry burden of mistrust
BY DONNA-GEHRKE WHITE
Calling all NASCAR fans: Meet at the mosque for fun and fellowship.
When that happens, a friend suggested, is when we will know that Muslims have been accepted in America.
With hundreds of thousands of American troops deployed to fight terrorism, many Americans continue to tell pollsters that they distrust Muslims. The daily violence in Iraq, of course, has taken a toll. So have this year's furors over the pope's remarks and the Danish cartoon that spawned riots in the Muslim world.
They're not like us, many Americans conclude after seeing Muslims violently protest around the world on the nightly news. Yet, many Americans don't realize that the Muslims they fear are teaching their children, treating their illnesses, planning their city's new roads, even fighting for Uncle Sam in Iraq. They are among our country's immigrant success stories. They are converts who have found Islam more spiritually nourishing. They are our neighbors.
Muslims, though, feel misunderstood and even apprehensive over how other Americans see them. Many became upset when a recent Miami Herald op-ed piece suggested a full-faced veil was ''extremely impolite'' and compared it to wearing a mask in an open society. The implication: Those American women who fully veil are ''foreign'' and potentially anti-American.
Actually, most Muslim women I know who cover their faces in public except for their eyes are educated American-born converts who enthusiastically have taken up Islam. Their covering is part of their religion, not any political statement.
We don't always understand, though. Some other misconceptions:
They are all alike. Actually, the United States has the most diverse Muslim population in the world. Our Muslims include American-born converts as well as refugees from 77 nations, from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, says the U.S. State Department.
They all think alike. False again.
As least before 9/11, the perceived crackdown on Muslims' civil rights and the Iraq War, most Muslim men tended to vote Republican, according to one poll, while the women went for the Democrats. Muslims have been just as divided over other issues, depending on their political views and background. Many Iraqi Americans, for example, supported the United States overthrowing Saddam, while other Muslims bitterly opposed the Iraq war.
Both Muslim men and women don't feel a kinship with the United States. Another untruth: Most are fervently patriotic. As one immigrant told me in Pembroke Pines, ``God bless America. I am from Guyana (in South America) -- I know nothing about the Middle East or terrorism. I just happen to be a Muslim.''
Finally, Muslims are poor and uneducated. That perception no doubt comes from news reports of Europe's impoverished immigrant Muslims. However, many of Uncle Sam's Muslims are educated and affluent. A 2004 study of Detroit mosques, directed by University of Kentucky Associate Professor Ihsan Bagby, found the average Muslim had a college degree and earned $75,000 a year.
Indeed, while researching my book, The Face Behind the Veil: The Extraordinary Lives of Muslim Women in America, I discovered many other highly educated Muslim women, from software engineers to homemakers to professors. They, in turn, have produced a highly educated second generation who are delivering babies in Los Angeles, defending civil rights in New York, running for office in Northern Virginia, writing scripts in Phoenix, investigating crimes for Miami prosecutors and running businesses throughout the United States.
Fifty years from now -- or maybe it will take a century -- Americans will realize how well Muslims have served America. And, yes, I do believe the day is coming when the average American, indeed, the average NASCAR fan, will see nothing wrong in going to the local mosque for a social gathering. It's just a matter of time.
Donna Gehrke-White, a Miami Herald features writer, wrote The Face Behind the Veil: The Extraordinary Lives of Muslim Women in America (Citadel Press, 2006; $22.95).
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