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April 25, 2002
For Many American Muslims, Complaints of Quiet but Persistent Bias
By SUSAN SACHS
In ways large and small, from perceived prejudice in the workplace to a heightened sense of anxiety at home, the events of Sept. 11 continue to reverberate in the lives of American Muslims....[snip]..."What we have now is a feeling of insecurity, a feeling that I can't really describe in words," said Zaheer Sharaf, a grocer and service station owner who immigrated from Pakistan six years ago.
His own sense of anxiety deepened four months ago, when some family friends visited from Pakistan. They stepped outside Mr. Sharaf's grocery store, on Main Street in Broad Brook, Conn., to snap a few photographs. Someone who saw them called the police to report suspicious foreigners with cameras. "The police came to the store, and I explained the situation," Mr. Sharaf said. "They were very nice, but I felt so embarrassed. I'd like to be part of society here, but minor things like these make me feel excluded." ....[article continues]
Maybe if joe-muslim-on-the-street wasn't so busy cheering 9-11 on, Americans wouldn't be so quick to cast them the flinty eye.
Remember how the Palestinians were loudly complaining a few months ago, that pregnant Palestinian women were being stopped at checkpoints? Shortly after the Palestinians complained, young women began carrying out homicide bombing missions.
I still worry that Muslims run so many of our gas stations. Can they blow up any of them on cue?