“The past is a strange place.”–Morrissey
I think it was P. J. O’Rourke who wrote that one problem with being a writer is that whatever idiotic thing you wrote is always there for people to look back upon and mock. I occasionally am compelled to look back at a newspaper column I wrote many years ago, and I always prepare to cringe when I do it.
I wrote the newspaper column below on September 12, 2001. It will inevitably be viewed through the lens of post-September 11 politics, the Iraq war, etc., though these things have little to do with the column itself.ÂÂ
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All Americans Need to Stand Up for U.S. Arabs, Muslims
By Glenn Sacks
With the possibility of more terrorist attacks, U.S. military action, and even war, Arab and Muslim Americans are in danger of becoming pariahs in our society. It is the duty of all Americans to make sure this doesn’t happen.
Since Tuesday’s terrorist attacks, Arab and Muslim Americans have been the victims of dozens of despicable hate-crimes. Arab gas station attendants have been punched, shot at, and attacked with machetes. Mosques, temples, and Islamic centers have been shot at, vandalized, firebombed, and attacked with Molotov cocktails. Arab businesses have been burned down and fire-bombed. Muslim girls have been beaten, a Pakistani woman was almost run over by a car, and a Sudanese man was attacked with a knife. Arab businesses have closed and Arab parents have held their children out of school because they fear harassment and violence.
At the same time, talk radio air waves have been filled with racist bile and lust for blood and revenge. One Southern California caller suggested earlier this week that the U.S. bomb and annihilate all the Arab nations. Whereas a week ago the man would have been seen as a nut and cut off immediately, in our new, darker climate the host merely quizzically asked “and kill women and children?” The caller replied “Yes, get the children, because in 20 years they’ll be the new terrorists attacking us.” Subsequent callers, instead of denouncing him, continued in the same vein.
Some U.S. leaders haven’t been helping. Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat from Georgia, spoke of the terrorists and told the Senate:
“I say bomb the hell out of them….If there’s collateral damage, so be it….They didn’t care about our citizens, so we don’t care about theirs….They certainly found our civilians to be expendable.” (more…)
