Learning — And Unlearning — To Be An ‘Ambassador’ For Islam : NPR

Beenish Ahmed on the challenges of being Muslim in America:

After years of these kinds of interactions, I no longer have illusions about combatting anti-Muslim sentiments, not least because I’ve come to understand that the flames of Islamophobia are systematically fanned. Since 9/11, reports a study from the Center for American Progress (the parent organization of ThinkProgress, a news site where I work), a number of well-endowed organizations have spent over $40 million spreading fear against a “manufactured threat” — the notion that Islamist groups are working to make sharia the law of the land in America and turn the country into an Islamic state.

Thanks in part to such campaigns, even if someone like me can hardly recognize their faith in the hate espoused by terrorist organizations like ISIS or Al-Qaida, we are seen to belong more to those groups than to our own communities. That’s why hardly anyone is ever satisfied when I say that I’m from the Midwest. In their minds, I’ll always be all tied up with the Middle East and their perceptions of its mayhem.

And so, I will always say please and thank you when I order my coffee. I will smile at you on the bus if you happen to make eye contact with me. I’ll do so despite myself. And even if these habits result from my Ohioan upbringing as much as the traits imparted by my anxious, insecure, and yet incessantly good-willed immigrant parents, I know that I do these things because a part of me still can’t believe that I actually belong here. Still, I refuse to be an ambassador in the country of my birth.

Source: Learning — And Unlearning — To Be An ‘Ambassador’ For Islam : Code Switch : NPR