be on the lookout (part one)

THE BOONDOCKS by Aaron McGruder

One morning a little while back I was sitting on a plane flying from Lexington to Dallas. The flight left at 7:30 in the morning, and when I arrived at the airport before sunrise only one lane - with a long line - was open through security.

Later in the flight, when the sleepiness had worn off and the drink cart had made its rounds, the man sitting next to me asked what I did in Lexington. I told him I was in seminary. “Isn’t that where you go to be a priest?” he asked. I explained to him that I was studying to be a pastor, and then our conversation drifted for a while before petering out.

I had started reading through my Newsweek when he tried to pick back up the small talk: “Man, that sure was an early flight this morning. I sure hated having to get to the airport before the sun came up.”

“Yeah,” I responded, not looking up from my magazine. “It was too early, and I wasn’t too thrilled to stand for almost half an hour in that security line.”

“No kidding!” he excitedly shot back. “What on earth did we have to stand around for? I mean, do I look like a Muslim or an Arab? We know that all the terrorists are Muslims, so let’s just single them out and let the rest of us go about our business… right?”

I didn’t even look up. “Yeah… it’s tricky,” I muttered back.

I could not have planned for a better follow up question from my neighbor. He turned to me and asked, “So at that seminary, do you study other religions like Islam? Or do you just study Christianity?”
“No, we have classes on Islam. But I’m not taking any of those right now,” I answered.
“Why not?”
“Because my father is a Muslim, so I’ve got that one down.”

Insert awkward silence here.

“He… he is? Where’s he from?”
“Iraq,” I said while turning the page, still not looking up.

Another, much longer awkward silence. And I didn’t turn and look, but I’m sure I saw a frozen face with a mouth dropped open staring at me for bit. Then he tried the back peddle: “You know, it really is sad the way people get stereotyped…”

Too late friend. Too late…


Next week Jennifer and I are traveling to Tel Aviv for a three week study abroad program in Israel. Our team leader has already warned us that anyone traveling to Israel goes through a long security screening process that can take up to half an hour. And I have also been warned that because of my name and background it does not matter that I am a U.S. citizen, I can expect to be treated as guilty until proven innocent.

So it was with a little concern that I recently read a report that the State Department has filed a complaint with the Israeli government about Israel’s discriminatory treatment of Arab-Americans trying to travel into the country. As if that alone wasn’t fun enough, one particular statement by a “senior official” about Israel’s behavior stood out to me:

"They are being treated as Arabs and not Americans. They basically treat them as second-class citizens."

I’m a little bothered that the U.S. State Department is, in a sense, admitting that Arabs are treated as second-class citizens. I can’t imagine the outcry if the State Department implied that being treated as Mexican or Black or Asian was an acceptable second class status, as long as Americans were treated better.

Some people will read this and say, “Well, if Arabs would stop blowing stuf up they wouldn’t be treated that way.” Many people simply look at it like this:

Arab = Muslim = Terrorist

If all Arabs and/or Muslims are violent and terrorists, then what do you say to the people who were in the Federal Building in Oklahoma City? Or a Remembrance Day parade in Ireland? Or an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania?

There is something really wrong here, and I know I have many more thoughts on this, but I’ll have to come back to it. Stay tuned…

(read the report here)