The bombing of the Boston Marathon last month has called into question some notions that have been close to sacrosanct in the civil rights/human relations communities for decades.
That act of terror has raised profound questions about the nature of our democracy, the rights of individuals and groups, the tolerance level of the public towards minorities and the balance between individual rights and the public good.
The Boston Marathon bombing has, by virtue of the alleged perpetrators, raised the question as to how far law enforcement has gone and ought to go to prevent the recurrence of similar “lone wolf” acts of terror by Islamist jihadists.
The facile and oft repeated response is that no group should be “profiled.” Lacking “probable cause” that a crime is being planned, no group should be watched nor individual members of a group monitored more closely than others. The traditional notion is that unless a crime is imminent individuals and groups are to be viewed and treated equally and at a distance.
But the Boston Marathon bombing (committed not by foreign nationals sneaking their way onto our shores) callously and murderously executed by seemingly normal neighbors validates the position taken by the New York Police Department (for which it has been widely vilified) that certain groups warrant closer scrutiny and, yes, profiling.
Last year, the NYPD’s Demographics Unit was” target=”_blank”>column pointed out that the NYPD has thwarted 16 terrorist attacks in the city since 9/11. A fact that it is easy to be blasé about, but the countless lives that weren’t snuffed out or destroyed in the absence of terror is a significant accomplishment.
In response to his critics, Mayor Bloomberg has been refreshingly” target=”_blank”>noted that “Some of the most dangerous Western al Qaeda-linked/inspired terrorists since 9/11 were radicalized and/or recruited at universities in MSAs.”
To acknowledge the obvious is not to stereotype Muslim Americans or Arab Americans; it is simply to state what most Americans can glean from reading their newspapers and watching the news over the past decade— there is a problem that Islam must deal with.
As The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman recently ” target=”_blank”> found that:
At a personal level, most [Muslims] think that ordinary Americans are friendly (48%) or neutral (32%) toward Muslim Americans; relatively few (16%) believe the general public is unfriendly toward Muslim Americans. About two-thirds (66%) say that the quality of life for Muslims in the U.S. is better than in most Muslim countries.
Strikingly, Muslim Americans are far more satisfied with the way things are going in the country (56%) than is the general public (23%). Four years ago, Muslim Americans and the public rendered fairly similar judgments about the state of the nation (38% of Muslims vs. 32% of the general public were satisfied).
We ought to give ourselves the credit that we have earned and receive honest and frank assessments on matters that can and have impacted life and death (even if some profiling, warranted by data, occurs).
Most of us have learned to resist Islamophobia and the facile resort to stereotyping and bigotry. Religious leaders and civil rights activists have successfully imparted that message to several generations of Americans, and it seems to be sticking.
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