smear: verb. to sully, vilify, or soil (a reputation, good name, etc.)

It seems that Muslims are always clamoring for someone, anyone to recognize that there is such a thing as Islamophobia. Well, they can take a breather as recently, ABC news released the first part of a series on Islamophobia, you can watch it here. Some may be tempted to heap praise on ABC for their expose, can I get an allahu akbar? Well, the fact of the matter is that the media is largely responsible for Islamophobia and rather than praising them for their “great work” we should acknowledge that this is a step in the right direction towards remedying all the damage they have caused. If you want to investigate Islamophobia one need not go any further than the recent headlines regarding the “smearing” of Obama for being a Muslim. Since when is being called a Muslim a smear? Using that word to describe being called a Muslim is in itself Islamophobic. Furthermore, the fact that Clinton’s campaign pulled this out of it’s bag of dirty tricks and thought it would work exposes the anti-Islamic bias in the wider society since they were obviously looking to exploit it for political reasons; a move right out of the Bush administration’s play book (yet another sign Hillary would be a terrible president).

So what if Obama was a Muslim, or even better, so what if he is a Muslim? Being a Muslim is a bad thing now? I thought being an Islamofascist, radical Islamist terrorist, or fundamentalist was bad but apparently your plain old, run of the mill, minding his own business, praying five times a day Muslim is bad too. Or certainly not good enough to be president of these United States. So if there was a Muslim candidate for president, neither his platform nor his policies would be important, only his religion. Are these sorts of issues supposed to even matter in a secular democracy? Or have I been lied to by my 4^th grade social studies teacher.

You can get a little taste of Islamophobia if you remember Keith Ellison, aka Hakim-Mohammed, of Minnesota who happens to be the first Muslim congressman in the US. He dared to use a Quran, the Thomas Jefferson’s copy no less, when swearing in and there was controversy. Really, what did they expect him to swear on? The Bible? So what does all this really mean? There’s the constant moan and groan from pundits and journalists that Muslims should integrate, while in the same breath they alienate and isolate Muslims. This little bit of hypocrisy is even more unpalatable when coupled with the incessant nagging that it’s Muslims who are isolating themselves. So what! Maybe some of us don’t want to go to your party. Maybe some of us think that the invitation is insincere. Others don’t go but no one bothers them. Many Orthodox and Hasidic Jews have their own cheery insular communities and they are unmolested by the media. Not to mention of course every other ghettoized minority in the US, of which there are many. Why pick on Muslims?

I must say that I have to give credit to Obama for not defending himself by going all Islamophobic himself (as far as I know). It would have been a politically expedient cheap shot to rag on Muslims in order to counter punch the lie. But it would probably be too much to ask for him to go on the record and criticize the root of all the hysteria, this nation’s virulent Islamophobia. But I suppose from a politician, I’ll take what I can get.