apropos of anything

I have been looking forward to this election since November 3, 2004. I have been counting the days until the entire world can rejoice at the end of the Bush administration. But the reason I want this election cycle to be over already has nothing to do with my desire to put a fork in the Bush Jr.’s legacy or the undeniable truth that somebody somewhere has been campaigning for president since 2002 and dear GOD that is a long time to be building up to an election. The reason I want this election cycle to be over already is because it’s gotten so freaking ugly I can’t stand it anymore.

Muslim family on the streets of New York City. We’re just like everyone else, you know.
Click on the image for the original Flickr page.

I first noticed it when McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. Sorry, Palin fans. It’s not a partisan slam. When I heard her speak at the Republican National Convention, I had a scary moment of wondering what my life as an American Muslim would be like under a government headed by this woman who makes absolutely no secret of her dislike of the people of my faith. I’m sure if you ask, she’d qualify that she means only the TERRORIST Muslims, but to listen to her speak, there’s really no other kind, and nowhere in all her posturing does she ever make me believe that she would care that I have no terrorist designs whatsoever before she locked me up in a SuperMax somewhere and threw away the key.

Maybe that’s not what she believes, but it’s what I hear when she speaks, and I am the one who is usually unrelentingly optimistic and cheerful about the future of Islam in America. I am the one who agrees wholeheartedly with Imam Magid that there is no country on this Earth that is better for Muslims to live in than the United States because of all the freedoms and protections that are available here. I am the one who points to the incredible post-9/11 support of American Muslims as evidence that no, we are not in danger being put into of internment camps like the Japanese were during World War II.

And yet, Sarah Palin scares me.

What scares me more is that John McCain, a man I would have described four years ago as “honorable”, is tacitly encouraging this campaign tactic by not shutting it down or reigning in his surrogates. If John McCain expects me to ever consider him as a possibility for the office of the presidency (and if I am honest, that ship probably sailed in February, if not before), he needs to make me feel like he would be representing me and mine instead of just the people who look and think like him.

More than that, I resent this innuendo that somehow there is something wrong or “evil” with being Muslim. Frank Rich touches on it, Campbell Brown attacks it head-on, and Jon Stewart knocked it out of the park tonight.

I would really love to meet Sarah Palin or John McCain in person (her more than him because I do honestly think that somewhere in there the original John McCain is disgusted with the levels he’s stooped to) and ask them why it’s okay for them to spin me and mine as though we’re all always secretly scoping the joint to find the best place to put the C4 and why they think “Muslim” and “good person” (or “Muslim” and “American”) are mutually exclusive.

In the meantime, I suppose I’ll take comfort in knowing that the team at Five Thirty Eight is against Muslim-murdering Presidential Christian babies !FOR! Ohio.