Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric about supporting the creation of a database for identifying, controlling and profiling Muslim Americans rings reminiscent of memories from not only our McCarthyist past but also from Nazi-style classification of individuals in World War II.
Prejudice and fear-mongering have driven so far into our individual privacy and liberties, we’ve begun to overthrow our own notions of religious freedom at the expense of xenophobia disguised as nationalism.
But there are some who rose above the fear and hate.
When Marwa Balkar, a 22-year-old Muslim woman from California, wrote a defiant response to Donald Trump on her Facebook wall, her post went viral with thousands of likes, shares and comments during the course of a few days.
In her post, Balkar invites Trump to track her — and other Muslims — in her peacefully friendly activities, such as making sandwiches for the homeless or spreading cancer awareness at the local middle school. She wrote if Trump wants Muslims to wear identifiable badges, then she would gladly choose to wear a peace sign.
She compliments her message with a picture of herself on a quiet suburban neighborhood lawn. She poses with a humble yet confident smile as she bears a blue peace sign on her black jacket and violet scarf.
Despite Balkar’s truly moral message, she is wrong that Trump expressed explicit desire for Muslims to wear identifiable badges and create a database of Muslims.
Trump’s statements were at best ambiguous, according to fact-check site snopes.com. In reality, Trump responded to a reporter’s questions about a database of Muslim Americans by stating he “would certainly implement” it, according to CNN. However, during his campaign he has openly said he “want(s) surveillance of these people” and “surveillance of certain mosques.”
Regardless of anyone’s inaccurate portrayal of Trump, America’s growing xenophobia threatens our own privacy and civil liberties, and Balkar’s defiance to Trump’s prejudicial rhetoric echoes of a growing concern about these ideologies.
Coupled with the anti-refugee bill and anti-immigrant agenda, things we thought might have been unbelievably racist long ago, such as profiling and classifying racial groups, are now considered possible or even necessary today.
When we perceive minority groups as a threat, we racially divide ourselves out of ignorance and fear. We can’t justify this with political purposes.
We’re witnessing a breakdown of the divide between our public and private lives. Americans who would not normally support big government interference would support those things if they were directed toward minorities.
The fear tactics and public outrage are enough for us to consider the possibilities of extensive surveillance and, for many Americans, desire such a system. But watchlists of all Muslim Americans would only push us toward an Orwellian nightmare backed by a xenophobic corporate media.
Trump wants to win the election, so that means prejudice is on the agenda.
As Malcolm X said in his 1964 speech at the Audubon Ballroom, “If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
Maria Balkar has clearly told the nation the message we need to fight.
