By Domenica Ghanem
President Joe Biden has repealed the Muslim ban.
As the news rolled in, I remembered how I felt four years ago, when the Trump administration first announced its intention to ban people from from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the country.
The feeling wasn’t incredulity. I distinctly remember my first reaction being something akin to: “well, duh.”
As a Muslim American, it was the obvious outcome of the Islamophobia that has plagued my community since the 9/11 attacks, when I was in the third grade.
That’s not to say its impact was negligible.
Trump’s Muslim ban separated families who missed birthdays, weddings, funerals, and other moments they’ll never get back — a feeling many more of us can relate to now that Covid-19 has kept us apart. And it took a special kind of cruelty to deny entry to refugees, asylum-seekers, and immigrants whose homelands our own government’s wars have ravaged.
Despite the brutality of the policy, it should not have come as a surprise.
Donald Trump ran a campaign largely based on in-your-face Islamophobia — for example, inventing a lie that he’d seen Arab people in New Jersey cheering the attack on 9/11. As an actual Arab person from New Jersey, I can tell you we were just as shocked and saddened as everyone else.
In December 2015, Trump began campaigning openly on his Muslim ban, calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
What happened next may have shocked some well-meaning Americans. An NBC poll found 25 percent of Americans supported Trump’s Muslim ban just after his announcement. By March, 51 percent were in favor.
But it didn’t shock me. Like much of what would become a hallmark of Trump’s presidency, he was merely saying the quiet part out loud. For decades, national political figures of both parties have practiced what law professor Khaled A. Beydoun has called “cautious Islamophobia,” refusing to see Muslims as anything more than a national security concern.
It’s the menacing portrait of Muslims the media paints that equates the word “terrorism” with crimes committed by brown people. Or my white middle school friends joking “Don’t bomb me!” when I expressed disagreement in regular conversation.
This kind of Islamophobia has consequences. It breeds a culture that dehumanizes your Muslim neighbors. That way, when you see people who look like them being bombed because the United States wants to control their oil exports or make billions selling weapons, you can write them off as dangerous, their deaths deserving neither thought nor prayer.
Donald Trump may be gone and his Muslim ban repealed, but if we want to say “That was not my America” and mean it, we have a long way to go.
For instance, we should create a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who want it and expand the number of refugees and asylum seekers we welcome, as President Biden has proposed.
But that’s not all.
We should also permanently end our weapons sales to countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel, who have used them again and again to kill civilians and violate human rights. We should rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and abide by its terms. We should end our “forever wars” in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Syria. And we should stop the surveillance and over-policing of Black and brown communities.
In short, ending the Muslim ban should begin a bigger process of healing the harms this long-term dehumanization has caused.
Before we let the horrors of the Trump administration fade away like a fever dream, we have to ask ourselves how we got here. Otherwise, it’s going to become a recurring nightmare.
Domenica Ghanem is a communications consultant on political and social justice campaigns.
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Fredrick says
The title of the article is Bullshit and the author knows it. There was no ban on Muslims. It is this dishonesty in the media that sets the divide this country is experiencing.
Shame on FlaglerLive for publishing an article that is a total lie.
Pierre Tristam says
Your shame is as displaced as your semantics.
John T. Schroeder says
Show me the executive order that Trump signed that stated a “Muslim Ban”….where is this? why is the United States the only country in the world that must have no borders or immigration laws? Why does the left continue this anti-America agenda? Everyone needs to be vetted before they are allowed to come here or anywhere for that matter, we live in a world where their are a lot of bad players that wish harm on many, not just Americans.
Jim O says
Say what you want Pierre but Fredrick is correct. A BAN did not exist. Period.
Fredrick says
Why can’t you be honest? There was no ban on Muslims. You know that. You Pierre are not a stupid man. You know what the ban was and why it was put in place. Countries that did not meet certain safety criteria where banned. ALL were banned regardless of religion. Some countries that have a Muslim majority population were not banned. Why is that? The left Media called it a Muslim ban. No religious affiliations were banned. Continuity dishonesty being published by Flaglerlive. I say again this is the dishonesty that has divided
James says
I thought this was America, why can’t people of other countries stay home and make their country better. We are being over- run by other countries. Look what they get and have not worked for it. With Biden in office the United States is becoming a joke. Biden is the big joke here
Bradley says
Why didn’t people from Europe stay home and try to make their countries better? Why did they get to come to America and commit genocide and practice slavery and steal land? No group of people have done more harm in America than those who came from Europe, claiming to be Christian, and those who were born and raised here. Some of whom ARE domestic terrorists, white supremacists and insurrectionists. It’s time for this bigotry and paranoia to end, and President Biden has the integrity and courage to take it on. God bless him and his administration.
MWest says
We got here because yes, there is a faction of Muslims who kill in the name of Allah. Just as many countries refuse white Americans who are extremely racist and belong to violent groups access to their country. Until we can rid the world of hate, going both ways, these problems will still exist.
LOVER OF ALL PEOPLE says
Another politically biased article that’s very misleading. The majority of Muslims were never affected from the restricted travel, including 3 very large countries Iraq, Chad and Sudan. Every country on restricted travel is a proven sponsor of state terrorism. The countries could have appealed to the Department of Homeland Security with enhanced/new guidelines for vetting travelers to assure terrorists were not traveling. They chose not to…because they support terrorism against the USA. Individual waivers could be filed from anyone wanting to travel. Over 400 were granted from the countries on restricted travel. Exemptions were also given for illness, persons who already had work visas, students and many others…persons had to give Department of Homeland Security “real” personal information for enhanced security checks and vetting…those who did and passed, were aloud to travel. If you put all the facts with your article, you couldn’t call it a Muslim travel ban. But that’s the nature of someone with an agenda who misleads with very little facts. I find it interesting that America is so full of racism and zenaphobi, homophobia, musliphobia, hate, but yet everyone is knocking our door down to come in…and most welcome.
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Richard says
This is just one small quote of many in this BS op-ed by someone who has no clue. “We should rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and abide by its terms.” And pray tell, do you REALLY think that Iran will abide by its terms also? Yeah right! They weren’t before and are not now and never will ABIDE by its terms BUT you state that WE (the USA) should abide by its terms. The way I see an agreement like that it’s a one way street and not to our favor. Keep using your liberal head to come up with these brainless ideas that only make the US the laughing stock of this world.
A Concerned Observer says
I take exception to this article. I do not have “Islamophobia”. I do, however, have murdering, cold blooded violent Terroristophobia. It was not red haired Irish Catholics that flew four commercial aircraft, filled with innocent people into buildings and a Pennsylvanian countryside killing some 2,000 people, who danced in the streets for the cameras to celebrate the 911 attack, who attacked Ben Gazzi, who attacked the US Warship Cole, who attacked the US Embassy in Tehran and held Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days, and who bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut. Are you seeing a pattern here? We will never learn where that last aircraft was headed on September 11, 2001 or how many innocent lives were saved when it was taken down by brave, selfless passengers onboard who were determined not to let the terrorist enjoy one more successful attack. We may also not ever learn just how many other attacks which may have also been in progress but were stymied by our government’s decision to ground all aircraft within US airspace and block all further inbound international flights. I belief this “Terroristophobia” is well deserved and we must do everything in our power to protect our country and its citizens from more horrendous, murderous attacks from violent zealots.
This article states “(President) Trump’s Muslim ban separated families who missed birthdays, weddings, funerals, and other moments they’ll never get back — a feeling many more of us can relate to now that Covid-19 has kept us apart. And it took a special kind of cruelty to deny entry to refugees, asylum-seekers, and immigrants whose homelands our own government’s wars have ravaged.” Well Boo-Hoo. Those Muslim families who missed birthdays, weddings, funerals and other moments can most certainly return to their homeland and enjoy many such occasions to come. The families of those killed by terrorists do not share that luxury. Oh, by the way Mr. Ghanem, It’s “President Trump”! And there is pathway for immigrants who want to leave their dangerous, oppressive country behind to come to a land they can only dream about, but feel every right to bring with them their Sharia Law, and to foist their culture, religious tenants and language on this countries citizenry. That path leads directly back to where they came from. If immigrants come here because they long to have our freedom, enjoy our safety and standard of life and contribute to our society, they are welcome. I’ll help any not so inclined to pack.
Now, all gold glitters, but all that glitters is not gold. I get it. I must ask myself, however, where is the righteous indignation within the Muslim community that does not agree with terrorists and are not in agreement with their murderous tactics? There are some, to be sure, but they are not in sufficient quantities nor are they loud enough. All I do hear is the incessant whining of those who feel unjustly persecuted because of their peaceful religion.
Pierre Tristam says
Boohoo my Arab rump. By that absurdly reductive reasoning—cherry-pick a few sound facts and solder them with logic as cogent as dysentery— internment camps were a fantastic idea and should be revived for every actual or potential or sympathizing far-right militia member/insurrectionist/white supremacist etc., and their families of course, since those hordes proved themselves more capable to threaten our sharia-free democracy than any Muslim from here to 1095. And yes, it’s just trump: the criminal lost his title when he tried (and thankfully failed) to subvert our democracy.
Brian says
Concerned Observer, I say bravo and kudos to you for one of the finest responses to liberal bullshit that I have ever read on this page.