Biting my tongue

I was standing in the surgery lounge today and Fox News (and we're using that last word very liberally here) was on the television. The reporter (again, not the literal definition) said that the government is now warning us that there has been some threat of terrorism in the form of attacks on malls in LA. In response, the LAPD has decided to map Muslims, identifying neighborhoods where they live in order to root out potential extremists.

Upon hearing this story, I shook my head a bit and said, "Well, that's just great." I try to avoid religion and politics when I'm with my ultra-conservative physician preceptor, but I couldn't help it. Occasionally, carbon dioxide builds up and stimulates my respiratory centers, and I have to exhale to keep from dying. Similarly, occasionally, bullshit builds up and stimulates my brain, and I have to shake my head a bit so as to keep it from sticking.

Said physician saw the head shake and replied, "Well, if you don't want to get blown up at the mall, you have to be okay with profiling; and the only people who aren't okay with it are people who want to blow you up."

I bit my tongue (the end of it is now gone) at the time, but get ready for some head shaking now...

First, I worry about a lot of things, but I do not worry about Muslims lighting up my ass at The Gap. No one does. I don't worry about it, in part, because, as is the case with all of these threats of terrorism, I'm never shown any actual evidence. Believing them now requires almost as much faith as believing in Allah himself.

I do, however, worry about profiling. I'm against both blowing up shoppers and mapping Muslims. (Despite what the good doctor said, those two positions are not mutually exclusive.) I'll tell you why I'm not okay with profiling, why it's not okay. It's not okay because it doesn't work. Profiling people based on their religious beliefs does not find terrorists. It finds Muslims. They are not the same thing.

Let me say that again. Muslims and terrorists are not the same thing.

Like Christians and Jews and Agnostics and Atheists and all the millions of I just try to live a good life and pay my taxes please stay off my lawnists, Muslim Americans deserve peace and privacy in their homes and neighborhoods.


The story I heard today scares me because it reminds me of the writing of Martin Niemoller...

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

We studied the Holocaust my freshman year in high school. I had an English teacher, Mrs. Toth, who taught it every year. She ended the Holocaust unit by sharing Mr. Niemoller's writing with us and by finally saying, "I know it seems like the Holocaust was a long time ago, but it wasn't really. This kind of evil still lives in people. And, if we don't learn from this, if we don't learn to speak out even when they aren't coming for us...it will happen again."

So then I wonder, how much should I really bite my tongue?