About ten years ago it was announced a Mosque would be built close to me. It was around the time there was all those people protesting the ill-named 9/11 Mosque, which we all know was really a community center where you could also pray if you wished to.
Here in rural Illinois nobody protested. Barely even got a mention in the local paper.
It was built, set back off the road in a little woods on a hill with a pond. It is kind of beautiful. No, it is beautiful!
Then something amazing happened.
Across the street houses started going up. Maybe a couple hundred now. Upper middle-class houses. A friend of mine parents were one of the first to move in, immigrants and now Muslim American citizens from Pakistan. Both high school teachers. Then other non-Muslims started to move in, because by all accounts it is a nice community to live in. Kids playing in the streets. A wonderful walking path through the woods.
Then businesses started opening in an area that was before just a random rural highway in Illinois.
I mean literally, there was nothing there but that Mosque.
Then the most amazing thing of all .....
I started to hear from friends with children that the Mosque's daycare program was the best in the area. It was open to children and parents of any faith. The exact stereotype of a "soccer mom" in a $50,000 BMW SUV were putting their kid on the "list."
I say "list" because it became so popular there was a waiting list.
Heck, my brother and his wife tried to get my niece into their daycare program.
Nobody found any of this strange. Okay, I am sure some did, but they didn't have a platform to yell and scream and I am not sure many would have listened if they did.
I often talk about where I live here. People from areas considered much more liberal are often stunned when I say in my town, keep in mind this is Illinois, where my town voted 63% for McCain over Obama, we also voted 67% to raise our taxes to build parks and pay local artist to create public works of art.
Just as an aside on that art. On the huge wall of our local hardware store, that used to be a feed store, built in like 1850, has a huge mural. Done in the style of Georgia O'Keeffe. When I am there in the summer at the Farmer’s Market across the street, and some elderly ladies note what a beautiful flower, I never have the heart to explain to them it is in fact a vagina :).
With that said people here have also noted where I live is very white. It is. And that we don't so much mind spending money on ourselves, if not wanting to spend it on "others." There is some truth to this.
But this Mosque tells another story.
This is why when I read stories here. Watch the news I am confused.
I’ve lived in a lot of places. I travel more than a little. The US, or at least where I go, is better than what we are seeing today.
I will end with this. That Mosque is on a back rural road I take when I go to my brother’s house to stay off the highway. One of the businesses I mentioned opening was a CVS. I am the guy that brings shelves of soda and ice to family events. I stop at that CVS.
I see many ladies and men in what for lack of a better phrase, “middle eastern” attire. Nobody even takes a second look at them. Farmers in overalls shopping next to a lady in a colorful Hijab/headscarf.