As I wrote this past Saturday, Muhammad Ali Jr. and his mother were detain and Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood international Airport and questioned for nearly 2 hours about their faith in direct violation of the first Amendment and the Establishment clause four days after a judge enjoined the White House Resident’s Muslim travel ban.
The Ali family has since begun to make the rounds with various media outlets to tell their story starting on CNN with Don Lemon.
On the CBS Evening News.
And on MSNBC.
And again on CNN this morning with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.
During their detention, they claim they were asked questions about their religion, and Ali Jr. was initially denied entry into the country despite having an American passport.
Appearing on CNN Tuesday morning, Khalilah Camacho-Ali said she was appalled by how airport security officials treated her and her son, and she said for the first time in her life she didn’t even feel welcome in the United States.
“Going in there, we were humble and kind and polite, and that’s what we are supposed to do — be civil,” she said of her experience at the airport. “And as a mother and as a citizen of the United States, I was terrified. This is the first time I never felt comfortable in my own country.”
Earlier in the segment, Ali Jr.’s attorney, Chris Mancini, said that such aggressive questioning for Muslim American citizens is baldly discriminatory, and should be seen as unconstitutional.
“It’s a religious test,” he said of the policy. “The heartbreaking thing about this is, we are getting e-mails from people saying, ‘Should I deny being a Muslim so i can get through customs?’ So where are we now — are we getting to the point where you have to deny your faith?”
It’s good to see that this type of treatment, albeit temporary, has begun to be noticed largely because the Ali family has a famous connection. But what concerns me is all of the people, Muslim and potentially Mexican or Central American who are now being specifically targeted by our government.
Before yesterday the only broadcast media I could find covering this story were from India. Perhaps they’ve become hypersensitive to this because of the anti-Immigrant terrorist attack that occurred this weeked in Kansas. Something that Trump has yet to acknowledge or respond too prompting a scathing editorial from the Kansas City Star.
Srinivas Kuchibhotla and his friend Alok Madasani were having a drink at a bar when a white man approached them and opened fire. He reportedly shouted “go back to your country” before lethally shooting Kuchibhotla. Trump, who has spent much of his first month in office denouncing the media — by claiming that terrorist attacks do not get coverage — has remained silent on acts of white terror.
“At some point, embarrassingly late begins to verge on something more disquieting,” the editorial board wrote. “People around the world were immediately and rightfully horrified [by the shooting of the India-born engineers.]”
“But our president?” they wrote. “Mum. Not a word has been spoken, tweeted or prepped for Trump’s teleprompter.”
On Tuesday, Kuchibhotla was cremated in the city of Hyderabad in southern India and his funeral was met with crowds of protesters calling for an end to racism and Trump. Sunaya Dumala, Kuchibhotla’s widow said last week, “We’ve read many times in newspapers of some kind of shooting happening. And we always wondered, how safe? I need an answer from the government … What are they going to do?”
What are they going to do?
Nothing. Not. a. thing.
They can’t bring themselves to admit that this even happened. They can’t bring themselves to admit what happened to Muhammad Ali Jr. They can’t admit that not everyone they’ve begun sweeping up and detaining for deportation are “Bad Dudes” when it includes popular restaurant owners, and DACA kids and women suffering from a brain tumor that ICE yanked out of the hospital by force.
This is Trump’s new America, an America that’s cold, mean, cowardly, paranoid and vicious. This is now a country were even the family of the most famous Muslim American in history — has to prove their bona fides as if there’s some serious possibility that they might be terrorists.
If that’s not a perfect metaphor for what’s it’s like to not have white/christian privilege, nothing is.
This is not my America, this will never be my America.