Reihan Salam weighs in on the Ft. Hood shootings:
The danger is that Hasan's despicable crime will subtly and slowly change these perceptions for the worse. Overnight, Twitter feeds and message boards pulsed with anti-Muslim anger. This kind of venting is important to a free society. But it could also be an ominous sign of tensions to come. It is thus no surprise that groups like the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations have been so quick to condemn the violence. The vast majority of Americans recognize that Hasan doesn't represent all Muslims, just as the Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho didn't represent all Korean-Americans. Yet people who are on the fence about whether Muslims can be trusted could tip over into believing that they can't. Back in 2004, a survey sponsored by Cornell University found that 29 percent of Americans believed that "all Muslim Americans should be required to register there whereabouts with the federal government," a policy that would be a massive propaganda coup for America's rivals.
I think Salam is, in some sense, correct--Hasan's alleged crime will have the practical effect of making some non-Muslim Americans more mistrustful of American Muslims and more likely to support counterproductive policies that will benefit America's enemies.
I also can't help but be frustrated by the fact this is another example of collective guilt--Muslims aren't just responsible for themselves individually, they're responsible for making sure people don't hold bigoted feelings toward them. There's no sense in Salam's piece that the people who hold anti-Muslim views, or the people who will be inclined to indulge their prejudices against Muslims and use Hasan's actions as an excuse, who hold Muslims as a people collectively guilty for Hasan's actions, are at all responsible for doing so.
This is the paradox of being a minority in America--you're not only responsible for your own actions as an individual, but the bad acts of everyone in your community. Yet while we are all utterly aware of this reality, we seem to rarely question the logic behind it.
-- A. Serwer
