- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
In the more than two decades that I have been working at various high-tech companies in Silicon Valley, I have never encountered any prejudice at the workplace because of my race or religion. But lately a thought has been steadily creeping into my mind: If I were to run for public office even, say, at the local school board level, would my name become an albatross around my neck?
I have been thinking about this since John McCain and Sarah Palin began encouraging the use of Barack Obama’s middle name – Hussein – in their rallies to suggest that he was the Other, and therefore is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” The mindset of many Republicans unfortunately seem to be this: American Muslims can rise in their profession and shine in their fields, but if they to aspire to high public offices, they must be prevented by any means necessary since they pose a threat of one kind or another to America. The implication is that being a Muslim is somehow un-American, a real show-stopper to running for the presidency. It's a reincarnation of McCarthyism in the 21st century. Does it say anywhere in the U.S. Constitution that even if you are born in America, you cannot run for the presidency if you happen to be a Muslim? You can count on your fingers the number of Muslims holding high public offices in America. One of the most notable is Keith Ellison, a converted Muslim Congressman from Minnesota, who is known not for the legislation that he helps frame and pass but that he is a Muslim who took the oath of office holding a Quran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
Against this context, I am heartened by what Colin Powell said in his vigorous endorsement of Obama. As the moving story of the young fallen soldier Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan shows, demonizing an entire faith is unjust and un-American.
