Fort Hood reminds of Sept. 11 prejudices
Ilana Alazzeh
Issue date: 11/19/09 Section: Opinions
I was walking to a lecture featuring Farah Pandith '90, Special Representative to Muslim Communities when one of my friends brought up the recent Fort Hood shootings. I responded, "I used to live there." I paused and thought please don't be about a Muslim, and then continued, "during 9/11."
In that instant, a flood of painful memories came up before my eyes. I remembered feeling ill and depressed the night before that Tuesday and asking my mother to let me stay home from school. That day I woke up to news that left me numb, confused and with a head splitting headache in the too-bright sun. The next day at school, it was a totally different world. No one talked to me.
I remember as I entered the cafeteria I heard a hush and felt glares. "I wonder why she was absent yesterday…" someone whispered audibly and cruelly. Flashbacks came up of fights, mocking and bullying.
Every day was like a battle, carrying a weight of taunts like "Osama bin Laden's daughter" and "rag head" as people pulled on my scarf and spit on me. During lunch, friends evaded me until I wouldn't bother eating in the cafeteria anymore. I wandered in hallways, ate in empty classrooms, escaped reality by reading books in corners and tried to get rid of my anger by shooting hoops at the gym. I was completely ostracized and picked on and felt there was no place for me as I cried in my bed.
I pleaded with my mother to let me be home-schooled, which allowed me to retreat into myself for the rest of the year.
Entering the lecture room, one of the first things I heard Farah say was "I am proud to be Muslim." And instantly, I felt at ease.
It was only later that I found out the shooter was Muslim. But before that, I heard he was mentally ill, a psychiatrist who sought to leave the military multiple times. I heard facts like there were 20,000 Muslims in the military - my cousins being one of them - and that Muslims have been serving since World War I. And while I have feared a backlash, have heard my Muslim friends complain of sneering from the public and those in uniform, have heard the government closing mosques due to "links to Iran" [whatever that means, did the congregation just happen to be Iranian?] and despite the Islamphobia propaganda Bill O'Reilly, Daniel Pipes and similar bigotry mass media try to inundate us with, I think we've become tired.
In that instant, a flood of painful memories came up before my eyes. I remembered feeling ill and depressed the night before that Tuesday and asking my mother to let me stay home from school. That day I woke up to news that left me numb, confused and with a head splitting headache in the too-bright sun. The next day at school, it was a totally different world. No one talked to me.
I remember as I entered the cafeteria I heard a hush and felt glares. "I wonder why she was absent yesterday…" someone whispered audibly and cruelly. Flashbacks came up of fights, mocking and bullying.
Every day was like a battle, carrying a weight of taunts like "Osama bin Laden's daughter" and "rag head" as people pulled on my scarf and spit on me. During lunch, friends evaded me until I wouldn't bother eating in the cafeteria anymore. I wandered in hallways, ate in empty classrooms, escaped reality by reading books in corners and tried to get rid of my anger by shooting hoops at the gym. I was completely ostracized and picked on and felt there was no place for me as I cried in my bed.
I pleaded with my mother to let me be home-schooled, which allowed me to retreat into myself for the rest of the year.
Entering the lecture room, one of the first things I heard Farah say was "I am proud to be Muslim." And instantly, I felt at ease.
It was only later that I found out the shooter was Muslim. But before that, I heard he was mentally ill, a psychiatrist who sought to leave the military multiple times. I heard facts like there were 20,000 Muslims in the military - my cousins being one of them - and that Muslims have been serving since World War I. And while I have feared a backlash, have heard my Muslim friends complain of sneering from the public and those in uniform, have heard the government closing mosques due to "links to Iran" [whatever that means, did the congregation just happen to be Iranian?] and despite the Islamphobia propaganda Bill O'Reilly, Daniel Pipes and similar bigotry mass media try to inundate us with, I think we've become tired.
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