Columnist Grace Eberly discusses some not so nice things presidential candidates have said along the campaign trail.
In last week’s column, I wrote that our nation by and large harbors a troubling anti-Muslim sentiment. I didn’t persuade you? That’s okay. I’ll try again. In the past seven days, we handcuffed 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed for bringing his homemade clock to school, we accused Barack Obama of being Muslim, and we declared that Islam is not consistent with the Constitution of the United States of America. If that doesn’t convince you that our society is grotesquely Islamophobic, then I’m not sure anything will.
Last Thursday evening, at a rally in New Hampshire, presidential candidate Donald Trump was fielding questions from the audience when a man approached the microphone and said, “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims.” Trump nodded in agreement. The man continued, “You know our current president is one.” Trump affirmed, “Right,” and then went on — not to correct the mistaken individual — but to remind us that “We need this question.” The man in the audience had one last thing to ask: “When can we get rid of them?”
This is a classic case of scapegoating and it’s embarrassingly obvious. Sound familiar? Think Germany circa 1941. I get it — this is not the Holocaust. But language matters. We cannot simply “get rid” of those with whom we disagree.
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Luckily for Donald Trump, everyone has pretty much forgotten what happened at his rally in New Hampshire. For now, we’re more distracted (and should be more disturbed) by Ben Carson’s comments. On the Sunday edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press” Carson affirmed that a president’s faith should, in fact, matter to voters if it is inconsistent with the values and principles of America and the Constitution. When asked if he believed that Islam was consistent with the Constitution, Carson’s answer was resolute: “No, I do not. I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”
Most of the remaining presidential hopefuls — Democratic and Republican — have condemned Carson’s statement by citing Article VI of the U.S. Constitution which states that no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. And yet others, like Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, have rallied behind Carson. Jindal, who was himself raised Hindu, said in a statement Monday that he would only vote for a Muslim candidate if they were Republican, would fight hard to protect religious liberty, would respect the Judeo-Christian heritage of America and would place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution.
I believe that some of the candidates who have spoken in Obama’s defense are missing the point. The problem isn’t that Obama was mistakenly identified as an adherent of the Islamic faith. The problem is that Obama was called a Muslim pejoratively.
This isn’t the first time Americans have commandeered a minority religion in order to critique a president’s political platform. George Washington was derogatorily called a Freemason. Lincoln was accused of being Catholic. FDR was called a Jew. Obama (and more importantly Muslim Americans) are simply the latest victims of our nation’s abhorrent tendency to conflate political frustration, economic anxiety and concern about the changing fabric of national identity.
Is Obama a Muslim? He says he is a Christian, and I don’t have reason to dismiss his belief as anything but sincere. But let us entertain for just a moment that Obama identifies as a Muslim. So what? What does it matter? When did Islam stop being the substantive religion of nearly 3 million Americans and start being a contemptible perversion of which we accuse our most despised adversaries?
I was surprised to learn that several years ago Republican candidate Chris Christie was harangued by his fellow conservatives for appointing a Muslim American to a seat on the New Jersey Superior Court of Passaic County. During a press conference in 2011, Christie addressed the controversy: “This Sharia law business is crap. It’s just crazy, and I’m tired of dealing with the crazies.” Me too, Chris. Me too.
Grace Eberly is a senior studying world religions and biology. What do you think of Ben Carson’s comments? Email her at ge713313@ohio.edu.
