To Be Black, Muslim, and Military

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Could Assan Akbar, or Hassan as his mother says he spells his name, relate to this? An army spokesman believes he lashed out because of resentment. He is quoted as having objected to U.S. attacks on Muslim countries and had told his family and his friends that he felt racial discrimination in his military career.

As America scrambles to liberate Iraq, we must not forget what it has done to create resentment in the hearts of racial minorities in America. In fact if we cannot forget it, it will serve us better in our treatment of others in times of war. You will be hard pressed to find a large cohort among historically oppressed minorities in America fervently in support of this war. This line of thinking is not an apologia for Akbar if he is guilty--and the Army has stressed that Akbar should be considered innocent until proven guilty. Rather, this is an attempt to understand what type of resentment could incite one to commit such an indisputably heinous act, just as we took the time to understand the lives of the white students who viciously murdered their classmates at Columbine. We often forget to do this when racial minorities commit unspeakable crimes. Akbar is reported to have told his mother, "Mama, when I get over there I have the feeling they are going to arrest me just because of the name that I have carried." Whether Akbar is innocent or guilty, imagine what it is like to live with that fear.

In his opposition to the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King wrote, "If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discord of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Is justice rolling down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream in America as we attempt to bring justice and righteousness to the "axis of evil?" Shortly before the war began, a young Muslim boy was stabbed multiple times and beaten so badly in an anti-Muslim hate crime that he had to have reconstructive surgery. A few days ago, an explosion rocked the van of a Muslim-American family in Illinois. A Los Angeles man accused of singing about the rape of Muslim women pleaded no contest to a hate-crime charge. These are just a few of the incidents that beg the question, "Where is our beautiful symphony of brotherhood in America?"

Protesting the war does not mean we do not care about our troops. It means we care about them enough to oppose sending them to fight battles that will shed the blood of innocents and likely take their lives as well, or leave them psychologically damaged for life at the horror of it all, in a war that most of the world opposes. Mike Getlin, a Harvard sophomore with a promising military career, who was recently accepted to the Marine Officer Candidate School, told the crowd, "Yesterday, I withdrew my application from the Marine Corps after having asked myself some questions I could not answer."

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