A Muslim Ban By Another Name Is Still A Muslim Ban
(AllHipHop Editorial) On Monday, President Trump signed his new Executive Order (without fanfare this time), and instead had Attorney General Sessions, Secretary of State Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary Kelly roll it out to the public. The revised “travel ban” is pretty similar to the first one, except that Iraq is no longer on the list, current visa and green-card holders are exempt, the preference for religious minorities is excluded and the indefinite ban on Syrian refugees is eliminated.
In other words, it is a softer, more legally sound piece of legislation that on the surface appears like some sort of shift from the initial ban, but don’t be fooled, this is still very much the same draconian Muslim ban.
For a President, an administration and a party that regularly denounces political correctness, this sure is the most politically correct way of beginning a ban on Muslims. Guess they just don’t have the courage to say what it really is ― so I will.
By now, everyone the world over is likely familiar with Trump’s campaign promise calling for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the country. Those words didn’t just slip out of his mouth, and he didn’t misspeak, though he attempted to backtrack later by stating that it was going to apply to countries with a history of terrorism and that we were going to have “extreme vetting.”
He and his handlers knew exactly what they were doing. And more importantly perhaps, they knew that they could get away with it. This didn’t happen overnight and it didn’t start with Trump. He just seized upon what was already festering out there for years and ran with it – all the way to the highest office in the land.
It’s not accurate to dismiss all Trump supporters as Islamophobes, or act as if this president and this administration are the only Islamophobic entities out there ― the problem is much larger than that. Some of his supporters said they simply “look the other way” when Trump makes his anti-Muslim comments (or other outrageous comments for that matter). While that is a pathetic way to excuse xenophobia, they are not the only ones that do it.
Exhibit A: Bill Maher. A self-proclaimed liberal who “stands for liberal causes,” Maher has made anti-Islamic propaganda a staple of his weekly show, Real Time, to the point where one would think he’s getting a cut from the multi-million dollar Islamophobia industry.
How many liberals/progressives have had the courage to call him out? How many still go on his show or bring him on their own broadcasts and just “look the other way” when he goes there?
When elected official after elected official passed or attempted to pass “anti-Sharia laws,” as if Sharia was somehow invading and overtaking the Constitution, how many still voted for those candidates or worked alongside them and just looked the other way? And when the abhorrent idea of banning Muslims was first proposed by then-candidate Trump, how many journalists and networks ran with it for its sensational quality and thereby normalized such…