Op-Ed: My Muslim-American Life
Batool Jaffer is just like you.
She loves her iced coffee and lives on her cell phone. She listens to Coldplay, Tupac, The Weeknd and Taylor Swift. She loves shopping at Urban Outfitters and going to Melrose. Born and raised in Southern California, she teared up for Kobe’s last game as a Laker and spends her time binge-watching “American Horror Story” and “The Office” on Netflix… Like you, she remembers where she was when our country was faced with the worst terrorist attack since Pearl Harbor. But the aftermath of 9/11 changed her world forever…
In 2001, I was just starting my third grade. I was transitioning from a predominately Christian public school to a Muslim private school in Pomona. I was so excited to be at school with my family and other Muslim friends I had known my entire early life. But a couple weeks into the new school year, I awoke early as always, got dressed and was on my way to school when my father got a phone call telling him to turn the car around and drive back home.
That was the morning of September 11.
My father drove us to my cousin’s house where my family was gathered around the television. With the rest of the country, we watched in fear as the World Trade Center went down.
Seeing horrific images of people leaping from the towers to escape terrified me. As a child, I did not understand exactly what was happening. Still my heart ached for the families of the victims who were watching the same terrifying footage, hoping and praying for their loved ones to get out safely.
Within moments, the picture of turbaned and bearded Osama Bin Laden filled the television frame.
As the 9-year-old daughter of Iraqi, Muslim-American parents, my family was deeply troubled by the attack on our nation.
I looked at my father, whose eyes were filled with unease and whose silence said more than words ever could.
America’s new enemy looked like my family.
In the aftermath of the attacks, the Islamic school where I was enrolled closed down for weeks due to constant death threats by people who wanted all Muslims out of the country.
After the attacks on 9/11, the administration would find hate notes, powdered doorknobs, and trash thrown over the school walls.
When we did return to campus, police were stationed at the entrance gates to make making sure that no one could get in to hurt us. Local news stations were reporting on our school every few days, to show how Muslim American students were getting along despite the discrimination.
For once, instead of feeling that the news media were portraying us as terrorists, I felt as if they were telling the world that we too, are normal American students, going about our day-to-day lives.
2001 was also the first year in which I also had decided to start wearing my headscarf. Although it was a celebratory moment in my life, I feared the judgments I was sure to get from non-Muslim people. The year I fully embraced my religion was also a painful time for the country I have known all my life as home.
Early on, I became extremely aware of the stares I was attracting on the streets and the names I was being called in reaction to this symbol to my ethnicity and religion.
As a child, the first profane words I learned were the ones hurled at me from the mouths of ignorant and angry strangers. I became anxious in public spaces. I hated the looks, the smirks and rolling eyes my family and I received while at the mall and grocery store. 
All I wanted was to feel normal, acceptable in the eyes of the non-Muslim majority, at least.
I could never have predicted the immense impact of Islamophobia on my life after the 9/11 attacks.
“Please don’t be Muslim,” is what every Muslim American was thinking as we witnessed the carnage and destruction on that terrible day in 2001. That same thought races through the minds of Muslim Americans today every time an incident of mass terror unfolds.
I will never forget 9/11. I will never forget the souls that departed on that day, and I will never forget the day that continues to affect the Muslim American community.
It has been 15 years now, and our community continues to face discrimination and hate crimes. It has become politically acceptable to demonize and scapegoat Muslims as well as people wrongly perceived to be Muslims.
Terrorist networks such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and other extremist groups that claim Muslim identity have seriously distorted the public’s attitudes toward Muslims and the Islamic faith. But what is often overlooked, is the fact that often times, it is Muslims themselves who are most often the victims of terrorism worldwide.
Muslim scholars, activists, political leaders and clergy consistently denounce such violence perpetrated in the name of Islam.
As a Muslim American, I remember where I was on 9/11, but I am much more fearful about where I stand today.
This election season has given rise to a renewed disregard for people of other ethnic communities, not just Muslims. The rhetoric of certain politicians mimics that of history’s worst demagogues who have brought down democracies and enabled crimes against humanity.
It’s been said that those who don’t learn from their mistakes are likely to repeat them. Fifteen years later we are seeing old hatreds and biases reignited for the sake of political gain.
According to the New York Times, attacks against American Muslims are at peak levels this year. Some may speculate that this uptick is directly related to the widespread use of Islamophobic rhetoric by some politicians in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Just in the last two years, a mosque in Coachella, Calif., was set aflame by an arsonist who was later sentenced to six years in prison on hate crime charges. Two 17-year-old boys were brutally beaten outside Brooklyn, New York, with the assailant allegedly knocking one of the victim’s unconscious while calling him a “terrorist” and declaring that Muslims are “the cause of all problems in the world.”
In one especially harrowing instance, an armed robber in Grand Rapids, Michigan, reportedly insinuated that a store clerk of Indian descent was affiliated with ISIS before forcing the victim into a back room and shooting him point blank. The shopkeeper , who is not Muslim, but part of the Sikh community, only survived the incident by turning his head at the last second, allowing the bullet to exit through his cheek.
Muslims in the United States and throughout the Western World are defending their faith more than ever as they live in fear of retaliation for acts of terror that have nothing to do with them or their faith, but are crimes committed by extremist groups with a warped interpretation a peaceful religion.
Islamophobia perpetuates a great injustice against the majority of Muslims who aspire to lives of true faith, freedom and lasting peace. This hatred makes us less safe and less free.
By demonizing Islam and Muslim Americans, we choose to use fear and anger against one another thus playing into ISIS’s propaganda predicting a war between Islam and the West.
Because of the world-changing events of 9/11, I have learned that each of us must take our experience, our own ability to witness and use it as a mechanism to edify those around us in a manner that speaks to a responsible future.
While Islamophobic voices are often the loudest, they cannot overpower the countless voices of unity and reason in America.
As uncomfortable as life became after 9/11, it would be hard for me to imagine life without the headscarf. I have learned to live with the stares and suspicious looks and to compensate with warmth and smiles to set others at ease.
In spite of my fear of judgment and name-calling, I have never considered removing my headscarf. I am not especially brave, and I certainly don’t enjoy the extra attention. But my headscarf has become a part of me, as intrinsic to my identity as my name, and I will never consider denying my self.
My headscarf identifies me as one of the millions of Muslims around the world, but the deep sadness I felt on that day in September and the hopeful optimism I have for our future will always bond me to the American way of life I have always known.
