Look who’s radicalized now
By: Lena Shareef
Tags: Racism, Capitol Riot, Terrorism, Muslim, Insurrection

Look who’s radicalized now

Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash

Every time I’ve flown home from Pakistan, getting off the plane is always a struggle. No matter how hard I try, I can never politely power walk fast enough past people to make it near the front of the passport control line. So then I stand and wait. Looking around at the people ahead of me, behind me, I see kids who are glad to finally be on their feet after a 10+ hour fight, tired adults, the TV screens saying welcome in seven different languages. The signs stating, “If you see something, say something.”

I hate standing in customs lines as much as the next person for the same annoying reasons they do. But I particularly hate standing in these lines because certain memories come flooding back. You know how some people who have encountered dangerous situations or near-death experiences say they saw their lives flash before their eyes? I get that feeling when I’m waiting in these lines. Except it’s slower. I’ll see things and I get transported to a different world, a different time. I see a girl standing in line with me. She’s got braces and glasses and looks like how I did back in 6th grade. And now I see my teacher and she’s grilling me on the playground on why I don’t wear shorts. “Why does your family do that?”

There’s another man in line who’s wearing glasses that remind me of my college counselor. While we’re sitting in his office, he asks me, “Why do Muslims always react so angrily every time?” This coming from a man who was supposed to advise me on my college applications, not try and push me to answer for terrorists that I know nothing about. But of course, I’m Muslim so I must know what their true intentions are.

The line inches along and I reach into my backpack to pull out my blue American passport. It’s the same backpack I had with me when my friend (who was white) and I went to a movie theater in Chinatown in Washington, D.C. We had been studying earlier at a nearby coffee shop and decided to reward ourselves with popcorn and movie for our hard work that day. The security guard at the entrance only asked me to unzip my backpack, not my friend’s. Not even when she offered her backpack for him to inspect. I don’t remember what movie we saw that day.

There’s just a few people ahead of me now. I stretch my neck and think about how nice it will be to finally be outside, away from this airport with its fluorescent lights and airport security looking so tired. I let out a big sigh and close my eyes. It’s summertime in Michigan, I’m 12 years old, and playing with my cousins in our front yard. From the corner of my eye, I notice the neighbor who lives across the street from us as he cruises by and pulls into his driveway. Normally he just disappears into his garage like the rest of us, but this time he gets out of the car and walks toward us. He’s an older white man. I think he had a mustache. While staying on his side of the street, he yells across to us, “Do you live here?”

My cousins all look over to me. I look at them and turn slowly to the man and say, “…Yeah.”

“How long have you lived here?”

I pause a bit and stare at him before saying, “Three years.”

If my memory serves me correctly, this happened within a year of 9/11. That does not surprise me anymore. What a horrific day that was. My seventh grade teachers sadly did not know what they were doing. They turned on the TV and were dumbstruck, staring at the screen like the rest of us. We all saw the second plane crash into the World Trade Center live. We probably shouldn’t have seen that. And then, slowly but surely, my life changed. My family’s lives, my friends, and millions of others around the world who look like me, who pray like me. We were now living in the post-9/11 world.

We act like racism is a problem that has to do with people of color, but in fact, racism has always primarily been a problem among white people. And in America, there hasn’t been any attempt to truly address it, to cure it, to destroy it. All we’ve seen is silence. A nauseating, abhorrent silence for centuries. Along with efforts, at times, to erase America’s true painful history. So weeks turned into months, months to years, years to decades. This September will mark 20 years since the tragic events of 9/11. Who knew that after two decades of wars, wiretaps, torture, imprisonment, and drone attacks, we would simply end up with an insurrection on our own soil?

2021 began with a coup. Led by white supremacists and fascists. On January 6, they stormed the U.S. Capitol—something that hasn’t happened in over 200 years. Something that didn’t even happen during the Civil War. While too many brown people were harassed, tortured, imprisoned, and killed for the past two decades, terrorists at home slowly came out of hiding, made death threats, attacked people, and then walked straight into the U.S. Capitol fully armed.

If you see something, say something. I’ve seen something. We, as people of color, have seen lots of things. And we’ve said something too. Over and over and over again. Black Americans in particular have been saying something for generations. For decades, we’ve given warnings, testified to the U.S. government, even cried out for help. But are you listening? Are you watching? I don’t think so. Because as of January 6, 2021, we have all undeniably seen something. Look who’s radicalized now.

“Next!”

I walk up to the immigration officer’s desk and hand him my passport. He asks the usual questions, I look into the camera, he snaps a photo. As he hands me my passport back, he looks me in the eye and says, “Welcome home.”