By Walied Shater
Saturday, May 15, 2010; A15
I woke up early on Sept. 12, 2001, to get ready for work. I put on my best suit, my only custom-made shirt, my most expensive Nordstrom tie. I shined my shoes. I was tense and nervous and did not know what to expect from my co-workers. I had, by chance, been off duty the day before, the day of the horrific attacks on the United States, and of course by late evening on Sept. 11, the names of the suspected hijackers began to come out. All were Arabic or Muslim names like mine.
Since January 2000, I had been assigned to the most important division in the U.S. Secret Service: the Presidential Protective Division, commonly known as PPD. I held a top-secret clearance, reported to the White House daily, and traveled routinely on Air Force One or Marine One with the president. I loved the experience. I had never felt discriminated against at work or socially, except for a few "terrorist" jokes. I was a welcomed and trusted member of the division.
Sept. 12 was different, though. Nineteen men had killed close to 3,000 Americans the day before in the name of my religion.
As I entered the White House, I prepared myself mentally for the verbal barrage to come. I had grown up a tough kid in Brooklyn and had been raised a proud American Muslim.
As I walked to the office for agents on the president's detail, I was intercepted by a supervisor named Ron. When he asked to speak with me, I said I had to put my equipment bag in the office and would come right back. I was trying to buy time to get ready for what might come. As I approached Ron, a tall and strong man in his early 50s, I thought, "Here it comes, stay cool."
Ron stood up as a preemptive strike to anyone who might have said something to me that day. He told me I belonged. He embodied what was great about America. As the day went on I felt ashamed of the fears I had felt earlier.
When I concluded my five-year assignment on the PPD in 2005, managers told me I had led more presidential security advance teams than any other agent since 2000. My wife and I were proud of my work and proud for a nation in which an American Muslim can achieve anything. That is America.
Today, though, American Muslims feel under siege. Too many feel the American dream is not for them. For a few, radicalization is the next step. Anti-Muslim rhetoric has reached epic proportions in broader U.S. society -- largely tolerated, rarely condemned. While "terrorism experts" cite frequent travel to Muslim countries or Internet videos as primers for radicalization, the core primer, which is largely unremarked upon, is the siege mentality surrounding American Muslims.
Many factors contribute to this mentality, including rhetoric from fringe hate groups, the demonization of Muslims by Hollywood and repeated questions of loyalty by (conservative)
commentators. Nothing is more debilitating to the psyche of American Muslims than to have those in positions of authority remain silent after such
comments or, worse, contribute to the hostility.
American Muslims notice when, as happened last week, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service stopped using an anti-Muslim film "Obsession: Radical Islam's Obsession with the West" to train agents. But American Muslims also notice when a Florida Republican candidate for Congress, Dan Fanelli, runs television ads in which he points to a white man and asks, "Does this look like a terrorist?" and then turns to an Arab-looking man and asks, "Or this?"
Or when Congress invites the preacher Franklin Graham to speak at the National Day of Prayer event on Capitol Hill despite Graham's infamous remarks about Islam as a "very evil and wicked religion."
U.S. leaders need to do much more to help bring American Muslims into the mainstream. The president and others should follow the example set by former secretary of state Colin Powell when he endorsed then-candidate Barack Obama on "Meet the Press." Reacting to assertions that Obama was Muslim, Powell asked, "Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?"
Not just American Muslims but all Americans need to see and hear examples of people like my former supervisor and Colin Powell.
The writer served as a special agent with the U.S. Secret Service from 1995 to 2007.
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