Islamophobia Has Corroded American Values

E very July, I take my boys back to my hometown in Indiana so we can watch the Independence Day parade.

They run around in American-flag shirts and devour far too many rocket pops as vintage cars, tractors, and an Abraham Lincoln in shorts make their way down Main Street.

I’ve always loved that parade, but it’s not the same one I recall watching as a girl.

In recent years—in between the marching bands and Girl Scouts—comes a camouflage military Humvee, a papier-mâché bald eagle flying at a jumbo-size Bible, and a tribute to “Indiana’s fallen heroes,” during which photos of so many, too many, young Hoosiers who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq are carried out on banners.

It’s a somber scene.

The shadow of September 11, the wars that followed, and the culture that shaped us all hangs over the parade.

I’m not usually one to read much into the symbolism of anniversaries, but this year marks both 250 years since the founding of the United States and 25 years since 9/11.

I can’t think of one without the other, because September 11 not only transformed how the United States interacted with Muslims abroad and at home; it also changed our collective view of American values around citizenship, identity, and civil liberties.

In my earliest memories, we didn’t have a hometown mosque—there wasn’t enough money or enough Muslims to build one.

But by the early 1990s, the community had raised the funds.

We were excited to celebrate our newly constructed mosque amid the cornfields, but not everyone felt the same way.

During the official ground-breaking, one of the neighbors blasted music aggressively.

Then one day, a mountain of dirt appeared along that neighbor’s property line—a berm to, presumably, hide the mosque from sight.

We children were warned to stay away.