Asra Nomani in The Daily Beast: Spy on White People

So, Asra Nomani writes an(other) embarrasing example of self-hatred for The Daily Beast, applauding law enforcement's apparent targeting of Muslims throughout the Greater New York City area.  Her essay is riddled with simple errors, clear misperceptions of how law and constitutionalism function, an inability to process profiling, and some faulty logic, perhaps the finest instance of which is here:

Indeed, just as we need to track the Colombian community for drug trafficking and the Ku Klux Klan for white extremists, I believe we should monitor the Muslim community because we sure don’t police ourselves enough.

The first part of her sentence, about Colombians, is actually right on (by her silly logic); the second part contradicts her own logic (she can call for profiling some Latinos, but she doesn't have the courage to apply her racializing logic to white America), and everything after "I believe" speaks to how little Asra actually knows anything about the Muslim community, as well as the several seconds of your life which you could have done something better with.  

For law enforcement to go after white extremism the way it seems to be going after Muslims (at least, with respect to the NYPD), they wouldn't be going after the KKK, as Asra suggests--unless Asra means to suggest that Muslim student organizations at Yale and UPenn are offshoots of al Qaeda.  Law enforcement would instead have to spy on as many white institutions (churches, civic clubs, student organizations, etc.) as they could.  

Because, of course, by Asra's article's painful logic, a person's whiteness is a sufficiently significant lead to get law enforcement to pay attention to him, just as a Muslim institution is, on the grounds of its Muslimness, a target of suspicion sufficient to merit law enforcement's full attention.  This is a point Amy Davidson made far more succinctly in an excellent post at The New Yorker:

There is a difference between chasing clues and treating Islam, in and of itself, as a lead. 

Does Asra mean to suggest we should be spying on white folks indiscriminately, because they, like the KKK, are white?  Should we spy on white Muslims twice, since they are white and Muslim, and so somehow become extremists that hate themselves.  I spoke about this issue on a far more relevant basis to Welton Gaddy of State of Belief Radio.

By the way, I'll be at Fordham's Manhattan campus today (Monday, March 5th), speaking about the long history of Islam and especially Islam in America.  It's free, and I'll try to make it fun, educational, and enlightening.  We'll be starting at 6pm at Fordham's South Lounge inside 113 West 60th Street, right off Columbus Circle in Manhattan.  The event ends at 8pm. 

 

Comments

[Salman_Merchant]

So which attribute would she like to pick? Ethnicity? Race? Religion? If criminality isn't restricted by either of these, why not monitor anyone and everyone for it?

[Kwame]

Not to mention, by the end she started to imply that American police forces ought to be more like police in KARACHI, which is perhaps the most unsafe, untrusting urban agglomeration, with the most politicized state apparatuses in Asia.

NO THANK YOU.

[Danios]

I should inform you that Asra Nomani has issued a response to you here:

http://www.loonwatch.com/2012/03/asra-nomani-in-the-daily-beast-spy-on-white-people/

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