The Raven Foundation

My wife and I sat on the couch as we watched the first episode of TLC’s reality show All-American Muslim.  We were both excited to see how the show would portray life for Muslims living in Dearborn, Michigan.  But my wife was really excited.  Earlier in the day she saw a commercial for the first episode.  She laughed as she explained the commercial to me: Suehaila Amen, a woman on the show, was flying to Washington DC.  While in her seat, a woman sitting behind her said:

See that veiled woman? I’m very uncomfortable.

To which Suehalia responded,

Then you get your ass off the plane because I have a meeting to get to to educate people like you.

It was a very human response.  And that’s the purpose of the show.  The website for All-American Muslim claims, “Each episode offers an intimate look at the customs and celebrations, misconceptions and conflicts these families face outside and within their own community.”  The show follows 5 families composed of members who are remarkably diverse in their religious devotion and life’s passions.  There are conflicts on the show between husbands and wives, parents and children, coaches and athletes.  But despite those conflicts, the people on the show are devoted to their families and to their community.  In this sense, these Muslims represent the best that America has to offer.

They even like football.

But not everyone is enamored with All-American Muslim.  The Florida Family Association, a Christian group in Tampa Bay whose goal is to improve “America’s moral environment,” has led a campaign to urge companies to pull advertisements from the show.  The FFA makes the old and tired scapegoating claim that you just can’t trust Muslims.  On the top of their website they claim that “TLC’s ‘All-American Muslim’ is propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda.”

Here’s the thing:  In order to “improve” our moral environment, humans have frequently gone to the old standby solution: Find a common enemy.  The FFA sees a problem with morality in America and needs to find someone to blame for it.  Muslims, especially since 9/11, are an easy target. So, the FFA points a finger of accusations against All-American Muslims and advertisers are following their lead.  On their website, the FFA claims to have influenced 65 companies to pull their advertisement from the show.  Only one company, Lowe’s, has actually admitted to pulling their commercials.

What I find interesting, and also sad, is that finding a common enemy is a contagious, escalating cycle.  When one group invites other groups to join them against a common enemy, that “enemy” will usually respond by inviting other groups to join them in uniting against the group that accused them.  And that’s what is happening.  Articles like “Say No to Bigotry and Lowes and Support ‘All-American Muslim,” “Corporations Pulling Ads From All-American Muslims Are Engaged in Jim Crow-Style Discrimination,” and “All-American Muslim Meets an Un-American Advertising Pullout” are directing us to view the FFA, Lowe’s, and any other advertisers who pull ads from the show as our common enemy.  This is interesting to me because all humans find a sense of unity through scapegoating.  As much as I hate what the FFA and Lowe’s are doing, I’m not taking the bait to make them into the enemy.  The enemy is the spirit of scapegoating.  The enemy is finding a common enemy to unite against.  That’s the problem.  The FFA and Lowe’s decision to follow their scapegoating lead against All-American Muslim are only symptoms of the disease.  But let’s not fool ourselves.  The reverse is also a problem.  As much as I detest the FFA and Lowe’s’ decision to boycott American Muslim, any boycott of the FFA and Lowe’s is mirroring the same scapegoating mechanism.

This is a deadly trap.  What I find so important in our religious traditions is that they are honest about the human tendency to scapegoat (which is why there are violent passages in our sacred texts), but they also critique that mechanism.  It is vitally important that we acknowledge and affirm Islam for doing just that.  When someone verbally or physically attacks you, the Qur’an says to, “repel evil with what is better and your enemy will become as close as an old and valued friend, but only those who are steadfast in patience, only those who are blessed with great righteousness, will attain such goodness” (41:34-35).

It takes courage to repel evil with what is better.  To repel an act of scapegoating with forgiveness makes us vulnerable.  But that’s exactly the type of courage we need from our religious, political, and economic leaders.  Maybe then we and our enemies “will become as close as an old and valued friend.”

For more on Islam, see Adam’s Islam 101 series by clicking here.

Many years ago I had a friend who wanted to help me when my second child had just been born. I did have my hands full with two children under two, but I kept telling her, “Thanks, but no thanks.  I don’t need any help.” I honestly thought I was doing her a favor by not making any demands on her. Finally, in exasperation, she said, “Please let me help you. It would be doing me a favor!” I was stunned. I hadn’t realized how my refusal to accept her help had left her feeling helpless and inadequate.

Why is it so difficult for us to accept help from others? Maybe it’s because we don’t like admitting to our inadequacies. So we end up using “thank you” for actions that are routine and don’t necessarily fill us with waves of gratitude. For example, when the busboy refills your water glass, isn’t that his job? Yet I know that I find myself saying thank you to him. What is going on there? Think about it – not saying “thank you” makes a silent but effective statement of inequality, such as “Your job is to serve me and my job is to accept that service.” By not thanking the busboy, I affirm my superior position over him. When I do say the words of thanks, I am sending a different message altogether – “Your service is generous and unexpected; we are not on different social levels, but social equals who serve each other out of choice, not obligation.” Of course, when we leave a tip for the waiter that we expect is shared with the busboy, we return the busboy’s gift with one of equal value (at least from our perspective!). The tip, construed as an option rather than an obligation, denies the reality that the tip is indeed payment for services rendered, and not a gift. The unacknowledged result of the “thank you” to the busboy is that inequality is denied and obligation masquerades as gift.

I find this interesting for two reasons. The first is how it reveals the American obsession with equality. Even when inequality is built into the relationship, we conceal or deny it beneath a veneer of social niceties. The other reason is how it messes with a genuine experience of gratitude. By perpetrating the double illusion that (1) inequality is absent from a relationship of obvious inequality, and (2) that an obligation is a gift, we may begin to lose sight of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of genuine generosity. Equality is indeed a wonderful thing, but inequality has its virtues as well. The experience of gratitude contains within it an assumption of inequality. In other words, gratitude is a response to being given something undeserved and generous by someone who, by their gift, disrupts the equilibrium of your relationship. In the flood of gratitude, words often fail us. We might say, “thank you isn’t enough” or “how can I ever repay you?” The point of a truly generous gift is that there is no expectation of repayment, no possibility of being able to return in kind something of equal value, like a tip for a filled water glass. No “thank you” can effectively conceal just how unequal your relationship has become or just how marvelous that feels.

Getting comfortable with feeling inferior, inadequate or just plain needy may make it possible to recognize authentic gifts from family, friends and strangers and thus to experience the joy of gratitude. It may help our relationship with God as well – or the Divine or Spirit – however you conceive of that which is bigger than we are. You see, if we deny that there is something bigger than we are with which we can never achieve equality, the possibility for Divine generosity is reasoned away. We end up treating God like a busboy, offering the Divine a perfunctory “thank you” for services rendered, feigning equality where none is possible and shutting down the possibility of true gift. What I’m suggesting is that sometimes a “thank you”, nice as it is, can function more like a “thanks, but no thanks” allowing us to preempt gifts with an illusion of self-sufficiency, which is the ultimate position of superiority.

It is still hard for me to this day, almost 30 years after my children were born, to admit when I need help. When I can do it, when I allow someone else to see my need and respond to it with a gift for which no “thank you” will ever be enough, my feeling of inadequacy melts into waves of gratitude and joy. I know it’s counter-intuitive – Americans are supposed to be all about equality and self-sufficiency. But if you try admitting your inadequacy, gift and gratitude just might take you by surprise.