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The boston marathon bombing led to grief, shock and anger across the nation and the world. Three innocent lives were lost and hundreds of lives were altered forever.
Besides feeling grief, for Muslim Americans particularly, there was also a sense of dread as they prayed, "Please, don't let it be a Muslim perpetrator!" As Wajahat Ali observed (Slate, Apr. 17), this dread was universal and it was real. "... ever since September 11, Muslims have learned that the criminal actions of one unhinged individual unfairly casts guilt by association on anyone suspected of being 'Musllimy?'
Sure enough, within hours of the attacks Muslims were being blamed. A Saudi student among the injured spectators instantly became a target. Injured in the first blast and running away along with hundreds of others around him, he was tackled by a bystander because he "looked suspicious." Soon the New York Post and Fox News roared that this student was a suspect, speculating about his role in the bombings. To worsen matters, while he was being treated in the hospital for his injuries, his apartment was being surrounded by reporters and searched by law enforcement officials. Eventually it was admitted that he was neither a suspect nor even a person-of-interest as had been claimed, but rather an innocent victim and witness who had been singled out simply because he "looked suspicious" (read: Muslim and/or Arab). No apologies due!
In the days following the attacks, CNN repeatedly claimed that police were seeking a "dark-skinned male," while Wolf Blitzer speculated about whether or not he spoke with an accent. It was only after several such false and unverifiable claims that CNN retracted their earlier statements. However, the point was made: the suspects were presumed to be dark-skinned with discernible accents; this was now such a widely-accepted and reinforced stereotype that CNN continued airing it and when they finally did give up, they blamed the error on "sources."
Imagine the surprise, then, when the video surveillance revealed that both suspects were Caucasian men with brown hair, wearing baseball caps and looking rather unlike the quintessential threatening, sinister,...