USA's Muslims under a cloud
By Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY
Motaz Elshafi, 28, a software engineer, casually opened an internal e- mail at work last month. The message began, "Dear Terrorist."
The note from a co-worker was sent to Muslims working at Cisco Systems in Research Triangle Park, N.C., a few days after train bombings in India that killed 207. The e-mail warned that such violent acts wouldn't intimidate people, but only make them stronger.
"I was furious," says Elshafi, who is New Jersey-born and bred. "What did I have to do with this violence?"
Reports of such harassment and discrimination against Muslims are rising, advocacy groups say. A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,007 Americans shows strong anti-Muslim feeling. And the hard feelings are damaging the mental health of U.S. Muslims, suggest new studies to be released at the American Psychological Association meeting starting Thursday in New Orleans.
Thirty-nine percent of respondents to the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll said they felt at least some prejudice against Muslims. The same percentage favored requiring Muslims, including U.S. citizens, to carry a special ID "as a means of preventing terrorist attacks in the United States." About one-third said U.S. Muslims were sympathetic to al-Qaeda, and 22% said they wouldn't want Muslims as neighbors.
Verbal harassment and discrimination correlate with worse mental health in studies of Muslims and Arab-Americans since 9/11, says psychologist Mona Amer of Yale University School of Medicine.
In her new study of 611 adults, thought to be the largest ever done on Arab-Americans, they had much worse mental health than Americans overall. About half had symptoms of clinical depression, compared with 20% in an average U.S. group, Amer says.
Muslims, who made up 70% of the study's participants, had poorer mental health than Christians. Those less likely to be depressed or anxious were people who kept their ethnic or religious ties but also had relationships with other people in the community. And more Christians than Muslims lived this "integrated" lifestyle, Amer says.
Though Muslims said they wanted more contact with Americans of other religions, it may be easier for Arab Christians to integrate, Amer speculates.
"They share the mainstream religion. Muslims may have different kinds of names or dress differently and, especially since 9/11, they're ostracized more."
Bias leads to depression
Virtually no mental health research was done on U.S. Muslims before 9/11, so her findings can't be compared with earlier studies. A new publication, the Journal of Muslim Mental Health, began publication in May, signaling concern about the growing problems and lack of research.
Many therapists are counseling more Arab-Americans and Muslims since 9/11, Amer says. Also, in surveys of Muslim spiritual leaders to be reported at the psychological association meeting, the imams report a surge in worshipers seeking help for anxiety and stress related to possible discrimination.
Reports of such abuses skyrocketed in the first six months after 9/11, fell in 2002 and have climbed again since the Iraq war began in 2003, according to data kept by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an education and advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
The number of assault and other discriminatory complaints filed with the group jumped from 1,019 in 2003 to 1,972 in 2005, says Arsalan Iftikhar, national legal director.
Nobody knows what proportion of U.S. Muslims encounter discrimination; even Muslims disagree.
"I don't think there's a Muslim out there who hasn't felt some kind of fallout from 9/11," says Jafar Siddiqui, 55, a real estate agent in Lynnwood, Wash. "I myself have been invited to 'go home' at least once a month." Siddiqui has been a U.S. citizen for 20 years.
Despite an increase in harassment since 9/11, "many, many have not felt any discrimination," says Farid Senzai, research director of the Detroit-based Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a non- profit started four years ago to do research on Muslims.
Harassment charges claiming unreasonable arrest and detention have garnered the most publicity. But discriminatory acts in everyday life — in shops, schools and at work — are reported about as frequently to the American-Islamic relations council.
Elshafi, who got the nasty e-mail at work, still wonders at the boldness of a person who would send such a note. The sender was asked to apologize to several employees who filed complaints with Cisco's human resources department, says Elshafi, who didn't file a complaint.
"We wouldn't confirm a specific internal incident on the record," says Cisco's Robyn Jenkins Blum, who adds, "It is Cisco's policy not to tolerate artificial divisions or harassment of any individual."
Elshafi, a worshiper at the local mosque, says he has received a lot of support from non-Muslim friends at work. "After 9/11, people would say, 'Don't worry, 'Taz, we've got your back.' " He says Muslims are not doing enough to educate people about their religious practices. "We need to talk about our beliefs, know our neighbors."
People such as Elshafi are least vulnerable to becoming depressed due to bigotry, says John Dovidio, a University of Connecticut psychologist and expert on prejudice. "He gets strength from his group identity and support from the outside."
Many are not nearly as fortunate. Children of recent immigrants, women who wear the traditional head scarves or long robes and Iraqi- Americans often aren't faring as well, according to reports at the psychological association meeting.
In Seattle, Hate Free Zone Washington, an education and advocacy group, was launched five years ago to oppose backlash against local Muslims, Sikhs (sometimes mistaken for Muslims) and Arab-Americans. "We've seen an increase in bias-based harassment since 9/11," says Amelia Derr, the group's education director.
Derr says she has seen some Muslim children so traumatized by violent bigotry that she wonders whether they'll ever recover. Last October, a Seattle high school junior who had faced verbal harassment was assaulted in gym class. He suffered a hemorrhage behind his eye and a collapsed lung, Derr says. "The good thing is that the student who did it was convicted of a hate crime."
But the beaten boy won't go back to school, she says. "He's terrified. You can see how damaged he has been. He won't look you in the eye; he just shrinks back. He won't talk." The family came from Afghanistan four years ago, she says.
Even some who were born and raised in the USA feel their religious freedom has limits. Jafumba Asad, 32, of Tulsa stopped wearing the traditional dark robe after 9/11. "It's bad enough just wearing a head scarf. I get nasty stares every day. Wearing full cover makes it harder to get a job. It scares people," says Asad, a community college teacher and graduate student.
Muslim women who wear head scarves are more likely than those who don't to say they face discrimination and a hostile environment, according to a study to be presented at the psychological association's meeting by Alyssa Rippy of the University of Tulsa. The scarves make Muslim women stand out and could change behavior toward them, she suggests.
A few years ago, in a Wal-Mart parking lot, Asad says two men approached her and aggressively shouted "Y'all ought to be (expletive) locked up!" Pregnant at the time, she quickly backed away and then realized there were parked cars behind her. "I felt trapped and very vulnerable. I'm pregnant. I didn't know if they were going to get violent." Luckily, she says, they just walked away.
The mother of three girls says she developed ulcers a few months after 9/11. "I feel stressed a lot."
In Rippy's study, Muslim men were just as likely as women to report discrimination but more likely to become mistrustful and wary because of it. That can encourage sticking with your own group, "which intensifies feelings of paranoia," she says.
Iraq war's fallout
Men may back away more than women because they feel discrimination could have more serious consequences for them, for example being pegged as a terrorist or jailed, Rippy says.
The USA TODAY/Gallup Poll suggests Americans have greater fear of Muslim men than women: 31% said they'd feel more nervous flying if a Muslim man was on the plane; 18% said they'd be more nervous with a Muslim woman. The poll, conducted July 28-30, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The Iraq war has made its mark on U.S. Muslims as well, psychologist Ibrahim Kira will say at the meeting. In his study of Iraqi- Americans, the more time people spent listening to the radio and watching TV news about the war, the more likely they were to have post-traumatic stress disorder. Many of them had relatives still in Iraq, and stress-disorder rates were high: 14% compared with 4% for the U.S. population, Kira says.
Tuning in to war news also correlated with more stress-related health problems, such as high blood pressure, headaches and stomach trouble, Kira says.
Although the war creates special problems for Iraqi-Americans, they also share a key challenge with other Muslims: lack of trust from people living here. Many Americans clearly don't trust those of the Muslim faith. In fact, 54% said they couldn't vote for a Muslim for president in a June Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll. That compares with 21% who turned thumbs-down on an evangelical Christian and 15% who wouldn't cast their ballot for a Jew.
Amer believes the world has changed for U.S. Muslims since Sept. 11 but says: "I don't think Americans understand what's happened. Muslims have the same anxieties and anguish about terrorism as everyone else in the U.S. At the same time, they're being blamed for it. They're carrying a double burden."
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OUTREACH EFFORTS HELP MUSLIMS MAKE INROADS By Marilyn Elias
Muslims in the USA might receive more favorable treatment if more Americans knew them. In a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,007 Americans, 58% said they had never met a Muslim. And those who did know Muslims felt a lot better about them.
Ignorance about Islam and isolation from Muslims can only foment trouble, leaders in the Muslim community say.
Since 9/11, Muslim groups have greatly expanded their outreach, offering educational seminars on their religion and cultural practices to audiences such as the police, private companies, hospital workers, teachers, students and therapists.
The Islamic Networks Group, which has affiliates in 12 states, received 1,500 invitations a year to present such programs before 9/11; now it's about 4,000 a year, says president Maha ElGenaidi. "People are more open to learning about us, and we want to tell them."
In the past year, 30,000 Americans requested free Qurans offered by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says Arsalan Iftikhar of the council. Reading the Quran will help Americans understand and appreciate Islam, he says.
And many interfaith groups involving Muslims have formed in the past few years in cities as diverse as Boston, Syracuse, N.Y., and Elyria, Ohio.
In Los Angeles, there are two "cousins clubs," interfaith groups of Muslim and Jewish women, so named because they share a common ancestor, Abraham. Participants read each others' sacred texts, celebrate holidays together and learn about one another's spiritual lives.
The women have become close, says Shayna Lester, co-founder of one of the groups. "We find we have more likenesses than differences. We no longer call each other cousins. We call each other sisters."