Today I will speak about my own experience with racism, terrorism, reality, and mosques. President Trump is visiting Israel and Saudi Arabia where he receives the royal treatment. I have been to Israel and I worked in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as an FBI agent. As many are aware 15 of the 19 terrorist hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi. I did not receive the royal treatment in Saudi but I was impressed by the infrastructure and the desert beauty. The people were respectful and interested to meet foreigners. The women were covered in head to ankle abayas which were lovely. Beneath the abaya’s bottom you saw designer shoes or fancy running shoes. The women always took a quick glance at we foreign visitors but quickly averted their eyes. Their culture is not like ours, but I was in their country, not they in mine.
Arguably, the United States has two major allies in the Middle East– Israel and Saudi Arabia. Geo-politics is not my forte, but I want to show in this post that we as Americans are just as biased and racist as other countries. If you saw a woman in an abaya in your hometown would you look twice? If you saw a man in a turban, dashiki, or shemagh would you look three times? You might. Would you stare at the Hassidic Jew in his shtreimel? Perhaps, you would just give a nonchalant look at the Jewish man in his yarmulke. Would you feel anger or fear to the Arab shemagh (the red head scarf).
This entire USA was founded by immigrants, and has its own evil chapter of slavery. As a country we should not be in a position of excluding entire country’s emigrants from possibly achieving our American dream. I believe we should tighten our vetting policies but blanket exclusion of citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen is wrong. I do not see President Trump advocating the exclusion of Saudis, who formed 15 of those 19 hijacker terrorists. This all sounds like racist fear and bigotry to me. I definitely want extensive checks on immigrants but no absolute bans.
I am going to tell a quick story of how “security” turns into racism. A few years ago I was in a US airport watching the people go through security. There was a long line of people from an African country carrying red passports patiently waiting to go through the check point. I mean a long line. All the white passengers had been directed to a second check point and were rapidly passing through. This might sound OK until African American passengers were directed to go into the long line. It was not your passport holding you up it was the color of your skin. These Americans of color were angry, and justifiably so. Even the TSA employees were apologetic, but this order had come from high up.
And now I direct everyone who has read this far to look at the photo of the Mosque in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Beauty is beauty. Hate can come from any religious institution, but so can tolerance and love. From racism there is never love nor tolerance. From racism there is no hope only fear.
READ MORE ABOUT THE FBI IN MY BOOK: “A BROKEN BADGE HEALED? THE FBI, A SPECIAL AGENT, AND THE CANCER WITHIN BOTH”
