It shouldn’t surprise us that many American liberals, including Muslims, are now joining the celebrations of Osama bin Laden’s death. They may not agree with how the War on Terror has been conducted, but they have at least tolerated it and have no reason to view Bin Laden with sympathy in any case. Let us also not forget that Barack Obama, who campaigned for the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, is a liberal himself. To view the mass relief at Bin Laden’s death as a pathology of conservative tea partiers and frat boys who don’t know any better is therefore to miss the point. Bin Laden was the most successful terrorist this country had seen, and the trauma of 9-11 and the fear that he could strike again anytime haunted American minds in ways they were not prepared for. It is, for those who wish to be rid of the imperial anxieties of the past ten years, the time to feel triumphant.

The notion that Asian Americans are model minorities originated in the 1960s, mainly in reference to the socioeconomic gains of Japanese and Chinese Americans in particular.  It did not take long, however, for that very idea to be applied to Asian Americans as a whole, especially as it continues to be perpetuated by the mainstream […]

Ahmad Fuad Rahmat is a graduate student at Marquette University Milwaukee. var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print