Brookyn College
Professor of English at Brookyn College in New York; author of This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror and How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America
PROFILE
Moustafa Bayoumi
Guest
FROM Moustafa Bayoumi
To the Point
How do we remember 9/11? What should history teach? It's been 15 years since the brilliant September morning that upended American life and set George W. Bush on the road to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. This election year, millions of first-time voters will have little or no memory of an event traumatized the country and changed so much about the world. View across the south pool of the National September 11 Memorial in New York City towards the adjacent National September 11 Memorial Museum. Photo by Norman B How do we remember the victims and first responders who gave their lives at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania? And the unintended victims: Muslim-Americans who live under the shadow of 9/11, in a presidential campaign when anti-Muslim feeling has once again come to the fore?
To the Point
Muslim Americans and the Politics of Fear In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush said that all Muslims should not be judged by the acts of a radical few. Nevertheless, the attacks in Paris have made Muslims the latest targets of hate mail, online vitriol, personal insults—and calls for outright religious discrimination on the presidential campaign trail. Donald Trump and fellow Republican presidential candidates are making calls for outright religious discrimination. Muslim Americans report that Islamophobia is on the increase — and they're being asked to apologize for terrorists they despise. It's not the first time an identifiable minority has been targeted for abuse. What are the lessons about American values?
To the Point
From High School to the Campaign Trail: Islamophobia in America Social media exploded this week when a Muslim-American kid who brought a home-made clock to school was arrested on suspicion of building a bomb . Ahmed Mohamed was interrogated by five police officers, handcuffed, arrested and taken away. The hashtag I Stand with Ahmed went viral, and the 14-year old was invited to Silicon Valley, MIT and the White House . But Muslim-Americans say it's nothing new, and yesterday Donald Trump failed to repudiate a questioner who called Muslims America's "problem." Fourteen years after September 11, are Muslim citizens still the victims of an "us versus them" mentality that's all too familiar?
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Left, Right & Center
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To the Point
What happens when America retreats from the world? Is President Trump taking his "America First" agenda to extremes, withdrawing the country from the international stage on trade and climate change, distancing America from its traditional allies across the Atlantic and even threatening to physically isolate the country through the building of a wall along its southern border? León Krauze guest hosts.
To the Point
Replacing Obamacare: Now you see it… now you don’t As the Senate deliberates replacing Obmacare, health coverage for millions of people is at stake. There've been no public hearings, and a draft measure won't be made public. Is the House version so unpopular that that Senate is hiding a version that looks much the same?
To the Point
Trump's 'America First' goes missing abroad In the Middle East, President Trump is changing some policies of the Obama Administration—and reversing his own campaign attacks on Islam as a religion that "hates us." We hear about his visit to Saudi Arabia and what's at stake for the rest of his foreign excursion.