Last week, CNN had a field day over a set of e-mails that claimed Barack Obama was Muslim. In an article titled “Obama battles Muslim rumor head-on,” they reported Obama as describing the e-mails as “dirty tricks” and part of a “systematic political strategy.”

While the article is not explicitly anti-Islamic, to me it is clearly religiously biased. The title of the article portrays “being Muslim” as a bad thing. Why is being Muslim a “rumor” Obama must “battle,” when any rational person would merely have to “clarify?” If a presidential candidate has to defend himself or herself against being Muslim, it shows how Muslims are not fully tolerated within our political system. Not only was being Muslim disgustingly used as a political attack by the person behind these e-mails, but CNN caused further damage by acknowledging and labeling it as a rumor, in effect recognizing that being Muslim is somewhat unacceptable.

And let’s not forget the “accusations” by Fox News that Obama attended a madrassa in his youth. CNN, in debunking the so-called myth, stated in an article, “Allegations that Sen. Barack Obama was educated in a radical Muslim school known as a ‘madrassa’ are not accurate.” The problem is, madrassa, contrary to popular yet ignorant belief, is an Arabic word for any type of school, secular or religious. Moreover, CNN continues to use words like “allegations” to describe such issues, which is similar to the language used to address those under scrutiny for political scandals. At this point, I’m not even going to take the time to criticize Fox News about the original report.

The subtle ignorant language used by major news sources seems like nothing when compared to comments made by John McCain and Fred Thompson at the Republican Presidential Debate in South Carolina on Jan. 10. John McCain, in response to Ron Paul’s advocating of increasing trade as a way to increase global security, said, “I’m not interested in trading with Al-Qaeda. All they want to trade is burkas. I don’t want to travel with them. They like one-way tickets.” First of all, Ron Paul said nothing of trading with terrorists or Al-Qaeda. Paul was discussing trading with Arab nations in general, which McCain decided to equate with trading with a terrorist organization. Moreover, McCain seems to suggest that a terrorist organization is only interested in trading cloaks worn by Muslim women. It may be a joke, yes, but it is still disturbing.

Fred Thompson, in addressing a confrontation in the Persian Gulf between the United States Navy and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG), stated, “I think one more step and they would have been introduced to those virgins that they’re looking forward to seeing.” Thompson was referring to the promises of virgins made by Islamic terrorist organizations to suicide bombers. Thompson makes a clear generalization by equating such suicide bombers with the IRG, a gross oversimplification which contributes to our ignorance about distinctions between Muslims.

The words used by the presidential candidates and major news sources are reflective of a much larger trend in politics and the media that continues to degrade and disrespect Muslims. While there are no explicit words that denounce those of Islamic faith, and while I do not believe any of these people are Islamophobic, the language that is used to describe Islam and those who are Muslim continues to carry negative connotations.

At this point, it may seem that I’m just whining about sporadic incidents of anti-Islamic language. But even something as subtle as our language and rhetoric has immense effects and consequences in a world where Muslims are playing a growing part. Islam is the second largest and fastest growing religion in the world. Millions of Muslims reside within the United States. Muslims will determine the future of Iraq and Afghanistan and have the capability of eliminating the influence of organizations such as Al-Qaeda. Yet, our government continues to struggle to connect with Muslims, even more so in the wake of the War on Terror. We always hear about our government begging for moderate Muslims to speak out against radical Islamists and to join the United States in our struggle against Al-Qaeda. Any rational person would then assume that if our government truly cared about garnering the support and respect of moderate Muslims, they would be especially careful about the language they use when discussing Islam.

But this doesn’t seem to be the case. People like David Horowitz go around preaching about “Islamofascism” while expecting moderate Muslims to speak out in support of the West, and when that support doesn’t come, they seem perplexed. CNN, John McCain and Fred Thompson are not anti-Islamic, but their language shows us why we are continuing to fail so miserably in truly connecting with the people of the Middle East.

Nandan is a freshman in Arts & Sciences and staff columnist. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

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