Islamophobia rears its ugly head again in the attack on the TV series, All-American Muslim

The Jaafar family, one of the participating families in the Learning Channel's
'All-American Muslim' reality TV show.
Photograph: TLC

i first heard about this upcoming series while listening to an npr interview with a commentator who wrote a piece about it in the guardian...

wajahat ali...

I think it's refreshingly bland. It's honest, it's real, it's human. And it's nice to see a show where Muslims aren't terrorists, taxi cab drivers or potential terrorists, you know? They're just people.

i've actually been hoping for a show like this for quite a while... i had thought that maybe a sitcom a la the cosby show might do it but i was very pleased to hear about "All-American Muslim" and thought it might give a real push toward mitigating some of the more rampant islamophobia that has been plaguing the country...

guess not...

The cable channel TLC may have thought it was promoting the cause of ethnic and religious harmony by running a program that sympathetically examines the lives of five ordinary American Muslim families. But now the show itself has become a source of conflict, with the conservative Florida Family Association urging advertisers to boycott it and at least one major retail chain complying.

Media critics are already issuing scathing criticism of the decision by home retail giant Lowe’s to respond to the Florida Family Association’s campaign against the program. Gawker, for example, writes, “American Muslim, a TLC reality show that depicts the lives of Muslims in dangerous anti-American professions like ‘police officer’ and ‘high school football coach,’ is obviously the most egregious example yet of creeping Sharia. So thank (the Christian) God that all-American retailer Lowe’s has decided to pull advertising from the show!”

[...]

As viewed by the Florida Family Association, however, the normality and all-American quality of the families profiled is in itself a cause for suspicion.

“The Learning Channel’s new show All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law,” the group writes at its website. “The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.”

in response, the home improvement chain, lowes, has pulled its advertising...

Lowe’s actions are already being described as “a public relations disaster” and have aroused anger among the American Muslim community.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, for example, has issued a statement saying, “Sadly corporations, such as Lowe’s, have succumbed to the idiocracy of such garbage campaigns, which are orchestrated by groups and organizations which lack credibility, legitimacy, and are founded on the basic notions of bigotry and racism reminiscent of a shameful era in this country’s history.”

personally, i think this kind of attack is both disgusting and shameful... i've said repeatedly here that i have a fair number of islamic friends and count them among some of the finest people i know... they're people trying to make it just like the rest of us and to demonize them as a few brutally ignorant people in this country are trying to do is despicable...

here's the trailer for the series...



yes, bland, but also accurate... muslims in the u.s. live lives very much like everybody else... truth be told, muslims around the world live lives very much like everybody else... this overwhelming urge to demonize those whose beliefs, skin color, national origin, diet or surnames don't match our predetermined notion of what we think they SHOULD be needs to stop...

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