If Juan Williams had said, "I am afraid when I see people in Muslim garb on my flight. I am wrong. It is a prejudice that I am struggling to overcome," he should be commended. Again, unfortunately for Juan Williams, he related this fear to the fact that the hijackers who committed the 9/11 attacks were Muslim and that somehow a person was shackled by political correctness if they didn't admit to the same fear.
Yes, all of the hijackers were Muslims. Unfortunately for Juan Williams, they numbered only 19 out of a global Muslim population of over a billion. So to conflate all Muslims with the hijackers is utterly disrespectful to all precepts of logic. He may not have explicitly said "Muslims were responsible for 9/11" as Bill O'Reilly has, but the implication of his comment was very clear. I am scared of Muslims because Muslims committed 9/11.
The part of Juan Williams's quote that struck me as additionally illogical was the reference to "Muslim garb." None of the hijackers on 9/11 wore Muslim garb that day. It would be more accurate (though still incredibly illogical) to say, "I fear dark skin men wearing western clothes when I get on a plane because of 9/11." But, imagine you're a Muslim terrorist about to embark on your mission; would you wear Muslim garb? That's just bad terroristing. Let's now turn to a portion of the preeminent guide for terrorists.
The al Qaeda Guide to Becoming a Terrorist
1. Blend in...
Further more, can you think of any potential terrorists who attempted to attack the U.S. in Muslim garb? The shoe bomber, the Christmas day bomber, the dirty bomber, the Times Square bomber, none of them were wearing Muslim garb. Incidentally, anyone else think it's weird that they all got "bomber" in their nickname despite not actually bombing anything. By that logic, I'm going to take up the nickname of "Successful and Handsome." In any event, racial profiling is illogical, especially when it's based on obvious inaccuracies.
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