Flying While Muslim: Does Discrimination Lead to Poor Health?

Last week, a Senate subcommittee heard about the harassment Muslim Americans are subjected to while flying. Farhana Khera, director of a Muslim legal advocacy organization, shared stories of law-abiding citizens who were detained, searched, and interrogated about their political opinions while traveling.

As a Muslim American, I have to alter my behavior to avoid those kinds of situations. Flying to and from Wisconsin this past weekend for a wedding, my husband and I encountered the usual problems of air travel: a delayed flight; our 2-year-old, who refused to sit down. But being Muslims, we had to tackle another kind of logistics: At the Milwaukee airport, where I couldn’t quickly find a chapel, we offered our afternoon prayers in a dimly lit and somewhat stinky baby-changing room rather than pray in public and risk being questioned or even barred from our flight.

Given such real and threatened legal harassment, and the general suspicion of all things Muslim—as evidenced recently when Barack Obama volunteers barred two women in head scarves from appearing near the candidate (Obama later personally apologized)—I wanted to know: Has there been a rise in stress-related ailments among Muslim Americans?

“Right now, there is no published research with that finding—but there are many anecdotes,” Hamada Hamid, editor of the Journal of Muslim Mental Health, told me. “Clinically, what we’ve seen since 9/11 is that for [Muslims] who already had emotional stress or depression, or more severe psychological illness, the increased stress in many cases worsened their conditions.”

Other observers of the American Muslim community have reported increases in stress-related illness, and one researcher found evidence of post-9/11 psychological difficulties among Arab Americans. The Council on American-Islamic Relations reported almost 2,500 incidences of civil rights complaints in 2006, including workplace discrimination, citizenship delays, and “overzealous” government action related to border crossings and terrorism watch lists. These figures, however, have been disputed.

Personally, I haven’t faced harassment, aside from two comments shouted at me in the week after 9/11, a time when I used to wear a Muslim headscarf. Now, because my clothing doesn’t stand out and my last name and that of my husband are not “Muslim-sounding,” I am rarely if ever identified by strangers as a Muslim. And when acquaintances do learn that fact about me, they usually express curiosity rather than hostility. It’s a different story for some of my friends, who wear head scarves or have Arabic or South Asian last names.

Of course, Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. are not the first to experience prejudice and discrimination, and researchers have suggested—though they have not completely proven—that chronic exposure to racism can lead directly to poor health.

So what can Muslim Americans (and people who are mistaken for Muslims Americans, such as Sikhs or Arab American Christians) do to cope with the stress of these heated times?

“People should communicate distress, whether to friends or family members or professionals, so people can offer help,” said Hamid. Noting that post-9/11 government actions against Muslim charities have “decimated” nonprofit organizations that once provided services to Muslim Americans, Hamid urged Muslim communities to reemphasize family networks and other support mechanisms.

And for those who work with or provide services to Muslims? “We should all be aware of our biases and attitudes toward different cultures and ethnicities,” said Hamid. “That self-awareness is the first step to preventing discrimination and poor treatment.”

(PHOTO: CORBIS)

 
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