Discrimination vs. Patriotism

            Yesterday, I was standing in line at a Starbucks when I noticed a peculiar situation occurring. The man in front of me, who happened to be wearing a turban, seemed to cause a disturbance to some of the employees. I heard a lot of whispering back and forth behind the counter, and eventually, the man at the cash register asked for the man’s ID. Finally, after thoroughly checking it, he took the man’s order. I was slightly distressed by what had just happened, so I decided to ask the cashier why he asked the man in the turban for his ID. His response was quite shocking. He said, “I just wanted to take all the necessary precautions in case he turned out to be one of them.” I then rhetorically asked him what “one of them meant” and he replied, “you know, a terrorist.” I knew what he meant, but I didn’t want to know what he meant. Unfortunately, this kind of discriminatory behavior seems to happen more than we think it does.

I was able to recall an episode of What Would You Do? on the show 20/20 on ABC in which the director, John Quinones investigated what would happen when a Muslim woman wearing a traditional scarf was denied service by a racist cashier. Take a look…

As you can see, discrimination remains a very common behavior, even today. But what really shocked me about this clip was the fact that there was such a wide range of reactions at the same small town bakery. While some people commended the man’s behavior, others spoke out against it. It seemed as if both parties believed that what they were doing was “American.” Some of them thought that acting in a discriminatory way towards the Muslim woman was “American” because in their minds she could be a potential terrorist and they thought that by denying her service, the cashier was defending his country. However, others thought that defending the woman was the “American” thing to do because the United States was based on equal rights, and therefore, the woman should be given the same service as the rest of them.

Why do some Americans see discrimination towards Muslims to be patriotic while others don’t? What is patriotism and what makes people define certain things as patriotic and other things as not?