Americans Without Americanness

Is our nation nothing more than an address?

I WILL never forget a conversation I had with two twentysomething Muslims not long after 9/11. One had been born and raised in the United States, the other had come here at a young age. It was clear from our conversation, though they gingerly avoided putting it explicitly, that neither of them entirely disapproved of what Osama bin Laden had done. There were, of course, multiple recitations of “I think what he did was terrible”-but delivered with a certain lack of emotional commitment. What came through was a sentiment that, in the end, something terrible had been necessary for bin Laden to get across a valuable message. I did not find it hard to imagine that the two young Muslims would have been more explicit about this with each other had I not been present.

JM

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John McWhorter

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Is our nation nothing more than an address?

I WILL never forget a conversation I had with two twentysomething Muslims not long after 9/11. One had been born and raised in the United States, the other had come here at a young age. It was clear from our conversation, though they gingerly avoided putting it explicitly, that neither of them entirely disapproved of what Osama bin Laden had done. There were, of course, multiple recitations of “I think what he did was terrible”-but delivered with a certain lack of emotional commitment. What came through was a sentiment that, in the end, something terrible had been necessary for bin Laden to get across a valuable message. I did not find it hard to imagine that the two young Muslims would have been more explicit about this with each other had I not been present.