Our Delicate Muslims by David Cole

A phone rings in the Oval Office. President Obama drops his practice club and rushes to his desk. Raising the handset of the turquoise-green, crescent-decorated emergency phone to his ear, he listens, his face reflecting the intensity of the moment. It’s as he feared—somewhere in America, a Muslim’s feelings are hurt. Brunch with Pharrell will just have to wait; this president has a tweet to compose.

Okay, so maybe it didn’t exactly happen that way. But last week, when a Muslim high school kid’s homemade clock that resembled a suitcase bomb was bafflingly mistaken for a suitcase bomb, the most powerful man in the world took time out of his day to tweet support for the humiliated student. But this piece isn’t about Mark Zuckerberg (or Obama, who also happened to send a supportive tweet). It’s about how Muslims in the West are often held to the kind of standard normally reserved for the delicate or the disabled....

“Islamophobia,” my ass. There is a double standard, but Muslims come out on the winning side of it. They are given the kind of free pass normally reserved for the mentally retarded: “Just let it go…they don’t know any better.” You would think that Muslims would find this condescending attitude offensive, but don’t expect to hear any complaints. Far from being America’s “Rain Men,” most Muslims are perceptive enough to know a good thing when they see it, and canny enough to use it as much as possible to their advantage.

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