Almost immediately after Britain voted to leave the European Union, the British Pound sank in value and Britain’s economy shook. This economic downturn wasn’t super surprising, partly because polls and man-on-the-street interviews showed that Brexiteers weren’t doing it for the economy, they were doing it out of fear of immigration — specifically, Muslim immigration. Since similar fears are resurgent in America in the wake of the Orlando massacre, Samantha Bee traveled to Dearborn, Mich., on Monday’s Full Frontal to learn what she could about the country’s largest Muslim community.
Speaking to mosque leader Kassam Ali and deputy police chief Mike Jaafar, Bee learned that the American Muslim community often has a good relationship with the police, and reports people they think might be suspected terrorists. However, most such people are not terrorists or extremists, just troubled youth who need help.
“There have been instances where we were concerned about someone, but they didn’t really pan out,” Ali said. “A member of our community came to the mosque and were concerned about their child. They didn’t like what they were hearing. But they’re not terrorists, and they’re not extremists. We went ot the police, and asked the police to help us intervene with this child, and actually ended up getting the child some mental health therapy.”
“So, you actually paid attention to someone’s mental health issue?” Bee said
The next person Bee talked to was the white leader of a group that had traveled all the way from L.A. to Dearborn’s Arab Festival to wave a pig head at Muslim festivalgoers, prompting much more police intervention than any suspected Muslim terrorists. The man told Bee that his pig head stick was the Muslim equivalent of “a crucifix to a vampire.” When Bee pointed out that “almost any human being would recoil from a pig head on a stick,” this extremist doubled-down, sounding not unlike Donald Trump talking about dipping bullets in pig’s blood.
Bee went back to Ali and asked if there was anything he’d said over and over that wasn’t getting through, anything he’d like to repeat one more time “for people to ignore, this time on national television.”
“American Muslims love America, we love what our country stands for, we are proud of our country,” Ali said.
