jennifer bryan
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Arab Muslims have made—not to make complaints or “cause trouble” about harassment or short
detention.
Discrimination by Landlords
Given the hostile climate toward Muslims and the monitoring of local mosques, the home
has become one of the few places where men and women can seek refuge. For Muslims in
Jersey City, the significance of having a respectable home increased exponentially after 9/11, as
public space became a dangerous a site in which to foster community ties. However, according
to people I interviewed, since 9/11 landlords have been more reluctant to do necessary repair
work such as fixing leaks, painting or keeping up with exterminator services. Since many Jersey
City Muslims are not homeowners, this has taken a tremendous toll on Muslim women who take
great pride in being able to keep their apartments clean. Even more problematic, some landlords
have raised rents well above the allowable increases. Although a number of Muslim women I
spoke with thought about challenging the rent increases, their husbands often insisted on paying
the high rents because they did not want to “cause trouble” given their precarious status as Arab
Muslims. In short, some landlords have taken advantage of Muslims’ vulnerability for their own
financial gain as a way to obtain additional rent money.
Hostility by Neighbors
One of the most bitter effects Muslims have had to come to terms with has been the
realization that their neighbors no longer trust or value them as fellow neighbors. Shortly after
9/11 a group of white ethnic Catholics organized a community meeting entitled “How Terrorism
Lives in Your Own Backyard!” The purpose of this meeting, as it’s title suggests, was to express
collective outrage over what it meant to live in a place that the FBI and the media had labeled a
“Terror Town.” It was an emotional meeting with as much internal bickering as external
“Othering.” Chief on the agenda was an urgent call to defend “the neighborhood” from terrorism
by rooting out “sleeper cells,” whom President Bush had warned could be doubling as Muslim
neighbors. With such convenient images available and sanctioned, some residents used them to
drum up support for a protest to close down a local mosque. One woman at the meeting said:
I was here probably with many of you when we were here protesting that mosque
being opened, about 10 years ago. Maybe it was less than that. And their high
priests or whatever were here with us, you might remember that. Now we fought
back then for it not to be open for just these types of reasons—that Jersey City’s
being called terrorist city. Why can’t we now protest to have it closed down?
Can we do that? Because I don’t feel safe.
Convention