All American Muslims Remember 9/11

Like those of a previous generation remembering November 22, 1963 or December 7, 1941, most of us alive today will never forget "where we were" that dark day ten years ago, when the world changed.

But TLC's controversial All-American Muslim series rings in the New Year with a provocative new telecast (10pm Eastern and Pacific on most cable systems) on Jan. 1st, which gives its cast of Midwestern Muslim believers a chance to look back on Black Tuesday from their own very unique perspective. On the day that, as one put it, "I realized that people [started looking] at me as less American."

The clip I have seen shows Deputy Mike Jaafar (who participated in a 9/11 tenth-anniversary memorial tribute at Tiger Stadium), agonizing over the deaths of so many of his brothers and sisters that day -- brother and sister police officers and firefighters, that is.

Other participants, though, tired of 9/11 being used as an excuse for what they feel to be jingoism and/or anti-Islamic hate speech, were distinctly less inclined to do anything other than try to forget the day of infamy.

All-American Muslim, which we earlier reviewed here, has attracted sponsor-boycott controversy (particularly from the Lowe's store chain), in reaction to what some people (ironically enough, many of them religious fundamentalists of a different sort) feel is a glamorous whitewash of a radical religion. But whatever one's personal beliefs, Sunday night's show might be a thought-provoking way to start off the new year, against the reruns and after the run-out sports events, to see the day that defined the past decade (at least until the financial collapse) through an entirely new set of eyes.