Abraham Lincoln. Kris Kringle. Mr. T.
These are just some of the names of great men in history to grow an iconic beard. I wanted to follow in their big footsteps and grow one of my own. So I told myself I would grow out my beard for a year without trimming or cutting it.
I started in December 2015 and lasted until this past June because of a job interview I had coming up. Since the interview, I have started the challenge over again with intention to finish it.
But let me get to the point of this article. Let me tell you about some of the things I experienced and realized in the six months I had my beard.
It first started when I went to visit my home church after not attending for a while. A lot of people came to say hello and commented on my new look, but one man stood out more than the rest.
I went to shake his hand and he tells me, "Hey, Sal. Wow, you sure are starting to look like a terrorist."
He walked away as I was still caught off guard. Was he trying to make a joke and I was taking it too seriously? Maybe I didn't hear him correctly. I went back a few weeks later because I was asked to sing and play guitar for special music. After the service, I was talking with friends and he came up to me and commented on my beard again while adding that my guitar strap made it look like an AK-47 was strapped on my back.
The craziest part is that it was not just this one man. I work in landscaping and for a few weeks I had co workers coming up to me asking me my race and if I was really Mexican. I didn't make much of it until another one of my co worker's asked me the same question. I asked him why everyone was so curious about my ethnicity recently and he told me that the on-going conversation lately was that I looked like a terrorist and that you could never be too careful.
These are just a few of the many times this happened to me through these months. I am a proud Mexican-american but I was insulted all the same.
It would be completely different if people told me I looked middle eastern or Pakistani, that would just be an observation and one that I could agree with. But when they see someone who looks like I did and assume 'terrorist', it becomes a problem of racial profiling and Islamophobia.
There are about 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States as of 2015, according to the Pew Research Center. Out of the 201 mass shootings that took place that year, only one had been committed by an Islamic extremist.
I hear every where that people are trying to take away political correctness and want to talk candidly and freely. But do people understand the impact of their words. I often wonder if the same people who made comments to me said these things because they knew I wasn't muslim or if they would have said it regardless of my race.
It's time to start using our rhetoric more carefully and think about the things we say. It might sound like just a joke to you, but are you marginalizing people at the expense of a laugh? Just think before you speak.
