“Do you think the shooter is Arab?” My brother asked me when he called me to tell me what was happening at Fort Hood yesterday afternoon.

News of it had just broke and neither of us knew his identity.

I remember asking him if he was just joking, or if he was being overly paranoid because so much experience has trained us assume that any violent attack reported in mainstream media was incited by an Arab or Muslim.

Then, “dammit!” I shouted learning from the newest news report that Nidal Malik Hasan was of Arab descent.

“I hope we’re not back to square one,” I kept thinking.

The wounds that I thought had healed from the 9-11 backlash began to reopen. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions as to how my American friends or colleagues or neighbors would address me as an Arab-American in the wake of this. I have more faith in them than that and I know that in the last eight years after the September 11 attacks, Americans are much more understanding and the current government is seeking to grow relations with Arabs and Muslims much more than in 2001, but still, it’s too difficult to forget the toll 9/ll took on me and Arabs and Muslims throughout the country.

When I learned Malik was an Arab, I immediately remembered when a police officer stopping me the following few days after 9/11. He told me that I didn’t completely stop at a stop sign, when I and everyone else in the car knew I did. The officer wanted my license and registration and immediately began asking me questions about my ethnic background. The same happened on numerous occasions, and still to this day, when I am “randomly selected” for airport security search, and security employees ask me what my ethnic background is, whether I was born in the U.S., whether I have visited the Arab and Muslim World. Unfortunately, it’s something that I and several others in my position have learned to accept, but wish were never the case.

Discrimination against Arabs and Muslims, particularly post-9/11, has been documented, and this blog isn’t intended to be “some other complaint.”

The point at issue is that discrimination against Arabs and Muslims remains a glaring problem and the mainstream media’s perpetuated stereotypes only exacerbate the situation.

Like anyone with an honest conscience and a heart, I feel horrible that 13 innocent people lost their lives. I condemn the violence and anything else like it, but I feel even worse that the alleged shooter is an Arab. Even though this is an individual crime that should not and does not represent Arabs and Muslims, and far from 9/11, it will unfortunately be difficult to convince the countless Americans following the mainstream hype.

-Suzanne Manneh