This is a story of two Americans. One, born into poverty; the other, a refugee without a country.
As a poor student in the high school on the wealthier side of town, Abraham [Davis] often felt like an outsider. He walked, not drove, hung out on playgrounds, not in restaurants. He got into a lot of fights. He did poorly in school, but he doesn’t remember his teachers seeming surprised. Expectations were low, and he bent to fit them. He slept a lot in class. At 18, he dropped out.
Fort Smith [Arkansas] has two country clubs, several golf courses, a Talbots and a symphony orchestra. But a proliferation of pawnshops and a circuit court crowded with indigent defendants are reminders of the grinding poverty all around, in the rural areas of western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, on the “other side of town”,
A Palestinian who grew up just outside Damascus in Syria, Hisham [Yasin] sold fruits and vegetables in an outdoor market. He came to the United States in 1996, joining his parents and an older brother. Hisham imagined Beverly Hills, but found himself in western Arkansas in a rotting house with rats and cockroaches. He washed dishes at the Golden Corral. His father collected cans. He and a brother, Abdul Rahman, opened a used-car business. They called it A & H Auto Sales.
Today, Hisham lives in a grand house in Fort Smith with sparkling chandeliers on the edge of a thick green forest of oak and pine. He is 49 and has the look of an affable neighborhood baker, with a big belly and a broad smile. He is giving his three children what he calls a “five-star life” compared with his own, which he says began at “below zero.” He follows the news about Syria daily. But Arkansas is his home. He considers the day he came to the United States — Feb. 11 — his birthday.
Yasin was one of the founders of Masjid Al Salam, the main house of worship for Fort Smith’s Muslim community. It’s a ranch style building on one of the busy thoroughfares in the city. Their belief was that the Muslims in the city should be forthright and confident, and out in the open. This would then engender trust and respect.
In truth, it seemed that very few people knew there were Muslims in Fort Smith. Until one night last October.
But First:
Here at Top Comments we welcome longtime as well as brand new Daily Kos readers to join us at 10pm Eastern. We strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
For whatever reason—regret has a thousand mothers—Abraham and a friend got drunk on whiskey. Abraham borrowed his mother’s minivan and drove his friend to the mosque, where he watched his friend draw swastikas all over it.
When Hisham saw the vandalism the next day, he called police. He called journalists. And then something happened.
The mosque’s phone started ringing, and didn’t stop. Churches called. A synagogue called. Buddhists called. So did residents who had seen the news or simply driven by. One man called, crying. His daughter had seen the graffiti on her way to work and told him about it. He said the vandals could not have been Christians. No true Christian would have done it.
Anas Bensalah, a mosque member who had taken the day off to help with the cleanup, told the man that he understood completely: That was exactly how he felt every time there was an attack by the Islamic State.
Over the next week, the mosque was snowed under with cards and letters. Some people brought flowers. Most of the letters were from Fort Smith and the surrounding towns, but some were from as far as Reston, Va.
Abraham was identified and arrested. Not being able to afford the $1500 cash needed for his bond, he awaited his trial in jail. While there, he had time to think about what he had become, the direction of his life, and where he wanted to go. So he wrote a letter:
“Dear Masjid Al Salam Mosque,” Abraham wrote. “I know you guys probably don’t want to hear from me at all but I really want to get this to y’all. I’m so sorry about having a hand in vandalising your mosque. It was wrong and y’all did not deserve to have that done to you. I hurt y’all and I am haunted by it. And even after all this you still forgave me. You are much better people than I.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, and that is honestly really scary. But I just wouldn’t want to keep going on without trying to make amends. I wish I could undo the pain I helped to cause. I used to walk by your mosque a lot and ask myself why I would do that. I don’t even hate Muslims. Or anyone for that matter.
“All in all,” he concluded, “I just want to say I’m sorry.”
Noah [Abraham’s brother] drove the letter to the mosque on a Friday. He took off his shoes as a sign of respect and introduced himself. Dr. Nassri {Head of the mosque] was moved. No one had expected to hear from the vandals. Certainly not like this.
The mosque decided not to press charges against Abraham and strongly opposed a felony charge.
However, the prosecutor had other ideas:
Because the crime was an act of bigotry, Abraham would have to plead guilty to a felony or face trial. He would avoid prison, but only if he remained on good behavior for three years. Any minor violation could land him behind bars for six years. The best outcome he could hope for would be to get a judge to seal his record — in eight years.
If the damages were more than $1000, it would be a felony. The mosque submitted paperwork showing the cleanup to be $500, but the prosecutor sought its own estimate. It came back $1800.
Abraham took the plea. The prosecutor noted that they had asked for “mercy and leniency”. The judge responded. He accepted their pleas and then lectured them:
“If the victims in this case had not approved of this, I would not have done it,” he said. “You would have gone to trial, and there is a good chance all three of you would have gone to prison. So you need to think twice before you do something, which is just stupid. What you did was just stupid.”
Fast forward, and Hisham contemplates on how the incident has drawn the entire community together:
Hisham believes the vandalism of his mosque was one of the best things to happen to the Muslims of Fort Smith. The crime allowed them to reveal themselves — to say, “We are your doctors, your accountants and your used-car salesmen.” They now have a relationship with the synagogue in town. Several members, including Dr. Al-Shahrouri, the kidney specialist, have begun speaking to local audiences about Islam.
There is a saying from the Quran: “You may hate something that happens to you, but actually it’s excellent for you”.
But second chances in America are hard to come by. You can do a stupid thing and pay for it, but afterward no one will hire you. Hisham has helped two men in this situation. They do odd jobs at his car lot. He went to court with them when no one else would. He helped one buy a washing machine, and paid for the other to bury a relative.
“Someone messes up and it sticks with him all his life,” Hisham said. “Even if he tries to become a good man, the community say to him, ‘You are a bad man!’ They encourage him to be a bad man.”
Abraham has certainly realized this. After his release, he has started to put his life back together. He is performing his community service, and there are at least 20 employers in Fort Smith that will hire felons. However, being poor has its own obstacles. The day he started working at Goodwill as part of his community service, his family’s water was cut off and the phone about to be disconnected. The employers did not accept in person paper applications, so he had to go the the library to use the computer to apply for work. He is working and working on paying his fines and costs. Shortly after his release, he also wanted to visit the mosque to apologize personally, but his public defender recommended against it. He did, however post a message on Facebook offering his thanks to the members of the mosque for their help and prayers, and offering his blessings in return. He received a reply on Facebook the next day from Hisham’s son:
“Bro move on with life we forgave you from the first time you apologized don’t let that mistake bring you down,” he had written. And then, Abraham’s favorite line: “I speak for the whole Muslim community of fort smith we love you and want you to be the best example in life we don’t hold grudges against anybody!”
It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him.
Please read the entire story as I have stretched Fair Use way past its limits. And now on to Tops!
TOP COMMENTS
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down. Please remember that comment inclusion in Top Comments does not constitute support or endorsement by diarist, formatter, Top Comments writers or DailyKos. Questions, complaints or comments? Contact brillig.
From Wee Mama:
AfricanLived points out just how short the dominance of Democrats in the Senate lasted in Obama’s first term. Posted in Greg Dworkin’s APR this morning.
TOP MOJO
Top Mojo for yesterday, September 19, 2017, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on FAQing Top Mojo.
TOP PICTURES
Top Pictures for yesterday, September 19, 2017. Click any picture to be taken to the full comment or picture. Thank you jotter!