The Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, sports a population
of about 100,000 people. It’s the birthplace of Henry Ford and the longtime
world headquarters of the Ford Motor Company.
Per the 2020
census, slightly over half
of its population is of North African or Middle Eastern ancestry, the highest
percentage of Muslim residents in the United States. Its current mayor, Democrat
Abdullah Hammoud, is a Muslim who was born in Dearborn.
As I noted in an earlier piece, a Christian minister named Ted
Barham recently showed up at a City Council meeting to protest the
renaming of two intersections in honor of Osama Siblani, a local journalist…and
supporter of terrorism. Barham cited articles in which Siblani had written that
“the blood of the martyrs irrigates the land of Palestine” and opined that
everyone should fight within his means, including “with stones, others…with
guns, others…with planes, drones, and rockets.” Barham understandably stated:
“I feel like having that sign up there is almost like naming a street Hezbollah
Street or Hamas Street.”
The Dishonorable Mayor proceeded to call
Barham a “bigot,” a “racist,” and an “Islamophobe. He added: “Although you
live here, I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here. And the day
you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the
fact that you moved out of this city.”
Hammoud’s new campaign video is subtitled in Arabic. For
that matter, so is most of Dearborn.
I find this sadly ironic. Henry Ford invented the
assembly line near Dearborn, an innovation which greatly enhanced efficiency
and productivity…and directly led to the production of the first car that the
middle class could afford. Ford said of his ‘Model T,’ you can have it in any
color…as long as it’s black. (And they called him a racist, LOL!) Ford’s
invention revolutionized the manufacture of countless items around the world,
dramatically reducing the costs of these items to consumers. “Down the line,” the
cost of other items was reduced with the improvement in speed and efficiency of
shipping brought about by the replacing of horse-drawn wagons with motorized
vehicles. Moreover, the frequency of certain illnesses was reduced with the
dramatic decrease of horse manure in the streets.
Future Fords bore names such as “Mustang” and
“Thunderbird,” a nod to the freedom, physical and spiritual, that they helped
usher in. One pictures long blonde hair trailing behind the driver of a
convertible as one of these iconic machines rolls down Route 66 or California’s
Pacific Coast Highway.
In the Dearborn of the future, that freedom might well be
in short supply.
But I’m sure you will be able to choose to belong to any
religion…as long as it is Islam.
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