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Former NPR journalist Juan Williams became infamous for saying a few words on the Bill O’Reilly show. Here’s what he said, as written on the Washington Post:

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country,” he said. “But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they’re identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

Williams, racist or not, was echoing a sentiment that many Americans have experienced after 9/11. As naive and xenophobic as this fear is, it’s hard to avoid it in the wake of years of negative media coverage of Muslim extremists.

Since 2001, we’ve been at war with terrorists. According to the media, these terrorists are dour-looking Muslim men, some (but not all) in traditional Muslim garb. Airports and airplanes have been one of this war’s most visible battlegrounds. Americans fear the enemy, and the enemy manifests in our collective minds as a Muslim person, regardless of whether this image is factually accurate or not. A Muslim-looking person at an airport excites our fear of the enemy.

In this sense, Williams was being honest. Yes, this image of the enemy has to do with race and religion; it’s a racist image. But it’s an image that many Americans share. Because we’re at war, we have an enemy, and the enemy happens to look a certain way. It happened with the Japanese and communists in the past; today, it’s happening with Muslims.

This fear doesn’t justify racism. But being overtly politically correct–firing a veteran journalist for being honest about his racist fear, which many Americans share–is suppressing an essential discussion. A discussion about how racist we really are, why we fear Muslims in airports. NPR could open a discussion about how this is affecting the Muslim population, about what we can do about this bigotry, whether it’s a part of being at war, who’s perpetuating these images. Openly discussing our perceptions helps us understand them. NPR, of all organizations, should understand this.

Instead, NPR chose to cut off the dialogue by cutting out the man who could have started it. Instead of addressing the issue through an interview with Juan Williams, or a series of honest exposes about Americans’ perceptions of Muslims, NPR took the politically correct, no-controversy stance. Maybe it was easier for NPR to do that, but I don’t think it helps the American public.

If we look at our fears in a cold, hard light, we might come to a new understanding of where they come from. We might open a necessary dialogue about race in America. But NPR cut that down. As a result, we’re the ones who missed out.

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