Dear Muslims, ask not what Juan Williams did to you, but what you can do for Juan Williams

National Public Radio just fired Juan Williams, one of its long-time contributors.  NPR fired him for saying this, on FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly program:

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot….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 said.

NPR, didn’t you hear him, or are your ears too stuffed full of liberal cotton? He’s not a bigot.  He totally put the “not” in there.  Also, I hear that some of his best friends are Muslims.  But they’re just not, you know, the ones who take a plane wearing those little hats and those long, kinda girly robes.  And by. the. way.

“It’s not a bigoted statement,” [Williams] told Fox News in an interview the cable news network ran throughout the day. “In fact, in the course of this conversation with Bill O’Reilly, I said we have an obligation as Americans to be careful to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in our country and to make sure that we don’t have any outbreak of bigotry. But that there’s a reality. You can not ignore what happened on 9/11 and you cannot ignore the connection to Islamic radicalism, and you can’t ignore the fact of what has even recently been said in court with regard to this is the first drop of blood in a Muslim war in America.”

I mean, hel-lo! He’s saying there shouldn’t be an outbreak of bigotry!  Didn’t anyone, like, hear him?

So Muslims — all of you, because you all think and look and dress alike — I think you should listen up.

Williams is fighting an outbreak of bigotry by putting a little bitty bit of bigotry out there.  It’s like an inoculation.  And you’ll be grateful when you guys blow something up again, but the Americans who took their Juan Williams Vaccine hold their fire instead of shooting dark-skinned sikhs at gas stations (Oops! Not a Muslim!  Honest mistake, though: Brown people in turbans all look alike.)

In fact, Muslims, I think you should help out Williams and other Americans like him.  We’re not bigots.  We’re just, you know, ignorant.  If we understood why you took your shoes off after airport security, we might not be afraid.  So here’s what I think you should do:

You patriotic Muslims (and I don’t care what Sarah Palin says, I believe you’re out there) should get together and start a hotline.  1-800-DIAL-A-MUSLIM.  You should man a call center with Muslims around the world, to whom quivering Americans about to board planes can describe the manner of dress or behavior that’s scaring the crap out of them.  “These Muslims look to me to be wearing all white,” we can tell you.  “Oh, don’t worry, those are good Muslims, very peaceful,” you can answer to calm us down.

Or, “That Muslim’s wife is in one of those big long black things, the one with the slit for the eyes, and like four kid are clinging to her.  What if she’s got a bomb under there?” we can whimper.  You might follow up with, “Did she go through the poof-spray detector thing at security?”   “No,” we might say, “we don’t have one of those out here, only the ordinary metal detector.”  “Oh, well, shit,” you might answer, just to screw with us.  And then you can giggle and say, “No, no, no, I’m just kidding.  Really, it’s okay, stop crying.  Would you put your kids on a plane you were about to blow up?”

See, we feel better already.  Don’t you?