by Conor Friedersdorf
Radley Balko writes that Muslim immigration in America is a success story:
In contrast to many of the minority Muslim populations in Europe, American Muslims embrace modernity, are better educated, and earn more money than their non-Muslim fellow citizens. A 2007 Pew poll suggests American Muslims are also doing just fine when it comes to assimilating and viewing themselves as part of America. According to the poll, just 5 percent of American Muslims express any level of support for Al Qaeda, and strong majorities condemn suicide attacks for any reason (80+ percent), and have a generally positive image of America and its promise for Muslims.
According to the poll, the only subset of American Muslims where support for Al Qaeda and suicide attacks gets uncomfortably high is among native-born African-American converts, many of whom converted in prison. To the extent that this particular subset of American Muslims is more prone to radicalism and less optimistic about America, it has nothing to do with immigration/assimilation problems, and seems more likely to stem from lingering hostility about race. That is, it's an American problem, not a Muslim problem.
I'd wager this success is due partly to the fact that the constitutional approach to American assimilation, as articulated by Ross Douthat, is more common than his account of the cultural approach.