Hate Crimes Against Muslims

Four members of a Canadian Muslim family were killed by a man who ran them over in his pickup truck targeting them in an attack motivated by hate, police said on Monday. Among those killed in the incident on Sunday night were a 74-year-old woman, a 46-year-old man, a 44-year-old woman, and a 15-year-old girl. A 9-year-old boy was in a serious condition with non-fatal injuries. Detective Superintendent Paul Waight of the London police department told reporters that "There is evidence that this was a planned, premeditated act, motivated by hate and we believe the victims were targeted because of their Islamic faith,"
The suspect was wearing a body-armor-type vest and ran a traffic light to kill the family who was walking on the sidewalk. London Mayor Ed Holder said, "We grieve for the family, three generations of whom are now deceased and this was an act of mass murder, perpetrated against Muslims, against Londoners, and rooted in unspeakable hatred."
As an American Muslim, I am deeply saddened by the atrocity that happened in Ontario, and I stand in solidarity with the victims, their friends, and their families. There is no justification for such a horrible act. Unfortunately, with the loss of so many innocent lives, Muslims face yet another threat in the name of religion.
After 9/11 it is distressing to see that hate crimes against Muslims continue to happen while these gruesome acts should not have any place in our civilized society. There is no satisfactory answer for the prejudice against Muslims by their fellow citizens. In the countless racial assaults that have occurred in the past half-century, the tale is one of unending abuse.
After twenty years, the animosity hasn't stopped, and anti-Muslim sentiment fueled by 9/11 continues to affect the rest of the Muslims in America. In a survey from 2017, 75% of Muslim Americans said there’s a lot of discrimination against Muslims in the United States, with 48% of those surveyed responding they had experienced at least one incident of discrimination in the last year. Across America, Muslims have continued to speak out about the ways they’re treated with suspicion, called names, or singled out by airport security. Yet most tragically of all, the persistence of the persecution of Muslims, perhaps, leading to the downturn of nations--terrorists now brazenly assail new victims, cascading their trails of violence against all that are not just like them.
While the attacks that day caused huge destruction, horrendous consequences were endless for Muslims— with a rise in Islamophobia throughout the United States. To increase awareness about Islam, Muslims have initiated several campaigns. To serve humanity they have created and utilized programs collaborating with partner organizations to provide relief services to families of all faiths. They are working to relieve poverty in their local communities by providing grants and assistance and serving socially disadvantaged individuals and families in poor communities and disaster-struck areas of the world. Their goal is to offer possible developmental solutions to society while providing and empowering local communities with the resources to help and sustain themselves. Several emergency response teams have been sent out to disaster-struck and most vulnerable areas. The atmosphere promotes peace and harmony based on mutual respect and assistance.
Muslims have been doing community services to educate and persuade the mindsets of people that Islam is synonymous with terrorism. They are also organizing workshops just to spread awareness. Some of these initiatives are Muslims for Life, Muslims for Peace, and Muslims for Humanity. To honor the victims of 9/11 and emphasize Islam’s peaceful teachings regarding the sanctity of life, Muslims in the USA began organizing blood drives all across the nation in 2011. The “Muslims for Life” campaign has now become a nationwide annual event. Over the ten years since its inception, the Muslims for Life campaign has facilitated over 1,500 blood drives which collected 60,000 pints-enough to have helped save as many as 180,000 lives.
Our politicians and government officials should stop Islamophobia by building relationships with local Muslims and advocate against anti-Islamic rhetoric. And media, where Islamophobia is not limited to print, or online but pronounced on television as well, should not fuel the narrative of Islam as an inherently violent religion.
On television panel discussions are broadcast about whether Islam is a violent religion, in which panel members do not just ask the question, they’re perpetuating prejudice. This is the reason why a good percentage of Americans hold this view that all Muslims are terrorists. Instead of presenting a just and well-balanced discussion and dispel the myth, they legitimize them. Instead of relying on credible sources of expertise on the matter, the mainstream media more often give opinions, which makes it a platform to propagate misinformation and biased statements.
Corey Saylor, the legislative director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, says, “We still see this expectation that Muslim institutions have to come out and condemn things that you wouldn’t expect other groups have to condemn. There’s the assumption of collective responsibility. All the good things Muslims are doing get ignored while the barbaric subset of the Muslim world that claims our faith becomes our spokespeople.” The media’s role is to erase distinctions between terrorists and non-terrorists, and between attackers and victims so that people can understand the faults of stereotyping a whole religion of billions of people, specifically, 1.6 billion.
It is time to be more receptive to the sensitivities of other religions. Political officials should not let biased judgments cloud their decisions and make them about a safe life. Violence against one religious group is a societal problem and we should all work together to address the root causes of this since one's religion, race or color should not decide one's fate. By following the true teachings of any religion, we can become humans who share the universal bond of peace, love, and harmony.