Hate Crimes
The second was a workshop on Islamophobia that we conducted on Saturday night. Our curriculum walked them through islamophobic microagressions cases to larger systematic forms of oppression and state violence, and then finally, closing with tools to combat and resist. With about 75% of the youth being non-Muslims, our biggest concern with the workshop was emphasizing the need for pan-South Asian solidarity when it comes to being racialized as “Brown” in America and how Islamophobia wasn’t just a Muslim issue, but affected all communities of color. After a couple of hour of images, stats, and sharing various tools of resistance, we did a “group check-in” to see what tools the youth would take back with them to their community. Some said they would take what they learned back to student organizations on their campus, build alliances with Muslim groups, and have conversations with their family members. I thought the Islamophobia workshop had been a success, when one of the participants stated, “This is great–but it doesn’t affect my community. I don’t have to worry about this.”
I was stunned because it was clear that, as we had moved along through our narrative, we had missed this participant for some reason. Other participants spoke up, providing peer-to-peer insight and group dialogue. I wondered what we trainers could have done differently that would have worked and would have convinced this youth that Islamophobic terror was alive and well and needed solidarity, even by non-Muslims. And then we woke up Sunday morning to the devastating shooting at the Sikh Gurudwara in Oak Tree, Wisconsin. It is what they call a “teachable moment,” I guess.
It was I who broke the news of the shooting to our youth, after they came back from a community walk. I framed it in the context of the Islamophobia workshop from the night before. Their faces slackened, eyes went to the ground. We had a moment of silence. We kept open space for dialogue, if they wanted. They didn’t. We moved on in the curriculum, circling back to the event throughout the rest of the weekend.
I hated doing that.
I hate that, in order to train our youth to be activists and leaders, we need to teach them about the hate in the world and how they will be hated for things beyond their control. I hate how quickly and easily a real world example fell into our laps after a tough workshop on concepts that go above most people’s heads. I hate that it’s been over ten years since September 11th and that we are not done with this–and instead of backlash, fear of “the other Brown” is now intrinsically systematic within our society and media, with seven foundations having funding $42 million of Islamophobic hate (according to Fear, Inc.). I hate that feeling that four days wasn’t enough for the BASS training and that we didn’t give our youth enough tools, or education, or love to counter all the hate they will face as future organizers.
At the closing circle for BASS, each youth grabbed an image from the South Asian Legacy timeline, and shared why they were taking back that particular image with them. It was hard to close the safe and loving space we had created for our team of organizers and participants, knowing what was out there in the real world. As I drove down the I-5 away from Oakland back home to Los Angeles, I prayed that we had equipped our BASS youth with enough love and fire to face this grief filled unjust world as fighters and with bravado. Ameen.
In the days since the shooting and BASS, the events haven’t stopped. It is almost as if the white supremacists saw what happened in Wisconsin and were empowered even further to act out. In the past 11 days the South Asian community has been the recipient of eight attacks and counting. A mosque in Missouri was burned to the ground. Shots were fired from a pellet rifle at the wall of a mosque in Chicago. Nearby, a soda bottle full of acid was flung at an Islamic school. In Rhode Island, a man head-butted and took a hammer to a sign in front of a mosque and in Hayward, teens were caught pelting oranges and lemons at mosque attendees.
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