On the Muslim Woman Whose Dress Was Burned
A stance by Quinn Stewart and Trent Kannegieter
“It just becomes very numbing and wearying dealing with this day after day after day, where your faith is vilified in the public arena.”
This is a sentiment one would expect from many other nations, but not one with as saturated with religious variance as the United States. Nevertheless, these sentiments come straight from our homeland. These are the words of Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesperson for the Center for American-Islamic Relations, explaining how those of the Muslim faith find themselves viewed as second-class, their achievements and personality unable to shine through because of the God they worship. While there have been inroads in toleration over the years, unfortunately, the progress on that xenophobia has taken yet another step back this year, as today on Fifth Avenue, a man walked up to a Muslim woman and set fire to her dress, an offense which the New York City Police Department has deemed a hate crime.
In writing this article, I would like to say that these events are few and far between, or that these acts of disgrace are not something that our society sits idly by and witnesses without standing up for what is right. However, neither of those are true. This is very real. An imam and his aide were both murdered in Queens, New York. Women pushing their infants in strollers cannot go about their day without being told that they “don’t belong here.” The ugly fact is that these events still continue to exist, and as candidates in this political cycle continue to endorse xenophobic rhetoric, they prioritize an easy, fear-espoused political track over the sanctity of their own populace, over the communal coherence that has defined America for so long. In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, we stood together with all Americans, in part thanks to the touching sensitivity of those in power, regardless of their political affiliation. Today, faced with a refugee crisis and a confusing, scary world in its own right, we have neglected this nuance in an attempt to find an easy scapegoat. We have divided ourselves, and a house divided upon itself cannot stand. This cannot stand.
