Muslim Americans reported hate incidents nationwide on 9/11 anniversary
As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 passed Saturday, Muslim Americans braced for what community leaders said happens every year around this time: a wave of hate and overt Islamophobia. Passersby outside the Islamic Centre of Greater Austin in Texas discovered a bloodied mask of a pig’s head and a sign planted in the ground. “These […]
Muslim Americans reported hate incidents nationwide on 9/11 anniversary
As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 passed Saturday, Muslim Americans braced for what community leaders said happens every year around this time: a wave of hate and overt Islamophobia.
Passersby outside the Islamic Centre of Greater Austin in Texas discovered a bloodied mask of a pig’s head and a sign planted in the ground.
“These kind of crimes affect families, communities and our entire nation,” Zainab Chaudry, a director with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told NBC Asian America.
But they’re not new, she said, and the post-9/11 landscape for Muslims in the U.S. has been brutal. CAIR recently reported that a vast majority of Muslims have experienced discrimination since the 2001 attacks.
Additionally, a 2020 survey showed a sharp decline in Muslim American satisfaction with the country after former President Donald Trump took office in 2017.
9/11 is always a particularly difficult day, Chaudry said.
“Some Muslims take off from work; others plan so they won’t have to leave home that day,” she said. “Parents have confided they keep their children home from school, while many mosques step up security measures.”
The vandalism of a mosque in Grand Blanc, Michigan, on Saturday led to calls from Muslim leaders for the incident to be investigated as a possible hate crime.
Aicha Toure, a Black Muslim woman who wears a hijab, was allegedly assaulted and called a “Muslim terrorist” on a Spirit Airlines flight from Atlanta to Detroit by a white female passenger.
In Maryland, CAIR received reports of a woman who was harassed with racist comments by a white neighbour and a Muslim child bullied by a teacher and peers the Friday before 9/11. A statement from CAIR said the family of the young boy detailed an Islamophobic 9/11 lesson plan, during which the teacher asked their son to tell the class who was responsible for the attacks.
“This kind of scapegoating and harassment can have a lasting impact into adulthood,” Chaudry said in a statement posted online. “Every student is entitled to a safe learning environment.”