Community Groups Gather to Discuss Islamophobia
As President Donald Trump signed an executive order that halted the entrance of certain Muslim immigrants into the United States and threatened the immigration status of others, a gathering of about 200 people met at the Ethical Culture Society of Westchester in White Plains, Sunday, to discuss the prevention and remedies for hate crimes against Muslims in Westchester County.
A panel discussion organized by the Westchester Coalition Against Islamophobia (WCAI) included speakers from several organizations. The speakers were Afaf Nasher, Executive Director, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – NY; Heidi Mason, Westchester County Assistant District Attorney and Chief of the Bias Unit; and William Hayes, Executive Director, Westchester Intelligence Center, Office of the District Attorney-Westchester County.
The event was organized before the President’s executive orders were signed because “calls for banning immigration and establishing a registry of Muslims during the presidential campaign and its aftermath had been accompanied by an alarming surge in verbal and physical Islamophobic assaults,” according to a statement released by WCAI. The panelists were asked to provide specific ways that Muslims as individuals and in communities could deter aggression, explain hate crimes law in New York State, discuss how the District Attorney’s Office and law enforcement enforce these laws, and outline what to do if someone feels that he or she has been the victim of a bias crime.
Unlike many of the emotional protests held across the country at airports and other locations, the meeting in White Plains was serious and informational. The questions asked by Muslim members of the community expressed their concerns and the outpouring of support from the numerous elected officials present, who wanted to hear what their constituents were experiencing, and the support of neighbors was in many ways consoling.
Assistant District Attorney, Heide Mason, made the following points: There is always a ripple effect from hate crime instances. Nothing is too minor. Reporting of a crime is important. If it is not reported then it is almost as if it did not happen. Hate Crimes are hate crimes depending on intent and not because some one perceives them as such.
Mason gave out her number and encouraged people to call her directly. She said she is prepared to prosecute.
WCAI describes Islamophobia as a contagion fueled by ignorance and exploited for political purposes. To combat it, the organization suggests taking the following steps:
Discuss issues of religious and ethnic bigotry and specifically of anti-Muslim prejudice with family, friends, and colleagues and in their houses of worship.
Send letters to local media and local and regional officials calling upon them to denounce hate speech and Islamophobia, to condemn their manifestations, and to commit to protecting Muslims and their civil rights.
Propose that Metro North and other public entities solicited by Islamophobic groups refuse to carry ads that target ethnic or religious communities or at least use any revenue gained from such ads to support organizations that combat extremism.
Call upon religious leaders and communities of faith to assume their natural role in educating their congregations about the moral issues posed by religious bigotry and intolerance.
WCAI has its roots in an ad hoc coalition of local organizations that coalesced in August 2012 when the first Islamophobic ads posted by Pamela Geller and her American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) appeared on some Metro North train platforms. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists Stop Islamization of America, also founded by these two, as a “hate group.” The original coalition sponsored an open letter and a press conference in September 2012, to raise awareness among citizens and their representatives about the threat posed by Islamophobia, a phenomenon inflamed in the post- 9/11 climate of fear and ignorance that has targeted Muslims, Arabs, Middle Easters, Sikhs, and other South Asians. From harassment of individuals and hostility to mosques and cultural centers to physical assaults, arson, police infiltration of Muslim organizations, and legislation that discriminates against Islamic religious practices, WCAI says the spread of Islamophobia is a danger that calls on all people of conscience to stand up and take action. “History has taught us that none of us is safe if any of us is threatened.”
