I feel like every moment of optimism starts with something horrible that happens. I was writing this up in the 2016 claimed America thread, but I’m moving it here.
So this happened nearby:
Nothing like this happened around here, at least not on the regular, until the rise of Trump. Starting last year, like 5 fires happened in nearby mosques, and 2 of those were determined to be arson. And here’s another one. Yet, at least there’s some optimism to be had.
The people at the mosque and the community kick ass:
“Whoever did this maybe intended to discourage us not to be part of this community,” Bondogji said at a news conference later Friday morning. “But this makes us stronger than before, than ever, because of the huge amount of support and solidarity we are receiving. We are part of this community and we will stay.”
And our mayor is pretty cool:
“There are tens of thousands of Tampanians who do not happen to be Muslim but today stand with our Muslim community and say not on my watch, not in my city,” Buckhorn said. “We will not tolerate this. We will stand up in the face of opposition. We will stand up in the face of anybody who would choose to demonize anybody for any reason, specifically and directly because of their religion.”
We have a very large community of Muslims here. If you’re into hookah lounges, there are like 4-6 within 5 minutes of our university, lol. The food is never great at those places, but it’s usually pretty tasty. And that’s OK because there are a ton of good restaurants too. There is also a huge Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) branch right here too. Tons of nearby mosques and muslim centers. Our university is very forward thinking and it typically is flagged on a short list of universities that are good to attend for people coming from middle eastern countries.
So I’m not too worried about the whole thing. But, man, this Islamophobia stuff just sucks. Only takes one bad apple, etc.
We shall overcome.
