By Omar Suleiman | Religion News Service
(WASHINGTON POST) (RNS) — Over the past few years, our faith communities in North America have been brought together largely through trauma: attacks at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh; a Quebec mosque; the Sikh temple outside of Madison, Wisconsin; and most recently in London, Ontario, against a Muslim family.
Islamophobic, antisemitic and other bigoted attacks have been rampant, and certainly not only restricted to our places of worship. Many victims have been murdered in public in unprovoked attacks while going about their daily lives, dining at restaurants or, as in the London case, out for an evening walk.
Some, such as Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, three young Muslims in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, have even been killed in their homes. I would be remiss to not mention the numerous victims of police violence such as Botham Jean and Atatiana Jefferson in Dallas-Fort Worth, where I live, whose deaths horrified us all.
What the violence has ushered in for many of us are routine messages of support, news conferences of condemnation and expressions of solidarity from politicians and faith leaders across the spectrum — almost expected courtesies of sorts that haven’t actually slowed down the violence itself. Yet politicians still decorate their resumes and campaign speeches with their symbolic support of targeted communities to portray themselves as champions of inclusivity.
Worse yet, many of those same politicians and faith leaders seem to have no problem employing the same violent tactics against these communities globally.
As I wrote when President Joe Biden won election in the fall, pleasant rhetoric doesn’t undo horrific policies and in fact may even perpetuate them. While Biden ended the Muslim travel ban, he certainly hasn’t stopped the bombs over Muslim heads in places like Yemen and Palestine.
