Stomping around and throwing it in our faces is yet another executive order from President Donald Trump, who seems to have trouble spelling correctly. This is his second go, and probably won’t be his last because we are good human beings. For his second try at a Muslim ban, though he won’t say that, he has tried to roll it back, like we may not know. So what countries does he put out to block? Syria, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia. These are predominantly Muslim countries from predominantly Muslim region.
The argument might be that we need to be scared of Muslims, especially the countries, because of terrorism. Yet, probably not.
Most of the people fleeing these countries and coming into the U.S. are refugees, primarily from Syria and Somalia. Somalia is facing a large drought and famine, while Syria currently has a civil war that has been going on for five years while terrorists from ISIS move into the region. What you may not know is that Yemen is also facing a civil war, which has been going on for two years, and parts of Libya have been taken over by ISIS. These countries face the threat of violence and conflict, human right violations, as well as long-term unemployment.
Though some of these Muslims are refugees, others are immigrants, and the United States of America is a land of immigrants. Somehow this is hard to get through one’s head, even though all of us came from somewhere outside the U.S., but we claim that we own this land. People were here before us; we came afterward and claimed this as our own. We are the children of immigrants, much like will be the children of the immigrants that come into our country.
Within the United States of America, our Muslim neighbors and friends have been attacked. This number has soared to the highest levels since the after 9/11. This includes arson, assaults, shootings and threats of violence. Yet some threats and assaults go unreported. Research from California State University- San Bernardino states that hate crimes against American Muslims had risen 78 percent in 2015. In 2015, there were 260 hate crimes reported nationwide.
Many feel that this number is because of the terrorist attacks in Europe and hate mongering within the United States. However, the terrorist attacks do not explain the hate crime increase toward Jewish Americans and transgender Americans.
Graveyards of Jewish Americans have been degraded with many stones being knocked over and swastikas were drawn on the gravestones. Jewish Americans are not the only ones facing these growing problems, such as Jewish Britons. In the United Kingdom, hate crime against Jews had grown 36 percent in 2015.
Even in my University of Wisconsin- Superior, I found a swastika that one of my floormates had carved into the doorframe to the lounge. Though I couldn’t pinpoint the floormate who drew it, it made me nauseous to think that someone would actually do this, especially in a very public area.
For the transgender community, two transgendered women were killed in New Orleans within a 48 hour period, according to CNN. In 2016, 25 transgendered people died due to violence, the most ever recorded in one year, said Human Rights Campaign.
The L.B.G.T. community are more likely to be targeted, and with one of the largest groups in the United States, it is more than frightening. LBGTQ are twice as likely to be victims of hate crime compared to the African Americans, referring to the New York Times, and it has surpassed the number of hate crimes against Jewish Americans.
While crimes against Muslim Americans and Jewish Americans are considered hate crimes, some people do not believe there are hate crimes against LBGTQ. It becomes more and more acceptable to be part of the community, as well as an ally.
The nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida where 49 people died and another 53 people were injured, mostly of the LBGTQ community, was carried off by Omar Mateen, a Muslim. His parents Afghan, but he was American born. As well as, Afghanistan was not on the list of six countries that President Trump hopes to ban the citizens coming in. While the Pulse nightclub shooting sent a ripple through the LBGTQ community and among many people in the country, the LBGTQ community didn’t just start hating Muslims or refugees.
If this is a security issue because of Muslims, then Manteen was an American citizen.
If this is a security issue because of Muslims, in the gay nightclub shooting, he used a Sig Saucer MCX semiautomatic rifle and a 9mm handgun; and in the Sandy Hook Massacre, he (a white dude, by the way) used Bushmaster XM15-E2S semiautomatic rifle and a Glock 20SF (10mm); and Charleston Shooter had a 45-caliber Glock; and the Columbine Massacre used a Hi-Point 995 9mm carbine and a sawed-off Savage 67H 12-gauge pump shotgun and a sawed-off Stevens 311D double-barreled shotgun; and the Aurora, Colorado, shooter used an AR-15 semiautomatic gun, a Remington 870 shotgun and a 40 caliber glock.
If this is a security issue because of Muslims, 64 percent of shootings since 1982 have been committed by white people, according Mother Jones. In fact, most gun violence is done by men, said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University.
I am going to differ with Donald Trump because I don’t think it’s Muslim problem we have. I’m not afraid of Muslims, and I’m not the only one. Muslims are friends, not food. We don’t have to hate them, and we surely have to fear them.
Isn’t it tiring to hate people, though?
Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.”
It’s not about being indifferent toward another person or group or religion. It’s about being indifferent when you see hate and see anger. It is about doing something to stop it. It is getting up and saying something. It is about stopping it.
We will come together, because that is what we do. We are good human beings, who know right from wrong. Hate is wrong. We will not sit back and just watch. So far, in the last few weeks, late months, and last few months, we haven’t been sitting back. We won’t sit back any longer.
