Friday, June 11, 2021

Confronting Reality

The other day, I posted my thoughts on the inadequacy of the term Islamophobia, opining that it seems almost euphemistic; it fails to baldly unveil what it really means: prejudice, bias and hatred against Muslims.

Toronto Star reporter Noor Javed, writing from a deeply personal perspective, offers a much better descriptor: anti-Muslim hate, a reality she has experienced throughout her life and whose incidence

have weighed down on me over the years. They have affected the career choices I have made. They have impacted my mental health. They have deeply hurt me — and still do.

When I tried to list all the incidents of hate that I have experienced since I became a journalist — both in my job and on a day-to-day basis — I hit 30 before I stopped. I could have gone on.

When I got my first barrage of hate mail as an intern at the Star 15 years ago, and turned to a colleague for support, he looked at my hijab and said: if you want to survive, you will need to have Teflon-like skin. Let the hate bounce off you. Don’t let it stick.

But the truth is, even when you tell yourself it doesn’t impact you, it still does.

Every email in your inbox with someone telling you they hate you because of your hijab.

Every letter calling you a “dirty raghead.”

Every tweet telling you to go back to where you came from.

Every person who walks by and whispers “You’re disgusting.”

Every smear campaign calling you a terrorist.

Every time someone doubts your news judgment because you are a “lying Muslim.”

Every time someone asks if you were a token hire. 

While we may not be able to fully appreciate the toll such incidents take on people, it might be useful to remember times in our own lives when we have been treated with even a small amount of unkindness. At the time of the event, our heartrates might have become elevated, our cortisol levels increased, our feelings hurt. Perhaps it becomes an indelible memory. And as much as we might rationalize a cutting comment or exclusion as being a reflection on the perpetrator, not the victim, we hardly escape unscathed. 

It is much worse for Muslims (and I am sure other visible minorities):

You look for ways to cope. But the hate slowly chips away at you and at the idea that we have been so conditioned to believe: How can this be happening here in Canada, the most accepting country in the world?

Let me tell you: It’s been happening for years. The hate is not new. And neither is the violence.

But the haters have gotten more brazen. More hateful. More organized. More dangerous.

So when the Afzaal family was killed for just being Muslim this week, it broke me.

Years of online hate, of politicians benefiting from anti-Muslim policies, of pundits spewing anti-Muslim rhetoric, of trolls questioning if our pain was even real, has done exactly what it was meant to. It turned people against us. It has led them to hate us so much that they want us dead. 

One hopes that writing the article provided a measure of catharsis for Noor Javed. But catharsis is not remediation. That is a responsibility all of us must shoulder.

 


6 comments:

  1. I have never felt so at odds with so many of our fellow Canadians. There's a brutishness to this bunch. They're a feral tribe in our midst. How do we push back, let them know we're not having it?

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    1. I think the only thing we can do is to call out mistreatment when we see it, and intervene if at all possible. I remember a couple of years ago, a friend of my wife witnessed verbal harassment of some Muslim women, and she scolded them and told them to stop. If we truly believe in our values, it seems incumbent upon all of us not to turn away from such ugliness.

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  2. I don't think there are that many in that bad bunch. But I guess that depends how we determine the size of the net we should cast when we ascribe complicity.

    At my introduction to formal workplace anti-harassment training, the supervisor of instructors told the trainees that he didn't expect that he would change any attitudes. The purpose of the program was to control behaviour. (It's focus was on gay-bashing, misogyny and abusive treatment of subordinates.) What's the societal equivalent of a job termination? The first thing to do with the killer in London is to give him something that will wipe and keep the grin off his face.

    The exuberance of the MC conjoined with the lecturing sanctimony of the politicians at the memorial service in London made me want to puke. I think there should have been more attention given to the victims and less of it to Islamophobia. Understanding the human tragedy in the crime is more likely to cause people guided by their prejudices to give their heads a shake than giving them a lecture they can put off to politics. If anything, a piss-poor lecture is likely to confirm their biases.

    Do I need to ask myself if I belong in that net?

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    1. I completely agree with your sentiments regarding the futility of lecturing people on their behaviour, John. I also like the realistic approach taken by the anti-harassment trainer in saying the goal of the program was to control behaviour, not change attitudes. As to how widespread racism is, I was shaken in reading an article in this morning's Star, which I may write about later, that looks at the long history of racism in Canada: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/06/12/how-southwestern-ontarios-history-with-white-supremacists-set-the-stage-for-the-london-attack.html

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  3. .. I'm a firm believer in 'guerilla action'
    Not so much 'malice and aforthought'
    as 'intent and follow through'

    Said another way..
    'Education at certain times must be a harsh mistress'
    I'm no fan of vigilante action yet there comes a time when the decent citizenry has to seize the ear of brutish bullies or clamp an Arkansas hog nose grab on and take the scum to the river.

    There's many a way for guerilla action to unfold and they don't have to be violent - rather it's best when it's truly stunning in 'messaging'

    It's like baseball's 'purpose pitch'
    I like when I see society act a la 'better angels' as Owen might say
    but I like it even more when Mainstream Media recognizes the message delivery and in my experience you have to spoon feed Mainstream Media so guerilla action is actually a complex but sophisticated civic action that allows society to identify - recognize a racist A-hole & where they live

    An old girlfriend of mine was being stalked.. she is Ojibway - and mentioned it to me so I suggested I go with her and her father to the precinct station and talk to the desk Sargeant. We did so. Later that week a plain clothes officer visited the man's place of employment and asked to speak to Joe Blow 'about a matter'.. Out in the parking lot. The harassment and stalking ceased immediately and permanently. The total time it took was very little. I invested 30 minutes, her dad the same, a desk sarge 5 minutes to assign an officer, a violent crime plain clothes officer maybe 20 minutes and it was all over - Rover. We took it to where the A-hole made a living. We did it firmly, we made it very clear, we kept it very simple. You will never go near this woman ever again.. It was 'a final offer'.. a one time chance to skate and behave - Full guerilla

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    1. A very interesting story, Sal; it is fortunate that the police, rather than dismissing or ignoring the complaint, took direct and immediate action to remediate the situation. From what I have read, that is often not the experience people have.

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