Six leaders from Milwaukee’s Muslim community shared a stage last week at Milwaukee’s Islamic Resource Center. The event was to promote the new book Muslims in Milwaukee: Placemaking, Belonging and Activism. The panelists talked about the book's deep research of the community, which took place over nearly 15 years. After the talk, they opened up about issues facing Muslims and Muslim-Americans from outside of their community.
“Without a doubt, it is the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate,” said Janan Najeeb, founder of the Muslim Women’s Coalition.
People in the room kept the guided conversation mostly about the book's release but were still grieving over the shooting in San Diego. That’s where two gunmen opened fire at a local Islamic Center, killing three. It’s currently being investigated as a hate crime.
Dr. Anisah Bagasra is an associate professor of psychology at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. For the past decade, she's been studying the rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric and how it spread from online spaces to public spaces. She says a big part of the problem is how Muslims are portrayed.
“In terms of news coverage, if a news story focuses on Islam or Muslims, two-thirds of stories will be negative,” says Bagasra. “Then on social media, we have this rise of misinformation, disinformation, the fact that Facebook and other social media platforms have reduced their community standards.”
Bagasra says all of this allows for rampant online hate to become normalized, and it makes Muslims and other marginalized communities like LGBTQ and trans individuals less safe.
Othman Atta is the executive director at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and was on last week’s panel. He talked about how places like ISM build community in Milwaukee. There is a small but growing community here, with an estimated 25,000-30,000 Muslims. He also connected the dots with the long history of anti-Muslim sentiments and hate crimes.
“Our religion is already misunderstood," said Atta. "People have very little information or interaction with Muslims, and on top of that you have this industry, practically, of spewing hatred and anti-Muslim rhetoric. And it’s particularly coming from government officials at the highest levels of government.”
Earlier this month, there was a congressional hearing called “Sharia Free America” where sixty congresspeople gathered and promoted many different conspiracy theories of Islam, such as a looming Islamic takeover of the U.S. from the inside. Bagasra says the connection between these kinds of hearings, hateful rhetoric and hate crimes is clear.
“What Muslims are really concerned about is with it being election season and so many people are running for various state local government positions, a lot of them have turned to playing into those kinds of Islamophobic tropes,” Bagasra says. “And we're seeing complete silence from both sides of the political spectrum about this kind of hateful speech and language that's being used.”
The panelists from Milwaukee’s Muslim community know this to be true. They shared their own experiences of Islamophobia after the event. But that’s not their focus. They’re still gathering in shared spaces, building community and carrying on the long, rich history of Muslims in Milwaukee.
