3 min read

21.10.22

06H00 CAT

Umm Muhammed Umar

On the America Report, Radio Islam spoke to Brother Ibrahim Hooper, the National Communications Director and spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR has supported the Virginia School Board’s review of the Confederate segregationists linked names. issues regarding the Confederate related paraphernalia, such as flags and t shirts etc have long been a contentious issue in the US. Regarding the names, some have said they represent freedom of speech. The Virginia’s Loudoun County school board has considered name changes for 10 schools, the names of which have Confederate or segregationist ties. The committee said some of the school names have “direct association with the enslavement of people, Daughters of the Confederacy, the Lost Cause, and the American Colonization Society.”

Brother Ibrahim said that CAIR fights issues like these on an almost daily basis. in one of many that we do nationwide, almost daily. He said, “Again, these kinds of things are being fought and contested in local school districts, in cities and towns and museums, public places, courthouses.” He added, “There was a big push back in the turn of the last century….and up to the time of the Civil Rights era, to not only name institutions for Confederate themed individuals, but also to put up monuments to these people.” According to Brother Ibrahim, this was all part of the effort to intimidate black people, and to enforce and maintain segregation. This was the reason it was so important the names be changed, the Confederate statues be taken down, the Confederate flag be eliminated from the public sphere.

On the same point of course, a Rhode Island Park had recently been vandalised. Brother Ibrahim said that the reports did not indicate which community had been targeted by the vandalism.  He said, however, “we’ve seen it all too often, and that’s why we have to look at all of this as part of a whole: the Confederate flags the Confederate monuments, the white supremacist views online, the vandalism, the racist slurs we see posted. the distribution of white supremacist propaganda materials on neighbourhoods nationwide.” He said, “It’s all part of a whole – an attempt to maintain white supremacy. and to intimidate minority communities.” he added that seemingly small incidents, such as the vandalism at Rhodes Park, were really part of a larger whole.

CAIR has also condemned the neo–Nazi March targeting Somali immigrants in Lewiston, Maine. Brother Ibrahim said that often it was the older white generation in the US who were promoting this form of xenophobia. He said that having fought fascism and Nazism in World War II; they were expected to know better. He explained that there was a significant Somali immigrant community in what is otherwise a predominantly white state, “So you know, that’s where we’re seeing this kind of attempt to intimidate the immigrant and Somali community.” However, the city passed a resolution against this racist March.

Meanwhile, there was an anti-semitic incident that had taken place in Indiana, which had also been condemned by CAIR, which had welcomed the arrest of a man suspected of stealing a Jewish symbol from a front porch in Bloomington, before destroying it. Brother Ibrahim said, “this all points to the same thing – you’ve got to look at this as all part of a whole phenomenon, whether it’s anti semitism, xenophobia, anti-black racism, Islamophobia – all of these things are part of the whole, and they’d have to be fought as one and not be allowed to be divided into little pockets here and there.”

Finally, CAIR has urged Muslims to vote early, and to register to vote where still possible, with the November 8 elections scheduled to take place less than three weeks from now. Brother Ibrahim said that he believed “this election is going to set the direction for our nation, whether we’re going on a downward spiral, authoritarianism and anti-democracy division, or we’re going to push these people aside who are promoting this kind of thing.” He said that was the reason that CAIR was urging everyone to vote, and that even a handful of votes could make all the difference. He said, “Muslims have to look at their conscience and go out and vote.”