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I don't even know where to start.
This morning I woke up to news of multiple people dying in a car accident in London. (Our London, not the UK one.) Horrible, of course, but not as horrible as the full story that emerged this afternoon—four members of a family are dead, and a fifth, a child, in hospital in serious condition, after being deliberately run over by a hateful young man. They were murdered, so it seems, for being Muslim. One of the dead is a teenaged girl. The names haven't been released but it's not difficult to find a picture of the family, which their imam has asked people not to share as not all the family members have been notified yet.
This is as inevitable as it is heartbreaking. Islamophobia is as present in Canada as it is anywhere in the Western world, and contrary to our polite self-image, we're a breeding ground for white supremacy and far-right extremism. London, in particular, has a massive neo-Nazi problem—as well as hearing from friends there about racist posters and acts of vandalism, some of the central fash figures that show up in Toronto on the regular to spout off hatred are from there. So I'm not surprised that it happened, and I'm not surprised that when it happened, it was there. I've also been monitoring some FB groups for other reasons and there's a lot of anti-Muslim hate speech in particular corners of the internet. I won't speculate much more than that but based on the lone wolf/mental illness narrative that tends to get spun with white men commit mass murder, if the cops are speculating that it was a hate crime, it was definitely a hate crime.
Beyond being devastated for their family and friends and community, I am incensed. This is why I refuse to keep politics out of the classroom. This is why the far-right must be de-platformed at every opportunity. This is why we need to constantly counter the mouthpieces of fascism and white supremacy. This is why the stealth Islamophobia of gateway ideologues needs to be opposed. This hatred has a death toll, and today it took out three generations of a single family.
ETA: If anyone wants to help, this is the link to support the 9-year-old survivor.
This morning I woke up to news of multiple people dying in a car accident in London. (Our London, not the UK one.) Horrible, of course, but not as horrible as the full story that emerged this afternoon—four members of a family are dead, and a fifth, a child, in hospital in serious condition, after being deliberately run over by a hateful young man. They were murdered, so it seems, for being Muslim. One of the dead is a teenaged girl. The names haven't been released but it's not difficult to find a picture of the family, which their imam has asked people not to share as not all the family members have been notified yet.
This is as inevitable as it is heartbreaking. Islamophobia is as present in Canada as it is anywhere in the Western world, and contrary to our polite self-image, we're a breeding ground for white supremacy and far-right extremism. London, in particular, has a massive neo-Nazi problem—as well as hearing from friends there about racist posters and acts of vandalism, some of the central fash figures that show up in Toronto on the regular to spout off hatred are from there. So I'm not surprised that it happened, and I'm not surprised that when it happened, it was there. I've also been monitoring some FB groups for other reasons and there's a lot of anti-Muslim hate speech in particular corners of the internet. I won't speculate much more than that but based on the lone wolf/mental illness narrative that tends to get spun with white men commit mass murder, if the cops are speculating that it was a hate crime, it was definitely a hate crime.
Beyond being devastated for their family and friends and community, I am incensed. This is why I refuse to keep politics out of the classroom. This is why the far-right must be de-platformed at every opportunity. This is why we need to constantly counter the mouthpieces of fascism and white supremacy. This is why the stealth Islamophobia of gateway ideologues needs to be opposed. This hatred has a death toll, and today it took out three generations of a single family.
ETA: If anyone wants to help, this is the link to support the 9-year-old survivor.
