Thread by @IlhanMN

Today, I joined forces with @RepSchakowsky and others to ask the State Department to create a Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia.

Here’s why.

We are seeing a stark rise in anti-Muslim hate in this country.

According to brand new data, this year has seen over 500 documented complaints of anti-Muslim hate and bias in the U.S.

This includes everything from hate crimes, harassment, school bullying, discrimination, hate speech, and anti-mosque incidents, and a sudden uptick in mosque attacks in May and June.

In my own homestate of Minnesota, vandals spray-painted hate messages including “Death to Islam,” F*** Islam, “n-word,” and a Nazi swastika on and near the Moorhead-Fargo Islamic Center. A window of the mosque was also broken.

This is only the most recent in a spate of mosque attacks in our state.

These incidents pain me because they are so familiar.

As a young refugee who barely spoke English, students would mock me—even going as far as to put chewing gum put in my hijab.

At one point, I was physically attacked by a group of teenagers because I didn’t bare my legs or arms during gym class.

And this has followed me even as I ran for public office and represented my district in the United States Congress.

Just last month, my office got a call, saying, “Muslims are terrorists. And she is a raghead n-word And every anti-American communist piece of shit that works for her, I hope you get what’s f-ing coming for you.”

This is just one of the many threats me and my staff receive on a routine basis.

But I know that the discrimination many Muslims experience is not unique to the United States.

It is a global phenomenon.

Also in June, a man deliberately drove a pickup truck into a group of Muslim pedestrians in Ontario Canada, killing four members of a single family, including 74 year-old Talet Afzaal and her 15 year-old granddaughter Yumna Afzaal.

Her 9 year-old brother Fayez was left orphaned.

From India to China to Myanmar, we are seeing systematic crackdowns on Muslim civil rights.

Earlier this year, the UN Human Rights Council announced that anti-Muslim hatred around the world has reached “epidemic proportions,” and called on countries to take all necessary measures to combat direct and indirect forms of discrimination.
news.un.org/en/story/2021/…

I will also add: we know that this increase in hate is not only happening to Muslims.

Church bombings, synagogue attacks, and racial hate crimes are also on the rise.

We will not defeat hate with more hate.

We will defeat it with love and solidarity.