Preventing the Next Nabra

In the past 48 hours, the headlines have been plastered with a variety of horrifying losses of innocent life. The victims of the Finsbury Park Terror Attack have something in common with Nabra Hassanen of Reston, USA.

Nabra, and the Finsbury Victims were visible, racialized, Muslims living their lives.

They could have been anyone you know and you love.

Nabra had been leaving her local mosque before being abducted and murdered. Police haven’t ruled it a hate crime, as per usual. We know better than that.

Islamophobia, in particular, is at an all-time high across the Western world.

In Canada, anti-Muslim hate crimes have increased by 60% in the past year.

The USA’s increase was at 57% from 2015. In the UK, there’s been a 40% jump in hate crimes since the London Bridge Attacks.

The targeting of Muslims on a wide scale has been recurrent and more common. However, the escalating severity of these hate crimes has particularly affected a specific intersecting identity in Ramadan 2017.

In the past month, increasingly violent and highly publicized incidents of Islamophobia and racism have featured Black Muslim Women in particular. These cases being the Portland Stabbing, Rahma Warsame and now Nabra Hassanen.

Each of these cases is jarring. They shock. They devastate. They leave families, friends, and communities reeling. Marginalized folks have become accustomed to policing themselves to stay safe, but when is enough, enough?

Where is the breaking point? Because there will be a next Nabra. Another Rahma. Another Finsbury. No one wants this of course, but left unaddressed the cycle of violence will continue and escalate.

Communities will continue to push for their children to come home early, stay in groups, stay out of certain areas, and more are even resorting to having their daughters take self-defence classes.

There’s a vital realization that, even if we aren’t ready to face, we must. That we are not safe no matter what the fuck we do. There is no such thing as safety and ultimately, the more marginalized and oppressed we are, the less our lives matter to the status quo.

Self-imposed safety tactics can only go so far. Prevention doesn’t stop an aggressor. Nor does it stop those who continually deny the severity of oppression. The perpetrator will not be held accountable.

Those who spew xenophobia will continue to inciting violence, sanctioning it, and justifying it.

There is no reprieve, no appeasing of violent white supremacists and xenophobic terrorists.

The chants of LoveTrumpsHate may make a nice photo but ultimately, love doesn’t stop bullets.

For those of use who know that, we will continue to hurt on a deeply personal level. We live visibly and thus vulnerably.

It’s only human to wonder what we could do, should do or would do if and when we find ourselves staring down a barrel, bat, or fist.

Regardless of our efforts, we know that it is inevitable. That there is someone out there, who feels more comfortable than ever to do what they’d like to us just because we are as we are.

We prepare because it will not change that fact.

If there was a hope in the world to truly prevent the next Nabra, America needs to address its deeply rooted oppressive, white supremacist patriarchal institutions and history.

Frankly, it looks unlikely that that will happen anytime soon. Saying that, you must remember that a system not built for you, will always fail you.

Marginalized people have been saying it from time, so when will White people step up to the plate?

The only way white supremacy ends is through White people.

Marginalized peoples have always been collectively responsible for one another’s actions.

White people, it’s your turn to own up to the damage that the system you benefit in does.

Your guilt does nothing. Your pity does nothing.

You are collectively responsible for ending white supremacy’s killing of black and brown bodies collectively.

You are responsible for Nabra.

Judging from the last American election and Brexit, you’ve got a long way to go before realizing that.