Margari Hill
HUFFINGTON POST - 12/16/2015
Twenty years ago, I stood nervously in front of a group of reporters.
The bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma killed 168 people,
including 19 children, shook the entire nation. Our local chapter of
the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
took the lead in pushing back against the Islamophobia in media coverage
and organized the press conference. The Council of American Islamic
Relations (CAIR) had only been established a year before in Washington
and their advocacy work had not reached our community in Northern
California. In the decades that followed, CAIR has expanded across the
country, as Muslim led initiatives have taken the reigns in combatting
Islamophobia through political advocacy, interfaith outreach, and
education.
And during this time, it has become increasingly rare
to see Black American Muslims, and even rarer to see Black American
Muslim women, in media or in decision-making capacity in these national
efforts. The erasure of Black American Muslims undermines efforts
towards developing a unified front in the face of our greatest threat.
Groups working in the field must take into account the ways in which
their anti-islamophobia work alienates Black American Muslims.
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