While the nation remembered those killed on 9/11, tomorrow, Sept. 15, will not be remembered in relation to the attacks. On Sept. 15, 2001, just four days after 9/11, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh man, was murdered outside his gas station in Arizona.
The white terrorist, Frank Roque, then fired shots into the home of a family of Afghan descent and attempted to kill a Lebanese store clerk. The same day, Waqar Hassan, a Muslim man, was murdered in Texas.
Sept. 15 is also an anniversary — it marks the beginning of a 14-year (and counting) spree of wars, state-sanctioned terror, massacres and hate crimes against people racialized as “Muslim” within and outside the borders of the U.S. The conflation of religion and race means that Muslims and non-Muslims alike are trapped in the crosshairs of post-9/11 violence and are forced to pay a price — often with their very lives.
Just days before this year’s anniversary of 9/11, Inderjit Singh Mukker, a Sikh living in Chicago, was violently attacked on his way to the grocery store. According to the Sikh Coalition, the attacker yelled numerous racial slurs at Mukker, leaving him beaten unconscious. The State Attorney’s Office announced that they will not pursue hate crime charges.
2015 started off with similar violence when a brutal murder happened here in Chapel Hill. #OurThreeWinners, Deah, Yusor and Razan, were killed, leaving the Muslim community grief-stricken. Right here in what is framed as a progressive haven, the so-called “Southern Part of Heaven,” Muslim, Black, Arab, Sikh and South Asian communities are violently targeted. The hypocrisy of white “progressives” common in highly-educated towns like Chapel Hill means this massacre was viewed as exceptional.
Black and brown people took to Twitter using the hashtag #AfterSeptember11. Over 50,000 people have used the hashtag to highlight the racism and hate attacks that they and their loved ones experience every day. The stories brought forth by this hashtag affirm that such acts of violence are not uncommon in this country.
It’s long since been time to acknowledge the ongoing state and extrajudicial violence against Black, Indigenous and brown people in this country. Acknowledging hate means eliminating the prejudices lurking in your own community.
It doesn’t just look like tears and shock when members of our community are murdered by white supremacists. The deaths of our people should never be someone’s education or wake-up call. It shouldn’t take a bloodied and battered body, like that of Mr. Mukker’s, to wake people up to racialized violence.
