Many forget that America was founded on racism. From Africans being brought over to work as slaves to Indians being given smallpox-infected blankets to the current immigration debate in Arizona, America has a long history of perpetrating institutional racism. Now as the anti-Muslim and Islam attitudes across the country permeate the air, a new form of hatred has sprouted.
In Gainesville, Fla., the Dove World Outreach Center has announced plans to burn copies of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, this Saturday on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The brainchild of Pastor Terry Jones, details of his plan have reached all the way to Afghanistan and Iraq, where hundreds of demonstrators burned a cardboard effigy of the minister.
Now members of the New Black Panther Party have entered the fray, appearing in Gainesville on Monday, Sept. 6. According to Mikhail Muhammad, state chairman of the New Black Panther Party, they are hoping that Jones changes his mind.
“We basically want to warn Pastor Terry Jones that if he burns this Quran, he’s going to incite a wrath and chastisement on himself that he will not be able to bear and all he’s going to do is add more division between Muslims and Christians when we should be sitting down at the table to resolve our differences,” stated Muhammad.
The New Black Panther Party says it will continue to speak out against this form of religious hatred.
Even with calls from the United States military suggesting that this act will potentially place U.S. military personnel at greater risk, it seems that Jones is unmoved. A possible confrontation between the church and members of the New Black Panthers was avoided when police informed them they had to move from the street and that they could not be on the church’s property.
This begs the questions: Should racism be condoned in any form and will we ever move beyond this poison in America?
–torrance stephens, ph.d.
