TO THE EDITOR:
In solidarity with UNC students, staff and faculty mobilizing against racism, we call for our campus community to challenge the rising climate of Islamophobia, marked by the Chapel Hill shootings in February, the attacks on the Literature of 9/11 course in August and this month’s legislative actions to bar Syrian refugees.
In this context, students who are South Asian-American, Arab-American, Latino, Black, Muslim and perceived to be Muslim are vulnerable to racialized violence. Following the Paris attacks, the University’s alert email pointed to a generic threat of terrorism with calls for “vigilance” and reporting of “unusual activity,” implicitly reinforcing the racial profiling to which our communities are regularly subjected.
Nationally and globally, Islamophobia is linked to unjust anti-Black criminalization and post-9/11 policies which expanded surveillance and militarization of law enforcement at the border, in cities and across minority communities. Police across the country, including in the Triangle, have employed assault weapons and military equipment leftover from the disastrous Iraq war, increasing the use of deadly force and military tactics to suppress public protest.
We call on UNC administrators to contest Islamophobia on campus and directed at the institution by outside groups; to commit resources to Muslim, South Asian, Arab-American, Latino and Black student organizations, especially during crises that further entrench Islamophobia; to establish curricular and hiring commitments in the neglected fields of Asian-American and Arab-American Studies; and to defend existing ethnic, Black and indigenous studies programs. Finally, the University must divest from security and defense agencies that intensify racial profiling and police militarization.
Atiya Husain
Graduate Student
Sociology
Pavithra Vasudevan
