Nearly 7,000 miles separate the U.S. west coast from Christchurch, New Zealand. But the attack on two mosques that left 49 dead and 20 more injured during Friday’s afternoon prayers feels close.
It feels close because we, too, have witnessed the tragic consequences of violent Islamophobia in the United States. We remember the two victims stabbed on a Portland train. We remember the man who was shot and killed in Olathe, Kansas. We remember Nazma Khanam, Maulama Akonjee and Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein.
It feels close because we, too, have witnessed the horrors of white supremacy entering a house of worship. We remember the 11 victims gunned down in a Pittsburgh synagogue. We remember the nine worshipers killed in Charleston, South Carolina’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
It feels close because we, too, are reckoning with emboldened hate toward Muslims, immigrants, refugees and people of color.
And it feels close because the killer wanted it to. He live-streamed his rampage and posted his manifesto so that, in a sense, the shooting was everywhere in real time. We do not recommend you engage with either, but it’s possible your students have.
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