Empathy and Education Pivotal in Dismantling Islamophobia, Other Bias

This article was originally published by The Florida Times-Union.

In the United States, as a proud Iraqi American Muslim teenager, I'm no stranger to the stinging reality of Islamophobia and xenophobia, especially within the walls of my school. During turbulent global crises such as the Afghan conflict ― or more recently, the war in Gaza ― baseless assumptions and hurtful comments become all too familiar.

Despite being neither Afghan nor Palestinian, I have often found myself forced to defend situations I wasn't entirely informed about, because of my faith and heritage.

A spike in bias incidents against Muslims across America over the last month has deeply troubled me. The Council on American-Islamic Relations received 774 reports of bias incidents and requests for help from Muslims across the U.S. from Oct. 7 to Oct. 24; that’s a 182% jump from the average 16-day period in 2022.

Actual Muslims aren’t the only ones at risk. Anyone perceived to be Muslim, including Arabs who belong to other faith groups or Sikhs, may also be targeted by Islamophobes. In New York, a 19-year-old Sikh boy was attacked on a bus by an assailant who tried to remove his turban on Oct. 15.

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