We express our deep­est con­do­lences for the vic­tims of Wednesday’s mass shoot­ing in San Bernardi­no, CA dur­ing a hol­i­day par­ty at the Inland Region­al Cen­ter that left 14 peo­ple dead and 21 peo­ple wound­ed. The two sus­pects named by local author­i­ties as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28 and Tash­feen Malik, 27 were killed by police yesterday.

The FBI and local author­i­ties are cur­rent­ly con­duct­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion to deter­mine the motive behind this hor­rif­ic act of vio­lence. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, when per­pe­tra­tors are iden­ti­fied as Mus­lim, Arab, or South Asian, there are swift attempts to crim­i­nal­ize entire com­mu­ni­ties through divi­sive media and polit­i­cal rhetoric. Often, this incites vio­lent back­lash against com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, espe­cial­ly those who are Mus­lim or per­ceived to be Mus­lim. Anti-Mus­lim hate crimes have already spiked in the days since the Paris attacks.

We ask our elect­ed offi­cials and media out­lets to refrain from using harm­ful rhetoric that stig­ma­tizes Mus­lim, Arab, and South Asian com­mu­ni­ties at large. Sign the MPOWER Change peti­tion to hold media out­lets account­able for their dan­ger­ous and inflam­ma­to­ry lan­guage. Our orga­ni­za­tions also stand com­mit­ted to end­ing gun vio­lence, which has become an epi­dem­ic in this coun­try. This is the 355^th mass shoot­ing this year alone and the dead­liest shoot­ing since Sandy Hook in 2012. We must pre­vent tragedies like these from occur­ring again.

• The Inter­faith Cen­ter of New York
• Nation­al Net­work of Arab Amer­i­can Communities
• Nation­al Reli­gious Cam­paign Against Torture
• Sikh Coali­tion
• South Asian Amer­i­cans Lead­ing Together