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SAALT launches new hate violence project
Our new approach to hate violence, launched in 2022, is to enable the participation and leadership of hate violence survivors by thinking outside conventional paradigms of healing and justice, often tied to policy and law enforcement. Instead, we will offer transformative justice (TJ) as a modality of healing.
We will select 15 survivors affected by interpersonal and structural hate crimes—including but not limited to ones driven by racism, Islamophobia, casteism, colorism, gender, sexuality, immigration status, physical and mental ability, and a history of carcerality—both at the hands of unknown attackers (e.g., gendered Islamophobia, harassment and violence in public spaces, vandalism and property destruction, and doxing and other forms of digital violence) and at the hands of known attackers (e.g., gender-based and domestic violence, child abuse, and institutional discrimination in workplaces, health and education settings).
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Hearing, Mapping, and Contextualizing: How South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, and South West Asian (SAMSSWA) Hate Violence Survivors Perceive Healing and Justice
Why a new approach to addressing hate violence?
Since our formation in 2001, SAALT has historically approached our work around ending hate violence as a policy- and documentation-driven institution, meaning that our efforts have been focused on collecting data on hate violence impacting our community and advocating for federal hate crime legislation to recognize and prosecute perpetrators of individual incidents. After two decades we face the reality that hate violence against communities of color has not decreased. And, that is because the root causes of this violence are tied to the very policies of the government from which we kept seeking recourse. As a result, we find it urgent and imperative to engage in a more direct, survivor-centered way that is not just short-term reform, but healing and transformative over the long-term.
We are living in a watershed moment, with great potential for both hope and harm. Hate violence has surged in America—from police brutality against Black Americans to the attacks targeting East Asian Americans and those racialized as East Asian. Fighting hate violence is vital—now more than ever—and the South Asian community must build coalitions with other communities of color.
Our new approach to hate violence, launched in 2022, is to enable the participation and leadership of hate violence survivors by thinking outside conventional paradigms of healing and justice, often tied to policy and law enforcement. Instead, we will offer transformative justice (TJ) as a modality of healing. We must be committed to honoring and uplifting the interrelated praxes of abolition and transformative justice in Black and Indigenous communities as well as the leadership of BIPOC folks, many of whom identify as LGBTQI+, in shaping abolition and transformative justice over the centuries, including those at Project NIA, INCITE!, Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, GenerationFIVE, Creative Interventions, Interrupting Criminalization, and Survived & Punished.
Such praxes and leadership arise from America’s very founding being premised upon—and defined by—hate violence. The creation and perpetuation of American systems and institutions were predicated both on the displacement and genocide of Indigenous people and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Such systemic violence rooted in hatred thus formed the basis and roots of carceral ideology, with racist xenophobia serving as the primary sentiment. Transformative justice, with roots in ending child sexual abuse, asks, as Mia Mingus writes: “What kinds of community infrastructure can we create to support more safety, transparency, sustainability, care and connection?” and “What do survivors need?” We aspire to discuss transformative justice with survivors and then go to the next level by actively visualizing a TJ-led community, with the virtual hangouts over food, workshops, interviews, and an in-person healing session serving as safe and powerful alternative outlets of healing, expression, and needs.
Methodology
We will select 15 survivors affected by interpersonal and structural hate crimes—including but not limited to ones driven by racism, Islamophobia, casteism, colorism, gender, sexuality, immigration status, physical and mental ability, and a history of carcerality—both at the hands of unknown attackers (e.g., gendered Islamophobia, harassment and violence in public spaces, vandalism and property destruction, and doxing and other forms of digital violence) and at the hands of known attackers (e.g., gender-based and domestic violence, child abuse, and institutional discrimination in workplaces, health and education settings).
We are organizing discussions with our National Coalition of South Asian Organizations (NCSO) partners and other South Asian organizations and individuals who directly work with survivors and learning from their work, asking them to collaborate on the project as workshop facilitators, and identifying survivors in their networks who would be eager and inspired to partake in this project. By connecting and engaging in a reciprocal relationship with these organizations, we hope to build with and unify the NCSO and our larger community—another one of our project goals, as exhibited by the workshop facilitators we will invite.
Timeline
This project will have six moving parts from September 2022 to August/September/October 2023 in the following order:
Why now?
We will harness the power of speaking and listening. Greater information, freer participation and informed analysis, particularly in relation to anti-Black racism in the US, will help us develop a shared language for change together with our NCSO and beyond. We will present our findings from the surveys and interviews, and make recommendations for community-based advocacy organizations, mental health and legal professionals, TJ practitioners, and government officials through a public, interactive website with multiple purposes—a toolkit, memoir, report, document, and historiography.
We will also be offering the following services and compensations: (1) an information and informed consent form emphasizing consent (i.e., voluntary and selective participation), confidentiality, anonymity, and full veto power over written content; (2) $2,500 compensation to each survivor as an expression of our gratitude for their time, commitment, and fullest selves; (3) individual and group coaching sessions with a Licensed Clinical Psychologist; (4) localized resource sheets (e.g., contacts to faith-based leaders); (5) somatic and healing justice activities; (6) translation and interpretation support; (7) a reflection circle and survey on the process at the last virtual hangout; and (8) a survivor-led network outliving and outlasting the project.
This project has numerous implications. Following the scholarly interest in and debate over the efficacy of Brazil and India’s all-women police stations in addressing gender-based violence and listening to survivors, our insights might well be extrapolated to the criminal justice systems of other nations and inspire global models.
Hate violence takes too many lives every day. We recognize the urgency of a response, and this project, with its democratic ways of storytelling centered on a just transition, or “a vision-led, unifying and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy”—is our contribution.
This project will contribute to the transformation of justice for individuals and communities. It will expand the notion of justice from simply one survivor going to the government for help, to one where an entire society is deeply aware of structural violence and injustice, and open to forming new and more equitable methodologies and institutions.
This multilayered project will involve a reciprocal relationship with participants, in which we will uncover our deepest, truest selves. We will share our stories—the way in which we are storied, unstoried and restoried. We will dream of radically new worlds. And through this individual and collective work, we will develop a roadmap for radical healing and justice.
Ways to get involved
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 27, 2019
WASHINGTON, D.C. – SAALT welcomes Senator Richard Blumenthal (D‑CT) and Senator Dick Durbin’s (D‑IL) introduction of the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act. Representatives Donald Beyer (D‑VA) and Pete Olson (R‑TX) introduced the companion bill in the House. The bill — which promotes more accurate hate crimes data collection and would provide support for hate crime victims and their families — marks a major step in hate crimes legislation.
Khalid Jabara was killed on his doorstep in Tulsa, Oklahoma on August 12, 2016. One year later, on the same day, Heather Heyer was killed during a protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. Both deaths were prosecuted as hate crimes, yet neither were reported in official FBI hate crimes statistics. Both killings were motivated by white supremacy.
“A coalition of community and civil rights organizations have been working closely with Khalid and Heather’s families to ensure that families do not have to endure the same pain they have endured. The first step to achieving this is understanding the systemic underpinnings of hate violence and instituting more effective ways to mandate hate crime data collection. Every level of government must be held accountable for addressing the spike in hate violence aimed at our communities. The Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act can play an instrumental role in laying this groundwork,” said Lakshmi Sridaran, Interim Co-Executive Director of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT).
SAALT has documented over 484 incidents of hate violence against South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab American communities around the country since November 2015. Read the latest hate report here.
CONTACT: sophia@saalt.org
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April 8, 2019
Dear Chairman Nadler and Ranking Member Collins,
We write to share our concerns with you and members of the House Judiciary Committee regarding the April 9 hearing on Hate Crimes and The Rise of White Nationalism. We believe these are urgent issues and that Congress should be paying close attention, especially in light of the rise of hate crimes in the United States and the role that domestic white nationalist groups have here at home, and on a global scale.
On Tuesday, April 9, Congress is holding a hearing on hate violence and white nationalism. According to the announcement, the House Judiciary Committee plans to “examine hate crimes, the impact white nationalist groups have on American communities and the spread of white identity ideology.” We believe these are urgent issues and that Congress should be paying close attention, especially in light of the rise of hate crimes in the United States and the role that domestic white nationalist groups have here at home, and on a global scale.
As organizations working with Muslim, South Asian, Sikh, and Arab communities, we are deeply aware of how hate violence has become a pervasive issue affecting our communities and other marginalized communities. We are heartened to know that the witness list for Tuesday’s hearing includes Dr. Abu Salha whose two Muslim daughters and son-in-law were murdered in a brutal hate crime in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 2015.
However, Tuesday’s hearing fails to comprehensively address the scope and magnitude of hate violence that disproportionately impacts Black, Muslim, Sikh, South Asian, and Arab American communities. Nor does the hearing utilize an opportunity to unearth the complex motivations behind white nationalism or its effects, including hate violence. Apart from Dr. Abu Salha, it is not survivor-centered, and the GOP witness list includes several individuals whose actions and institutions have helped catalyze hate crimes, not abate them. For example, the witness list includes Candace Owens, Director of Communications at Turning Point USA, who tweeted “LOL” after the Christchurch massacre and who was listed as an inspiration in the manifesto released by the white supremacist who is responsible for the massacre of at least 50 Muslims in New Zealand. The list also includes Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America who used the slur “filthy Arabs” just last year. It is important that white nationalism and white supremacy are not treated as redeemable ideologies.
It is unfathomable as to why witnesses who espouse hateful positions and represent racist institutions would be included given their active discrimination against Muslims and Arabs. Additionally, the hearing does not thoroughly examine the various and dominant strands of white nationalism, including zionism; the connection between political rhetoric, state policies, and the rise in hate crimes; nor does it include survivors who experienced hate violence since the 2016 election; or government officials who should be held accountable for how federal agencies and law enforcement entities are actively addressing white nationalism and hate violence.
We demand that Congress hold substantive hearings that center survivors and that unequivocally reject white nationalism, white supremacy, Islamophobia, racism, and hate violence in all its forms. Similar Congressional hearings have fallen short of examining the depth of white supremacist hate violence and our communities continue to pay the price. The 2017 FBI hate crimes statistics revealed an increase in hate crimes for the third year in a row, a 17% increase from the prior year. This is an alarming upward trend in hate crimes – now consistently surpassing the spike immediately after September 11, 2001. Survivors of hate violence and bigotry deserve honest inquiries and true justice from their elected officials. Congress must hold subsequent hearings that comprehensively confront and address the proliferation of white supremacist and white nationalist hate violence.
Signed,
American — Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
Arab American Association of New York (AAANY)
Arab American Bar Association
Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC)
Asian/Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Resource Project (API DVRP)
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
DRUM — Desis Rising Up & Moving
HEART Women & Girls
Justice For Muslims Collective
Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative
Muslim Social Justice Initiative
National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC)
National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA)
Project South
Sikh Coalition
South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)
South Asian Workers’ Center Boston
The Partnership For The Advancement of New Americans (PANA)
United We Dream
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 27, 2019
Two years ago today, the Trump Administration announced its Muslim and refugee ban. From the ban to the militarization of the border to restrictions on asylum seekers, the Trump Administration’s racist policies are tearing families apart. These racist policies are enacted in an environment where xenophobic political rhetoric is all too frequent.
In SAALT’s 2018 report Communities on Fire, we found that one in five perpetrators of hate violence incidents referenced President Trump, a Trump policy, or a Trump campaign slogan. This data demonstrates a strong link between this administration’s anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant rhetoric and hate violence. We have documented over 300 incidents of hate violence to date since November 2016 aimed at South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab Americans.
As we welcome a new Congress and as the government reopens, it is imperative that elected officials exercise their leadership to terminate the Muslim Ban and ensure it is never replicated. SAALT supports legislative solutions that will at the very least block funding to implement the Muslim Ban, but ideally limit executive authority to institute discriminatory bans in the future.
Two years of a Muslim Ban is two years too many. This anniversary must be a call to action to Congress to use their power to end this example of state-sponsored discrimination and keep our communities and nation whole.
CONTACT: Sophia Qureshi, sophia@saalt.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 13th, 2018
Earlier today, the FBI released its annual hate crimes statistics report for 2017. The data, while a vast underestimate of the violence our communities face, continues to show an increase in hate crimes for the third year in a row. The number of hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2017 went up to 7,175 from 6,121 in 2016, representing a 17% increase, a significant jump from the five percent increase between 2015 and 2016. This is an alarming upward trend of hate crimes – now consistently surpassing the spike immediately after September 11, 2001. The surge in hate crimes against Sikh and Arab Americans, which rose by 243% and 100% respectively since 2016 is particularly disturbing. And, while the overall number of hate crimes targeting Muslim Americans decreased by 11%, the 2017 total of 273 anti-Muslim hate crimes continues to be a historically high number. Since November 2016, SAALT’s data on incidents of hate violence aimed at South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab Americans show that over 80% of the documented incidents are motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment.
Underreporting of hate crimes by local law enforcement agencies to the FBI remains a major problem. According to ProPublica’s “Documenting Hate” project, thousands of local law enforcement agencies choose not to report hate crimes statistics to the FBI at all; of those that do participate, 88% reported zero hate crimes in 2016 closely mirroring the 87% who reported zero hate crimes in 2017. A separate ProPublica investigation revealed that 120 federal agencies have not complied with mandates to submit hate crime data to the FBI. In fact, the FBI itself does not consistently submit the hate crimes it investigates to its own database. We echo the concern shared by our partners at the Arab American Institute, identifying glaring omissions from the 2017 hate crimes statistics. In particular, the failure to include Srinivas Kuchibhotla’s 2017 murder at the hands of a white supremacist in Olathe, Kansas. His killer, Adam Purinton, was convicted on a federal hate crimes charge earlier this year.
The lack of political will on the part of the Department of Justice to collect this critical data combined with this administration’s flawed approach to understanding and addressing hate crimes makes us all less safe and places a burden of data collection on communities. Additionally, this administration’s continued refusal to acknowledge the growing problem of white supremacy ignores the primary motivation behind the violence targeting our communities. The 2017 FBI data shows that of the over 6,000 hate crimes where the race of the offender was reported, over 50% of the perpetrators were identified as white. SAALT’s data as illustrated in our 2018 report Communities on Fire report found that perpetrators of hate violence referenced President Trump, a Trump administration policy, or a Trump campaign slogan in one out of every five hate incidents documented. White supremacist violence, fanned by the flames of racist rhetoric and policies at the federal level, has devastated marginalized communities. Until this administration confronts this crisis, we will continue to face a surge in hate crimes aimed at our communities.