In the wake of the shooting deaths of Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Richmond residents gathered to celebrate their lives an
In the wake of the shooting deaths of Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Richmond residents gathered to celebrate their lives and commemorate their passing in a vigil at VCU’s Compass on Tuesday, February 10th.
“We are not ISIS. We are not Al-Qaeda. We are not Boko Haram. We are muslims, we are everyday people and we are striving to make this world a better place,” said a student present at the vigil. “I just really hope one day the mainstream media is able to see that and recognize us for that, and not for the acts of terror that are committed against us.”
A group of VCU students who said they were deeply affected by the murders organized the event independently through Facebook. With the help of word of mouth, there was a big turnout of students and local Richmond residents alike, where everyone could grieve the deaths of the three young muslims and discuss how hard and scary it can be to walk down the street as a muslim in the US.
Attendents discussed how the threats of ISIS, the Charlie Hebdo attack, American Sniper, and Boko Haram all dominate world headlines.
The vigil began with a spoken word recital by one of the organizers, local activist Maheen Shahid, as candles were handed out. Shahid said the incident in Chapel Hill was a terrorist attack and an obvious example of islamophobia, despite what the media would want to label the killing as.
“It is worth mentioning the people who shot the Charlie Hebdo offices in France were immediately labelled ‘terrorists’. Anyone with a non-Anglo sounding name is immediately labelled ‘terrorist’,” said Shahid. “When events like this happen, all muslims all over have to brace themselves, as they now represent all muslims all around the world.”
The gathering quickly took the form of an open forum afterwards, where members of VCU’s muslim community discussed how to fight against islamophobia in America.
The sense of grief in the wake of the deaths was palpable, and while some disagreed on the motivations of the killing and the overall lesson taken from the event, the clear message was that three innocent, good-hearted people were killed.
