Black and Muslim men shot execution-style in Indiana

This week, two of my cousins and a friend were murdered execution style in Fort Wayne Indiana. Since then, I’ve read comments saying they deserved to die because they were muslim, because they were black, because they were probably in a gang, because they were probably on drugs, etc […] They were murdered execution style […] We don’t know why […] But even if they weren’t killed because of their faith or skin or nationality, the reaction to their deaths is a direct result of these factors.

Three young Black men from a predominantly Muslim community were killed last week in Indiana. And Indiana governor Mike Pence alongside mainstream media has pretty much been sitting in silence ever since.

The three victims—23-year-old Mohamedtaha Omar, 20-year-old Adam Mekki and 17-year-old Muhannad Tairab—were discovered with multiple gunshot wounds on Wednesday in Fort Wayne. That most of us here didn’t know until days (or still don’t know) of this mass shooting demonstrates an unmistakable link between the young men’s race, immigrant background, religion and the amount of coverage people afforded to those who are Black and immigrant and Muslim (read: little to none). As Margari Aziza Hill wrote in “To Be Young Immigrant and Black” this week, “[Their deaths] highlight the vulnerabilities of Black life. Race, class, religion, and legal status all add to their erasure in the narrative about violence and justice in the United States. ”

And as Afaq Mahmoud, Taha and Muhannad’s cousin, adds:

In the past five days, there’s been some very loud silence in our media, in our government, and in our communities about what happened to our brothers. For those of us grieving, this silence echoes.

Me, my family, and community have always reached out to others when tragedy struck regardless of race, religion, gender, identity, or ideology. We vote for politicians, we contribute to this economy, we are members of this society. We too are America.

But when we stop breathing, no one else’s lungs ache. When hearts like ours stop beating, no one else’s pulse breaks.

We’ve grieved with you. We’ve stood with you. We’ve felt what you felt. This is because we know that grief is amplified in quiet rooms and loss is greater when carried alone. Now we are grieving, we are aching, we are reaching, and we have nothing but quiet to hold on to.

It is no surprise that women of color—who’ve been doing feminism since forever—are once again doing the work of calling out racism and Islamophobia.

While police have identified no motive in the killings and one of victims was Christian, Afaq and other Muslim Americans are rising up on social media (under #OurThreeBrothers, initially #OurThreeBoys) to thoughtfully and painfully point out the anti-Muslim environment in which these killings occurred. Taha, Adam, and Muhannad’s deaths come just a year after the executions of Deah, Yusor, and Razan, three Muslim students murdered in their home in Chapel Hill. Their deaths come during an election cycle which, Linda Sarsour notes, we’ve heard everything from calls for banning Muslims from public office, to comparisons of Muslims to members of the Nazi party, to anecdotes about lining Muslims up and shooting them—calls that inevitably spike hateful violence, especially against Muslim women whose headscarves make them visible.

This month, as we wake up to three more executed kids, as we wake up to three Black boys shot in Indiana last Wednesday and three days later, another Black Muslim boy shot in Salt Lake City, I sit with more of Afaq’s words below and this ever timely piece by Jacqui Germain and Josh Aiken on anti-Black violence. I think about this piece we covered a few months ago about anti-Palestinian violence and how it so relevant here: that to insist on publicly mourning all Palestinian deaths — to insist on mourning Palestinian (and Black and immigrant and Muslim) men alongside women and children—is itself an act of feminist protest. It is to insist on Brown and Black men having the right to have been alive in the first place.

Read, watch, get angry, comfort your loved ones, think about anti-Blackness in this country/your community, think about anti-Muslim racism in this country/your community, say something online, do something offline, and consider signing the petition here to demand a full investigation from Fort Wayne PD.

Do you know what it takes to run from war? Do you know what it means to flee from one war zone only to land in another? Do you know what it means to flee to “safety” and have it swallow you whole? Do you know what it means to feel unsafe in your own country in your own city in your own skin?

They were good boys. They were Sudanese Americans. They were citizens of this country. They were good boys.

I should not have to state that for you to see them as human. I should not have to state that at all.

Their faces are trending on social media. Do you know how triggering it is to see strangers drag your blood through the mud? They were murdered on Wednesday and again every day since then. They were killed on Wednesday and those who try to tarnish their names are killing us too.

They were good boys and people are saying their skin makes them thugs and their faith makes their deaths worth celebrating.