How much longer will we tolerate politicians who stoke bigotry like that which drove Wade Michael Page to kill?

(Crossposted from Salon.com)

Here are some of the things we know about Wade Michael Page: He led a “racist white power trio” called End Apathy; he had a tattoo commemorating 9/11; he shaved his head; and, on August 5, he killed six individuals and wounded a police officer at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.

Wade Michael Page. Credit: Salon.com.

We have yet to determine if Page mistook Sikhs for Muslims, but such questions are irrelevant. In today’s Islamophobic atmosphere, there has been increased marginalization of all AMEMSA (Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, South Asian) communities. In particular, Sikh Americans have faced the brunt of post-9/11 hate crimes and backlash, with Sikh men often being mistaken for Muslims. The first post-9/11 hate crime murder was of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh gas station owner in Arizona, whom the murderer chose because he was “dark-skinned, bearded and wore a turban.”

This extremist violence and fear-mongering does not exist in a vacuum. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently reported the highest number of hate groups ever recorded in U.S. history,with nearly 1,018 active groups. Furthermore, anti-Muslim hate groups have increased 300 percent in the last year, and the FBI reported a 50 percent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes. The reasons for the record rise in hate groups are due to the faltering economy, changing racial dynamics in America leading to a minority-majority country, and the election of Barack Hussein Obama.

It’s 4:15 a.m. as I get out of my cozy bed, do my daily morning ritual (brush teeth, wash face, etc) and make my way to the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, I rummage through gallons of milk, containers with leftover foods, fruits, and vegetables trying to figure out what I should eat before starting this auspicious day. Scrambled eggs with bell peppers, mushrooms and toast it is! I finish off with a cup of sheer-chai (milk and tea) and a few glasses of water, so I remain hydrated throughout the day. The time is 4:51 a.m. and Ramadan has begun.

A Muslim man in a Bangladesh mosque reads the Qur'an during the break of prayers while others are resting. Staying in a mosque during the last third of the holy month and praying for forgiveness are part of the Ramadan activities. Photo Credit: Abdul Aziz Apu

I’m sure many of you know what Ramadan is, but I want to make sure that there are no misconceptions and misunderstandings about this holy month. So here’s a little crash course on Ramadan.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the lunar Islamic calendar and is one of the five pillars of Islam. The other four pillars are daily prayers (salah), charity (zakat), pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj), and believing in one God and the Prophet Muhammad (shahada). Ramadan, or ramazan is 30 days of fasting, prayer, peace, and self-control. Muslims fast during this month to learn self-control from our daily essentials and a chance to ask for forgiveness.

Those who know the Reach And Teach story know that a significant reason we do what we do today is because of the experience we had in Afghanistan in 2002. Having witnessed the horrible destruction from 30 years of civil war coupled with the massive bombing campaign waged by the US and its allies after the September 11th attacks, we knew that the people we met were weary of violence being the only solution to their problems.

Sadly, 10 years later, violence still rages on.

It breaks our hearts when we hear people say that Afghans are simply a violent people. We disagree. Afghans, we believe, are like the vast majority of people, wanting to live in peace, raise families, work with dignity, be treated fairly, and have opportunities for joy. We also know that Afghans have their own history of nonviolence and we were heartened to see this story in the Waging Nonviolence newsletter about groups of Afghans working to find ways to change the situation in their country, through nonviolent means.

We’d like to share the following hopeful story of seeds being planted in Afghanistan, in fields that perhaps have been too long dry, but which nonetheless can bear fruit, with a little water, love and support. Having “Realistic Alternatives” in the title also made us think about Rabbi Michael Lerner’s constant reminder to us all that being “realistic” isn’t necessarily a good thing! So, as you read this, realize that few would have thought it “realistic” for Afghans to gather together to attend a nonviolent workshop. Yet… they did.

Our thanks to Waging Nonviolence for allowing us to repost this story (which you can also read on their web site).

On Saturday, April 21, Sacred Snapshots, a day-long Sampler for the Spirit, will invite participants to experience the divine, celebrate spiritual practices from a range of religions and traditions at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California (9 a.m. to 6 p.m.) Whether exploring religion in pop culture, engaging 12-step spirituality, or experiencing Hindu ritual, attendees will create a multi-religious, multicultural and international community for one day. Rumi wrote that “there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground,” and at Sacred Snapshots, you will have the chance to try at least a dozen.

One day in Lent went like this: another scattered stupid day of laundry, a crazy amount of mediocre cooking, bad feelings about myself and my negligible achievements, and attempts to pull myself out of self-absorbed self-criticism. Scurry, scurry, worry, worry, and meta-worrying about worrying. Tiring.

I got simple things done – a haircut, but only after wasting inordinate amounts of time surfing the web for “flattering haircuts for older women,” printing some images, doubting, looking for signs, irked at having to make all these decisions myself without clear divine commands. (Maybe the command I didn’t hear was, “Is this really important? Please live with more gratitude and now-ness.”)

That night, trying to decide whether to add doing a textbook to my list of tasks, I went to a Taize service at a local Church, a ritual I got into last year with my friend, Marilyn. I love to watch the candles, flickering as if they have a soul. Sitting in the dark, the computer well out of reach, I try to spare thought for others, think about Jesus in Gethsemane. Up above the altar, a big, round stained-glass window shows that scene, idealized. Why, I wonder, is Jesus’s face raised to the sky in prayer? Why that posture? Wouldn’t his head be down on the stone in agony and pleading? Around him are brilliant reds like chili peppers, and stunning blues. Closer to the congregation, two white lambs stand guard, one proudly holding a denominational banner, apparently with its leg. I wonder (but not in a harsh way) why martyrs need clean robes and how lambs can super-proud without dirt on their wool. Is this representation of myth an acknowledgment that daily life has so many dirty clothes and animals acting like animals? What would it be like if the lambs in church looked real, silly and fearful with maggots in their tails? What if Jesus looked like an everyday person in a country under occupation? Maybe we would find it hard to hope; maybe we’d resent being reminded of the world too much around us.

I believe in the value of ritual. Though not Catholic, I like to observe Lent in an interfaith way: a little bit of Ramadan for solidarity with the poor, a little bit of Judeo-Christianity for depth in simplicity, a little bit of Native American enlightenment through solitary retreat, a Jungian belief in the balance of feast and fast. In an unorthodox way, I decided to try out the experience of relinquishing several needless things during this period between Mardi Gras and Easter: candy was the first thing. For years, I never ate candy and somehow I’d started eating it regularly. The second thing was crabby negativity, a lifelong habit. You can guess which one was easier to give up.

Sabiha Basrai (center) talks politics with a man from Egypt during the Hajj pilgrimage. "He was excited that I was from Oakland," Sabiha says. "The Occupy Oakland movement was going strong."

Coming of age as a Muslim woman in post 9/11 America, I have struggled with defining my own faith and explaining it to others in this climate of Islamophobia. I have tried to find my political voice and my spiritual center while dealing with the dual identities of the American Muslim experience.

In November 2011, I went on the Hajj pilgrimage with my parents. I spent 28 days in Saudi Arabia walking through the desert with three million Muslims from around the world. The whole experience made me believe in people’s ability to be incredibly generous and compassionate. We all shared space without distinctions of race, class, or gender. I was kissed by an old Iranian woman, I talked politics with an Egyptian man who was excited about the Occupy Movement, I shared food with a couple from Morocco, and I talked about hijab bans with a woman from Switzerland. I saw Turkish women with incredible facial tattoos, Nigerians with patterns of scars across their cheeks, and Afghan men with their beards died bright red with henna. We all stood on the plains of Arafat together and reflected on our regrets and all our hopes for the future.

When Jon Stewart is called a “smug, self-loathing Jew” by a right-wing Jewish personality (who is often called upon by conservative pundits to wax political), it’s tempting to dismiss the comment as a disgusting tribal dig.

When Jon Stewart is called a Judenrat who “would have been first on line to turn over his fellow Jews in Poland and Germany” by this same hawkish voice, it’s tempting – even though this voice has a visible platform – to just ignore the comment as the product of the Republican, FOX-inspired echo chamber.

However, ignoring these comments wouldn’t just be dangerous, it would be to allow a growing brand of hatred coursing through America’s veins – produced on the fringes – to continue infecting our public discourse (and public opinion) on matters both foreign and domestic.

It’s a hate-filled islamophobia that masquerades as patriotic, as anti-terrorism, as proudly American and Zionist (as though the two are synonymous). It’s a brand of hatred that the current GOP seeks, a hatred it feels it needs, a hatred it foments for perceived political gain at great cost to civil society. And, as much as it pains me as a progressive Jewish American to say, it’s a hatred right-wing American Jews are often solicited to be spokespeople for on venues like Fox News, with claims of anti-Semitism at the ready should they be critiqued by people such as, well, Jon Stewart.

Some of the real-life people featured in the television series, "All American Muslim." / Photo Courtesy of TLC

Next Sunday is the last installment of All American Muslim, the reality television series on TLC that was the target of fringe, anti-Muslim hate rhetoric. The show introduced five Muslim-American families to the reality TV audience– two groups who would not, in all likelihood, have otherwise met. As it turns out, these five families are not shills for radical extremists. They are not hiding sinister plots, surreptitiously trying to turn American law into Sharia law, lulling America into a false sense of security by showing a few “good Muslims.”

These families are the real Muslims. They are folks from Dearborn, Michigan, where the show takes place, who struggle to raise their families to the best of their abilities. Some wear headscarves; others wear tattoos. They suffered through 9/11 alongside us, and they decry those who hijack Islam in the name of terrorism. They, it turns out, are just like us, and that is the reality that the fringe groups who called for advertisers to boycott the program, cannot tolerate.

A mosque in Dearborn, MI attended by members of the reality TV show, "All American Muslim." / Photo Courtesy of TLC

We are community leaders from the three Abrahamic faiths who don’t normally look to reality TV to teach lessons of faith and religious freedom. But TLC’s new show, All American Muslim, is doing just that. It’s also come under recent attack from Islamophobic extremists who seem to have forgotten the values on which this country was founded. Rather than tune out in protest, as Americans, it’s time to tune in.