After the Paris attacks, will hate win again?(by Rabble.Ca blogger Lizanne Foster)
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/lizanne-foster/2015/11/after-paris-attacks-will-hate-win-again
The man who spat at her didn't know her. He didn't know her name or the fact that it meant 'beautiful' in Urdu. He didn't know that she was a talented artist and a brilliant student. He didn't know about all her hard work raising funds for cancer research or the long hours she spent increasing environmental awareness in our school. He knew nothing of this. All he knew was that she was wearing a hijab and her choice to do so made her a target for his hatred.
Days after the 9/11 attacks, an American-Sikh man, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was killed by someone who told friends he was going out "to shoot some towel heads." Beyond the fact of the killer's ignorance of the difference between Sikhism and Islam, is the fact that the killer's religion was not cited as a reason for his attack.
In these hours after the attacks in Paris, I wait with bated breath for the hate attacks to begin, as I know they will. I tense as I scroll through headlines, hoping I don't see anything like "Pregnant Muslim woman attacked by Montreal teens." I hope that instead I see headlines like "Train passenger defends Muslim woman against hateful rant." I hope I see more of those.