{"id":325095,"date":"2026-05-20T20:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T20:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/325095\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T20:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T20:39:09","slug":"the-san-diego-mosque-shooting-is-a-deadly-byproduct-of-trump-era-rhetoric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/325095\/","title":{"rendered":"The San Diego mosque shooting is a deadly byproduct of Trump-era rhetoric"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three Muslim men were killed<\/a> at the Islamic Center of San Diego<\/a> after two shooters carried out an attack on the community. Authorities are investigating it as a hate crime, and the local police chief called the incident \u201cevery community\u2019s worst nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now suddenly everyone is asking the same question: How could this happen?<\/p>\n

But maybe the real question should be: What did we think was going to happen?<\/p>\n

For years, Muslims in America have been dehumanized in plain sight.<\/p>\n

Because for years, Muslims in America have been dehumanized in plain sight. Not subtly. Not accidentally. Not on the margins of society, but publicly \u2014 in media, culture and politics.<\/p>\n

We watched politicians such as Randy Fine<\/a> talk about Muslims like they are an infestation instead of human beings. Sen. Tommy Tuberville<\/a> denigrated Muslims as a threat to America and incompatible with American values. We watched large media organizations like the Paramount-owned Free Press platform Islamophobes, who claimed that fearing Muslims is \u201crational.\u201d A prominent local radio host in New York call the city\u2019s Muslim mayor a \u201ccockroach.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead of these officials and personalities being censored or canceled, anti-Muslim hate is being institutionalized in Congress with a caucus that claims to prevent the nonexistent spread of Islamic law<\/a>. This fixation on a fabricated threat is being institutionalized in states like Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott is targeting Muslim communities<\/a>, denying funding to Muslim schools and prohibiting the construction of housing and religious projects.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve watched elected officials routinely defend and justify genocide, war and collective punishment overseas. Media figures spent the past two years framing pro-Palestinian protesters as terrorist sympathizers, as inherently suspicious, violent, radical and dangerous.<\/p>\n

American officials like Pete Hegseth and Lindsey Graham are portraying the war on Iran, a Muslim country, as a war between civilizations, between good and evil and framing it as Christianity versus Islam.<\/p>\n

The double standard is suffocating.<\/p>\n

When Muslims are killed, we don\u2019t hear widespread condemnation. We don\u2019t hear from elected officials across the board demanding increased budgets to protect communities and places of worship.<\/p>\n

Following the deadly shooting in San Diego, some people seized on an opportunity to link the San Diego school to 9\/11 as a thinly veiled justification for the attack.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s stop pretending rhetoric doesn\u2019t matter. The Donald Trump administration rose to power on policies like the Muslim Ban<\/a> \u2014 literally telling an entire faith community that they were unwelcome and dangerous.<\/p>\n

As Trump campaigned around the country, crowds of his supporters cheered while Muslims were portrayed as threats to America. And it has only grown from there.<\/p>\n

As members of America\u2019s Muslim communities know too well, we are constantly scrutinized and interrogated. We are asked to repeatedly apologize for violence we had nothing to do with.<\/p>\n

Imagine growing up watching your faith and community being discussed like a security problem instead of a religion.<\/p>\n

Imagine growing up watching your faith and community being discussed like a security problem instead of a religion. Imagine being a Muslim child in America seeing your image reflected in society like a villain, day after day.<\/p>\n

Then a mosque is attacked. Beloved community members are killed. And everybody acts surprised.<\/p>\n

But this is what dehumanization does. It creates a permission structure, a culture where Muslims are seen as less worthy of empathy, less innocent, less American.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the hypocrisy that should make everyone uncomfortable: If any other religious community in America endured this level of sustained suspicion, surveillance, political scapegoating and media demonization, there would be, and rightly so, national outrage.<\/p>\n

But as Muslims, we are told to accept this \u2014 to stay quiet so nobody feels uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

Three families are grieving today. Children who attend school at the San Diego mosque had to run for their lives and will be traumatized for life.<\/p>\n

This attack did not happen in a vacuum. Hatred is taught. Fear is manufactured. And words \u2014 especially from powerful people \u2014 have consequences. We\u2019re looking at them right now.<\/p>\n

The post The San Diego mosque shooting is a deadly byproduct of Trump-era rhetoric<\/a> appeared first on MS NOW<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on ms.now<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three Muslim men were killed at the Islamic Center of San Diego after two shooters carried out an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[536,135257,135256,135258,135255,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-325095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-donald-trump","tag-lindsey-graham","tag-muslim-communities","tag-muslim-men","tag-muslims-in-america","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}