Omar Suleiman: evaluation

Transcript context

…She was attacked first. It was actually their landlord. So Hanaan, the mother, was at home with Wadea, 6-year-old boy. Landlord comes in, and with absolutely no emotion, just charges at her, starts with her. She was able to fight him off. Stabbed her initially seven or eight times with a military grade knife. She fought him off, escaped to call 911. And while she is calling 911, she hears Wadea. Wadea ran up to the man, calling him Uncle Joe because the landlord prior to that, had been kind to them, used to give Wadea toys. Wadea had an infectious, beautiful smile. Every picture you see of that kid, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful smile. And so, Wadea runs up to him, says, “Uncle Joe.” He runs up to him to give him a hug, even though he’s carrying a military grade knife with blood on it, because Wadea doesn’t believe that harm can come to him from that man. And Hanaan didn’t think that he would do anything to her kid, even in that fit of rage. The last thing that she says she heard was, “Oh, no,” Wadea the says, “Oh, no.” And then, he starts to stab him 26 times, says, “You, Muslims, must die.” Usually, in a scene like that, police are hesitant to classify something as a hate crime. It was classified as a hate crime the very same day. The thing is that, who’s complicit in that hate crime? What filled that man’s head for him to believe that he was doing an act of good by murdering a 6-year-old Palestinian boy? And in reality, uncle Joe was motivated by President Joe Biden, who repeated a debunked report that there were 40 beheaded Israeli babies. And he said, “I saw 40 beheaded Israeli babies.” The White House walked it back afterwards in a statement that no one reads because it was factually false. But Uncle Joe heard it, and had been binge-watching media about these violent Palestinians, and suddenly the propaganda overcame his own humanity and what he knew of that family. And he went in and ruined their lives. And now, just like any mom, she hasn’t moved a thing. His bike is still in the same place it was. His toys are still in the same place. She’s left with this great void, this great emptiness. If that was the only crime, it would be enough to wake this country up and say, “Oh, no, this is not where we need to go. Oh, no.” Right? The last thing she heard him say was, “Oh no,” if that was it. And I got the news, by the way, when I was ironically at a protest. We were protesting on Saturday, Downtown Dallas, and I started getting all these texts about what happened in Chicago. Oh, no. Right? No Muslims attacked anyone. The media was in a frenzy over the global day of Jihad. I got called by national news outlets and local news outlets, “What are you going to do about Muslims that are going to turn into monsters, and start killing people in the streets?” Next thing we know, we have a dead six-year-old Palestinian boy. I went to his funeral, and that’s speaks to the proximity part of things. turn into monsters, and start killing people in the streets?” Next thing we know, we have a dead six-year-old Palestinian boy. I went to his funeral, and that’s speaks to the proximity part of things. Yeah, it felt like stepping into Gaza for a moment. It didn’t feel like America. Didn’t feel like America. It felt like stepping into Gaza. His casket, was wrapped in a Palestinian flag. There was not just sadness at his funeral, but a deep sense of anger. At the funeral, some of his family members shouted out, “Joe Biden, you did this. Joe Biden, you did this.” And I remember the next day, it was right after the funeral, looking at the front page of CNN, and the story of Wadea was buried in the last section, and it was right over all these meaningless ads. And I thought to myself, that’s it. If this was an Arab man, let’s be real. Let’s be honest here. If this was a Palestinian landlord that stabbed a six-year-old Jewish boy to death, this would have gotten more attention. It would’ve been the front page of the news. And rightfully so, people would have grieved over the insanity of stabbing a six-year-old boy 26 times. Wadea became an afterthought the very next day. And so it’s an extension of the bigotry, an extension of the racism, and there’s so much that happens after that. There’s the terrible stabbing of Detroit synagogue president, Samantha Woll, and it’s horrible. She was stabbed in her driveway, immediately front page of all the news outlets. Immediately, it’s the main news story. And immediately, the implications are, “There go the Muslims. The Palestinians have lost their minds. The Muslims have… They are who we thought they were. That’s what it is. They are who we thought they were. They went and they stabbed a synagogue president.” It turned out it wasn’t a hate crime, although it’s an awful crime. It turned out it wasn’t a hate crime. Wadea is an afterthought. I had people reach out to me afterwards expressing condolences, and I responded to them, those who have justified the genocide in Gaza but that were somehow offering condolences for Wadea privately, of course. By the way, if a Muslim would’ve committed that crime, every single Muslim leader would’ve had press in front of their door to condemn that crime. We would’ve all been made complicit. Had people reach out to me, say, “I’m sorry about what happened with Wadea. It’s terrible. I saw you at the funeral, praying for you.” My response was, “What’s the difference between Wadea and a boy in Gaza? What’s the difference between me and Wadea?” I’m a Palestinian child. My parents made it out of Palestine. I was born in this country. If I didn’t have the opportunity to grow up here and to become the person that I became, you would’ve been justifying my murder right now. You would’ve been okay with my genocide. You would’ve been giving the talking points to the press to erase me. But you feel sorry because Wadea was killed. ould’ve been justifying my murder right now. You would’ve been okay with my genocide. You would’ve been giving the talking points to the press to erase me. But you feel sorry because Wadea was killed. And I think this is when we say that anti-Palestinian bigotry is an extension of Islamophobia. If a mosque gets targeted here, people rightfully rush to protect that mosque and say, “This is horrible, and it shouldn’t happen.” But when you have an Israeli soldier bombing a mosque and laughing like a maniac on video, and it’s going viral on TikTok, and there’s no way to reign that in. And you don’t have a word of condemnation about it. In fact, you are standing in the way of a ceasefire, then you’re a hypocrite. There’s no way around it. You are a hypocrite. What’s the difference between a mosque here and a mosque there? What’s the difference between a Palestinian life here and a Palestinian life there? If you’re okay with me being murdered there, don’t say that you care about my life here. And so that hypocrisy has been laid bare. We have said multiple times, masks are falling, masks are falling. People that we thought were decent people, somehow have found it in themselves to justify a genocide. There is no shortage at this point of videos. And again, I could have made the excuse for you, maybe in the first few weeks, that you hadn’t seen enough. But with all social media suppression across all platforms, there isn’t a single platform that hasn’t suppressed Palestinian voices. With all that suppression, there are enough videos at this point of children whose heads have been blowing off. Of children walking around without limbs. Of parents carrying their kids in bags, not body bags, I mean grocery bags because they don’t even have body bags, and screaming out, and saying, “Why are you doing this to me? Make it stop.” And you come back, and you tell the person, ” It’s Hamas’ fault.” Where is your humanity? Where is your sense of decency? Isn’t that the logic of the so-called terrorism that you condemn? Yeah, you can wipe out entire populations. You should have talked to Hamas. It’s Hamas’ fault. All the kids in the West Bank… Where does this end? So, what are your moral boundaries here? If that’s the logic that you’re okay with, then, in that case, when there’s a mass shooter in a school in the United States, just bomb the whole school. In fact, bomb the whole town if you can’t find the mass shooter. Where does this end for you? And so when I say people have lost their humanity, they’re killing us overseas, but their hearts are dying. People have lost their humanity. They’ve lost any sense of morality and their moral boundaries, and being there, and participating in this funeral, it was anger. I’m not used to that. I’m not used to that.…

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