Missouri Gubernatorial Candidate Sells “ISIS Hunting Permits" #HummusHaters
With all the anti-Arab bashing we see in the news every week, Arab America is determined to expose those who discriminate against our community. We will recognize those who vilify the positive influence and contributions Arabs have made to the fabric of American society. And we will use hummus as our weapon. By naming those who vilify the Arab American community as #HummusHaters, we can express our culture positively while showing intolerance to bigotry.
BY: Tamara Wong Azaiez/ Contributing Writer
Missouri Gubernatorial Republican candidate, Eric Greitens, has been giving out fake “ISIS Hunting Permits” in attempts to appeal to a wider range audience. Through these fake permits, his Islamaphobia has essentially been taken to a new level, forcing Muslim Missouri residents to live in fear of being profiled. The sticker reads, “We defeat this evil,” featuring an expiration date. The stickers have been sold for $10 each, and those who donate $100 dollars can also receive a signed note from former Navy SEAL Rob O’Neill, who claims he was the reason behind the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
Unfortunately, these “hunting permits” have become wildly successful with the residents of Missouri. However, what these “permits” are effectively doing is targeting innocent Muslims, as there is no real way of telling what an ISIL member looks like, and claiming all Muslims are part of ISIL violates many civil rights.
After this launch of “ISIS Hunting Permits”, several mosques around Missouri have been vandalized and innocent people have been targeted in this movement to find all the apparent ISIL members. This list includes an eleven-year-old girl, who was pushed down to the ground, while classmates tried to remove her hijab, and a Bangladeshi man attacked in the street by young hooligans screaming “ISIS! ISIS!” as his nine-year-old daughter watched in horror.
When interviewed, Greitens insisted that he was not degrading the Muslim community, just protecting the people against “extreme Islamist motives.”
“As leaders, we need to be very clear: there is a difference between Islam and radical Islamic terrorism,” Greitens told FOX 2. “The reason there is confusion out there is that we don’t have strong leaders who are willing to identify this as a warped terrorist ideology.”
Although Greitens attempts to claim that he is not Islamphobic by issuing “ISIS Hunting Permits,” he is showing that he does in fact, have something in common with our other hummus haters: plain hate for an entire group of people. Such a shame. He could have been eating some good hummus and shish kabob with the other racists he approached and raised election funds that way.