UT-Arlington Student Helps Foster Dialogue To Quell Hate Incidents

“For me, it’s really important for people who are in positions of power, who have privilege to speak up on behalf of those who don’t.”

By Stella M. ChávezNovember 30, 2016 8:59 am, , , ,

From KERA News

Since the election, incidents of hate have dominated headlines. Many of the incidents have been targeted at minority groups, but some have also been directed at Donald Trump supporters.

Some students in North Texas are taking extra precautions

Nashwa Zafar is a senior at the University of Texas at Arlington and on the board of the Muslim Student Association. She says Muslim students are worried and that Donald Trump winning the presidential election has heightened their concerns.

“Some of the people had reached out to us on [Facebook] and they were asking, ‘Hey, I’m in the library. Can anybody walk me to my car?’ Just for, you know, safety reasons,” Zafar said.

Some Muslim students fear they’ll be targeted because of their religion or for wearing a hijab. At one point during his campaign, Trump said he supported a ban on Muslim immigration.

“A lot of people were joking, you know, ‘Oh, I’ll move to Canada. Oh, I guess I better go back to where I came from,’ ” Zafar said. “But, like, Muslim Americans that grew up here, going back to where we came from is not something that we can do because we are strangers over there just as strange as we are over here.”

Read more.