The Detroit Free Press on Wednesday reacted to the country’s increasing state of Islamophobia with a front-page editorial condemning Republican politicians, including presidential candidate Donald Trump and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, whose policies perpetuate anti-Muslim bigotry.
The editorial, headlined “WE STAND TOGETHER,” criticized the base built up by the “so-called establishment Republicans” in the past 50 years.
“Trump’s soaring support reveals harsh truths about the party base that so-called establishment Republicans have built, with fear and bigotry and xenophobia, with the notion that a fictitious, former America should be our ideal — ignoring the reality of life for women and minorities during that golden age — and most harmfully, by perpetuating the idea that success for others, particularly non-white, non-Christian, non-heterosexual, non-male others, means they will lose,” the editorial read. “It’s a false equation, but one that has given Republican candidates significant traction among some demographies.”
The newspaper’s editorial board then narrowed its critique to Snyder’s “press pause” strategy for resettling Syrian refugees in Michigan.
“Snyder’s rhetoric is more measured than Trump’s, but it is rooted in the same tacit endorsement of bigotry that says any Muslim could be a threat,” the editorial board wrote. “Both men legitimize hatred with their words, to dangerous effect.”
For the Free Press and the Detroit metro area, the editorial board wrote, the stakes were much higher as southeastern Michigan is “home to more Middle East immigrants than any other part of the country.”
Muslims and Arab Americans “aren’t some unknown people in our town,” Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly told the newspaper. “(Arab-Americans) are so much the fabric of who we are. … They’re teachers, they’re the police force, they’re no different from anyone else here.”
Read the full editorial here and view the front page below:
