Barney Frank’s recent remarks on the were as heartbreaking as they were unoriginal. Speaking with , the former Democratic representative from Massachusetts downplayed the significance of the shooting as a sign of a dangerous climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex (LGBTQI) communities, instead reinforcing the clichéd assignment of collective blame to Muslims.

“There is clearly, sadly, an element in the interpretation of Islam that … encourages killing people — and L.G.B.T. people are on that list,” Frank claimed. “And I think it is fair to ask leaders of the Islamic community, religious and otherwise, to spend some time combatting this.”

Despite the typical nod to the convention that blaming an entire minority community is not progressive—in his generous clarification that “the overwhelming majority of Muslims don’t” massacre people—Frank’s implication was unmistakable: Muslims pose a unique threat to other Americans.

Driving Force

Let’s be clear: This massacre was driven by multiple systems of hate, including homophobia, transphobia, and anti-Latino and anti-black racism. Individuals bear responsibility for their own acts of violence. Yet all of society—regardless of faith—is responsible for dismantling systems of hate, implementing sane gun control policies, and providing meaningful support to communities targeted by violence.

Frank’s remarks instead attempt to leverage grief toward religious profiling and falsely pit communities—LGBTQI and Muslims (which of course are not distinct communities, but intersect)—against one another. Such rhetoric divides rather than unites us, while .

His comments contrast starkly with sentiments I have heard expressed in Boston. When I attended vigils for the LGBTQI victims of the Orlando massacre last week, I was deeply moved to hear many folks express their hope that the LGBTQI community’s grief not be wielded as a weapon to perpetuate structural or physical violence against Muslims. Still reeling from this hateful attack against LGBTQI Latinx and black communities, these individuals predicted exactly the type of rhetoric we later heard from Barney Frank, and preemptively spoke out against such opportunistic backlash by policymakers and politicians.

Their pleas were not new; many LGBTQI communities have consistently stood with our Muslim communities against violation of our human rights under national security pretexts. Still I was not only moved, but saddened to hear these expressions of solidarity. Were it not for the ongoing “War on Terror,” those speaking might have felt less urgency to protect others and might instead have felt entitled to focus more exclusively on mourning those killed and honoring struggles against anti-LGBTQI, anti-Latinx and anti-black violence.

I am humbled and grateful for these expressions of love and solidarity with Muslims, but I wish we lived in a world where they were unnecessary.

Unfortunately, the space to simply grieve is a luxury denied to many of the communities targeted in Orlando, as it presents an opportunity too tempting for those who seek to divide and profile us.  Targeted communities’ space to grieve has frequently been disrespected, politicized and obstructed.

Even grieving for victims of the “wars” on “drugs” and “terror”—or more silent wars like deafening state indifference to the AIDS epidemic—has often been enough to label us subversives or pariahs. In statements of solidarity with Muslims at Orlando vigils, we see another example of how the domestic “War on Terror” disrupts the lives of not only its primary target community, but additional marginalized communities. Today, it complicates the grief of LGBTQI, Latinx and black communities (Muslim and non-Muslim) who are all too aware of how this massacre is being seized to promote counterproductive, dehumanizing profiling and surveillance tactics.

Do Not Be Divided

I am convinced the targeting of suspect communities is rooted in fears of our expertise and potential influence. Targeted communities possess a dangerous sort of knowledge, rooted in direct experience of the forms of structural violence—imperialism, militarism and incarceration—that they disproportionately suffer. We are, therefore, well-equipped to mobilize to end this violence. But campaigns to police “outgroups,” whether based on sexuality, gender, race, faith or conscience, divide us and disrupt our ability to organize for liberation together.

As a non-LGBTQI Muslim, I want to live in a society that centers and honors the victims of the Orlando massacre. This honoring can take many forms: reading their stories; listening to the communities most impacted; engaging in prayer, reflection and service.

What it clearly does not include, however, is seizing false license to increase surveillance and targeting of another highly vulnerable community; we disrespect those killed when we use their deaths in this way.

It is imperative that we reclaim space to grieve authentically and defend it from attempts to manipulate and divide us.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Human and civil rights advocates throughout the United States are alarmed at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) game-like “Don’t Be a Puppet” website. The agency as intended to “keep youth from falling prey to online recruiting by terrorists,” but organizations that previewed it found that it promoted religious profiling and threatened to stigmatize Muslim students, who already face high levels of and .

Following , the FBI temporarily delayed the launch of the site, which it had planned to encourage for .

As a tool in class discussions of history and the Constitution, “Don’t Be a Puppet” might have proved useful for helping students recognize government mistreatment of minorities as suspect communities. Perhaps teachers could have used it to highlight parallels between the McCarthyesque “countering violent extremism” (CVE) campaign—under which the website was conceived—and previous programs to prevent the influence of radicals. High school students could have discussed the relationship between CVE programs’ discrediting of foreign policy critics as potential extremists and such historical episodes as the Palmer Raids, Japanese Internment and the FBI’s COINTELPRO disruption of civil rights movements.

But the FBI’s intention was not to provide a cautionary illustration of government efforts to quash dissent. Instead, the website is part of a broad federal campaign, “countering violent extremism” or CVE, to co-opt students, teachers, counselors and health professionals as agents of “soft surveillance”—effectively to act as puppets of federal law enforcement.

Should school teachers act as informants, for hints of “extremism”?

Representative Bennie Thompson, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, raised objections to the website in to Attorney General Loretta Lynch drawing on his experience as a former teacher. Thompson gave voice to the concerns of many when he reflected: “[I]t is hard to see how having [a] teacher participate in a Federal law enforcement program would not chill relationships with students or, for that matter, undermine a supportive learning environment.”

Put another way, learning requires curiosity and the opportunity to debate. It is stifled under the threat of deprogramming or police attention for expressing the wrong views.

Countering Violent Extremism

“Don’t Be a Puppet” was exposed to public scrutiny—a necessary prerequisite for responsive government—when organizations were invited to preview it. But other planned CVE programs to extend surveillance in the health and social services sectors are less likely to draw widespread criticism at this phase. Their relationship to surveillance, and to counterterrorism efforts, may be obscured by the messaging federal agencies use to encourage collaboration.

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CVE is a toxic brand, having inflicted harm on Muslim communities—and on democracy—in other countries, . Not surprisingly, then, recent federal messaging of the CVE campaign in the US has often shied away from the term CVE, instead describing the initiative as “building community resilience.”

But it is clear that federal law enforcement outreach to the education, health and social services sectors is planned to seek identification of potential “extremists” and encourage “interventions.” The released in February by the US Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts lists “Enhanced Communication among Law Enforcement/Mental Health [and] Social Service Agencies” as a planned CVE action in Greater Boston.

However branded, the recruitment of trusted teachers and mental health service providers as spies and deprogrammers would disrupt our children’s education and obstruct marginalized communities’ ability to use health services with privacy and dignity. Health and education professionals share the laudable goals of protecting patients and students from school shootings, bullying and a range of harms, but their legitimate concerns must not be leveraged toward counterproductive profiling that rests on debunked theories about the origins of violence.

The CVE approach is premised on false assumptions that propensity to commit violence is influenced by one’s ideology—a theory convenient for marginalizing dissent, yet by sound .

Law enforcement agencies should address all violence using . They engage in dangerous overreach when they deem First Amendment-protected activity “pre-criminal” rather than what it is: non-criminal and lawful. Government attempts to deputize education, health and social services providers to police ideology represent a serious affront to our First Amendment rights, as well as our human rights to privacy and freedom of conscience.

Genuine community resilience is incompatible with collaboration in programs that undermine our rights. When we resist pressures—financial and otherwise—to internalize suspect community status and instead demand transparency and accountability from our government, we demonstrate true resilience.

Let us not be puppets of programs that feed suspicion and criminalize dissent.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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