The George Floyd Verdict and Asian Confusion

The issuance of a guilty verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the cop who murdered George Floyd lead to an interesting reaction among some of my very young, very sincere Pakistani friends. They all live in Pakistan, and are ardent supporters of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman political prisoner held by the U.S. government. Very active on Twitter, they launched a coordinated campaign to comment on Twitter posts issued by Black politicians, journalists, socialites, and others living in the U.S., relating to George Floyd. 

The only problem was the Pakistani youth, who had never set foot in the U.S., (and therefore seemed almost completely unaware of racial dynamics here), compared Floyd's suffering with that of Aafia (almost as if it were a contest!). They insisted that Floyd's family had gotten justice, and now so should Aafia. They were commenting (on Twitter) on almost every post a public personality issued about the George Floyd verdict. Their comments were taken as highly offensive by some Black activists and writers. And not surprisingly, the Pakistani youth were blocked by the Tweet authors. The Pakistani youth seemed bemused as to why anyone would be offended by what they'd written or block them, when they were just trying to get justice for Aafia.

Since the youth and I were all members of a small "Free Aafia" WhatsApp group, I gave them this free advice over that medium:

"I've been reading the discussion here on trying to use the occasion of the George Floyd verdict to get attention for our sister Aafia's case. As a Pakistani who has grown up in the U.S., I would strongly discourage this. Black people suffer on a daily basis under police brutality and oppression in the U.S., even though they are born here. They are generally very sympathetic to the plight of Dr. Aafia when they are told about it. And- I've had many of them stand with me in protests here for Aafia, when most US-based Pakistanis are too cowardly to do so. The Pakistanis, in my opinion, are more concerned about what might happen to their nice jobs, image, etc if they speak out for Aafia.

A very large percent of Pakistanis as well as Arabs living here in the U.S. are doing great, in terms of dunya. And they don't care either about Aafia, or about Black Americans who are suffering under police brutality/racism. Many of them have convenience stores in the Black areas ("ghettos"). These areas are typically very poor, and have very few nice grocery stores etc to buy healthy food. The Arab and Pakistani convenience store owners sell liquor and cigarettes to Black people. It gives a bad name to Muslims.

The shop owner who called the police on George Floyd was an Arab Muslim. He thought Floyd was shoplifting/stealing some very minor item from his store, so he called them. But, he did not have to. His shop was similar to the ones I describe. (He apologized later, but the damage was done.)

The best thing Pakistani Muslims can do, in my opinion, is to support Black people in their struggle against racism and White Supremacy. And that is a struggle for justice which Muslims can support. (In fact, Qur'an Kareem commands us to stand with all oppressed people.) We do not need to compete with them on who is more oppressed, or try to overshadow their struggle.

In other words, I would strongly recommend keeping the two issues (justice for George Floyd and the Aafia Siddiqui case) separate."