Editorial: Pittsburgh must denounce anti-Muslim sentiment

If Pittsburgh does not adequately respond to this weekend’s attack on a Muslim man, we will have unravelled our efforts toward immigration reform and increasing the city’s diversity. 

On Thanksgiving, a passenger shot an unidentified Muslim taxi driver when he dropped the man off at his home in Hazelwood. Prior to the shooting, the passenger asked the driver a number of questions about ISIS and whether or not he was a “Pakistani guy.”

The passenger told the driver he was going inside for his wallet, but he emerged with a gun. A bullet hit the driver, a Moroccan immigrant, as he fled the firing man. The driver and leaders of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh are calling the shooting a hate crime, though police have not confirmed those reports. 

If police investigations prove that the shooting was the result of anti-Muslim sentiment — and a hate crime — then it wouldn’t be the first time that anti-Muslim sentiment stifled Pittsburgh’s goals of becoming a welcoming hub for immigrants.  But we cannot be the most livable city if immigrants cannot thrive here and feel safe while doing so.

In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Wasi Mohamed, executive director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, said the center had received telephone threats following the Paris attacks and filed a police report for one in the past.

These attacks directly oppose Mayor Bill Peduto’s recent Welcoming Pittsburgh initiative, which aims to bring 20,000 immigrants into the city in the next decade. Peduto has said immigration brings much needed revenue and diversity into Pittsburgh.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has also held fast in accepting Syrian refugees following the Paris attacks. But their efforts are null if anti-Muslim sentiment keeps immigrants from approaching Pittsburgh soil.

If Pittsburgh wants the world to see it as a city with arms open to immigration and refugee resettlement — and benefit from immigration’s economic possibilities — then it needs to formally address issues of anti-Muslim sentiment.

Pittsburgh currently lacks an established immigrant community. In a 2015 ranking from WalletHub, a research firm in Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh was at the bottom of over 200 cities when it came to diversity.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 7.4 percent of Pittsburgh’s population from 2009-2013 was foreign born. If the city does not renounce this man’s action — possibly through a city resolution or even a Student Government Board resolution —  we stifle any hopes of further diversity.

This shot must continue to ring in our ears and remain in public dialogue.

While families gave thanks for the roofs over their heads and food on their tables, a man was possibly experiencing the direct and brutal result of racially charged violence as he tried to do his job.

It is not enough to announce efforts to welcome immigrants and refugees into Pittsburgh if the city does not match these efforts with a dialogue that speaks out against possible hate crimes.