Editorial: Obama’s mosque trip offers a chance to lead

President Obama is out to show that political gestures don’t have to be empty.

The White House announced Saturday the president will speak at the Islamic Society of Baltimore this Wednesday. It will be President Obama’s first trip to an American mosque since taking office seven years ago, and administration officials have described the event as a symbolic gesture meant to show solidarity with Muslims during the most intense anti-Islam period since 9/11.

But the visit can mean much more if other politicians decide to follow suit and start engaging with the community they spend more time discussing than almost any other.

The speech is a good show of community outreach, but the media’s treatment of it as a momunmental event reveals the true problem. An American president reaching out to Muslim Americans shouldn’t be rare enough to merit commendation.

  Why appearances like the president’s are so scarce should be clear to any newsreader: 61 percent of Americans expressed unfavorable views of Muslims in a November poll by the Brookings Institution. Conservative politicians, such as Donald Trump, paint Muslims as dangerous potential terrorists, and the biggest response from liberals has been to insist that society should not punish a religious group for the actions of radicals.

That sentiment feels oddly insincere, though, when national leaders are rarely willing to let voters see them standing next to actual members of the Muslim community. Of the current crop of presidential candidates, only Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders have spoken at a mosque this election cycle. On both occasions, the primary purpose was to attack Trump. Both assured listeners that they knew not all Muslims are terrorists, but that’s really it — campaign rhetoric and platitudes.

Compared to how local politicians have responded to hateful rhetoric, there is plenty to be desired from the candidates. Our own Mayor Bill Peduto has actively stressed the need to support Muslim communities, openly courting Syrian refugees to come to Pittsburgh. This, too, is rhetoric — but it’s rhetoric with purpose and direction.

As much of the public takes cues from national leaders, though, local leadership isn’t enough.

President Obama’s visit does not need to include a massive new public outreach initiative, but hoping for more than hand-wringing is not a ridiculous request. For someone who began his career as a community organizer, the president should know that stump speeches are not enough to change minds. The president must use this as an opportunity to break down the fake barriers between “mainstream America” and its Muslim members, and his fellow politicians should follow his lead.

He should call out the challenges specifically facing these communities, such as profiling and hate speech, and highlight the moral links that tie all faiths together. The mosque is in Baltimore, and Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan has requested that the federal government stop sending Syrian refugees to his state because of “public safety” concerns. There is no better place to attack misguided political rhetoric.

President Obama must embrace this as a moment to shift to offense from defense. Deflecting bigoted attacks and calling it solidarity is nice, but genuinely representing the needs of those individuals is action.

It is time for the rest of Washington to step out from behind the lecterns and walk among the people.