We live in critical times in the history of our country and community. The rampant bigotry, xenophobia and racism against Arabs and Muslims have turned violent. Three innocent lives were lost in Chapel Hill. The story of the victims has taunted families whose children look like Deah, Yusor and Razan and share their faith and ethnicity. 

The rhetoric against Arabs and Muslims has reached a dangerous point. “Go back home” is shouted every time we have a grievance. But beyond the verbal bigotry, threats against Muslims are growing on the world wide web. 

As the Quba religious center was burning in Houston in a suspected arson motivated by hate, a retired firefighter from the area wrote on social media, “Let it burn.. Block the fire hydrant.”

On Thursday, a tweet advocating burning Dearborn down with the hashtag #f–kislam circulated on social media. 

“I give up on deer this year. I think Muslims would be easier to hunt anyway,” wrote a Facebook user in a post that also made rounds on the Internet.  

But despite these painful times, we should not fall into a paradigm of victimization. We must rise up and quell the spread of hatred by highlighting our contributions to the nation and showing our fellow Americans that we do not condone any sort of terrorism or extremism. 

The floods of hatred are powerful and the burden should not be on us to prove anything. We should not apologize for who we are. But the misinformation and demonization campaigns of Islamophobia leave us with no choice but to correct the public’s perception of us with education. 

However, this must be a collective effort and our community is divided on countless levels— national origin, politics, personal interests and, most dangerously, sect.

Those who hate us discriminate against us all, without exception. The Chapel Hill killer did not ask Deah if he was Shi’a or Sunni. It did not matter to him if Yusor supported the Syrian regime or the Syrian rebels. He killed Razan in cold blood and it was irrelevant to him whether she was Syrian or Lebanese or Yemeni. 

Similarly, when a Muslim man was attacked by bigots at a Kroger in Dearborn, he was not asked if he prayed last Friday at the Islamic Center of America or at the Civic Center. It did not matter that Chaldeans are Christians to West Bloomfield officials who said they do not want them in city government. 

We should rise above our differences and disagreements because our enemies do not recognize them. 

Our community organizations have been present, active and vocal in speaking out against xenophobia since the Chapel Hill shootings. But the intensity of our campaigns should have been preventive actions to tell the truth about our community, not a reaction to a tragedy. 

We need strong, well-financed efforts to negate the negative propaganda that equate us with extremism.

Individually, each one of us is a representative of our community. We should reflect a bright image of ourselves by being ideal citizens. We should also use social media and daily conversations to promote our community as a peaceful one. 

If we don’t interact with our nation, we would become strangers in our own country. If we isolate ourselves, we hide our truth from our fellow Americans.