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Biden, Dearborn leaders decry ‘Islamophobic’ opinion article in Wall Street Journal

DEARBORN, Mich. – Leaders in the Dearborn community are pushing back against an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal calling the city “America’s Jihad Capital.”

The Wall Street Journal piece was published on Friday, in the commentary section, written by Steven Stalinsky. The column immediately sparked backlash in the Arab American community.

Dearborn, Michigan has the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the U.S., and has been the target of threats, Islamophobia and anti-Arab rhetoric for decades.

On Saturday, Dearborn mayor Abdullah Hammoud said the city would be ramping up security at places of worship and “major infrastructure points,” due to an increase in threats following the column’s publishing.

President Joe Biden posted a statement, calling for anti-Arab hate to end.

Take On Hate, a grassroots campaign to end anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment, is calling for the Wall Street Journal to retract the piece and apologize, launching a petition.

This article is alarmist and espouses racist tropes of Arab and Muslim American communities. This is particularly dangerous in the current context, where Arab and Muslim American communities across the country face an increased risk of targeted violence, such as the murder of 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume who was stabbed 26 times, and the shooting of three Palestinian students in Burlington, Vermont. This opinion piece lacks any research or references and is based on hearsay and decades of Islamophobic rhetoric. Worse, the article paints politically and ideologically diverse Arab and Muslim communities with the broad brush of terrorism. This has the added risk of chilling the political expression and free speech of Arab and Muslim Americans across the country.

We demand that the WSJ retract this article immediately and issue a formal statement of apology for promoting Anti-Arab and Islamophobic rhetoric. Furthermore, we call on the WSJ to take concrete steps to address and rectify the harm caused by this article. It is imperative that media outlets uphold ethical standards of journalism and refrain from publishing content that discriminates against and demonizes entire communities based on their religion or ethnicity.

Take On Hate

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also posted a statement on the column:


About the Author
Ken Haddad headshot

Ken Haddad has proudly been with WDIV/ClickOnDetroit since 2013. He also authors the Morning Report Newsletter and various other newsletters, and helps lead the WDIV Insider team. He's a big sports fan and is constantly sipping Lions Kool-Aid.

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