This letter was sent on January 28. It has been lightly edited for style.
Dear Champaign City Council,
Since May 7, 2024, the Muslim community here in Champaign-Urbana has shown up to city council meetings as part of a diverse coalition of people who want to see the city of Champaign take a strong stance against genocide.
On August 20, 2024, local Palestinians shared their stories and their grief with the council. They were met with silence. These community members took risks to themselves, their families, and their mental health to ask the city to take action against genocide. Watch CU MAC’s short film on that evening as a reminder.
Palestinian community members can no longer take the risk to come to City Council. It is detrimental to their mental health to have to be vulnerable in public and be met with no empathy, no apologies, and rarely even dialogue. Fewer and fewer Muslims feel comfortable at their own city council meetings.
After eight months, City Council has still refused to act. Almost 2,000 local people signed a petition asking the council to act; 47 businesses and organizations also signed on. We have spent eight months explaining why this issue impacts us locally, and why we need our city to take a strong stand against genocide to keep us safe, and we continue to be met with silence. In December, within our council chambers, community members were threatened with language like “kill them all” and “we should keep a list.” We are seeing a dramatic uptick in anti-Palestinian, -Arab, and -Muslim sentiment, and our city council is still silent. We do not feel safe, let alone welcome, at City Council.
We are still committed to living in an anti-genocide city as well as fighting for Palestinian self-determination. But we no longer feel comfortable asking our Muslim community to take the risk of coming to council chambers. Unfortunately, the actions of the council over the last eight months have dampened local Muslim civic engagement.
Champaign-Urbana Muslim Action Committee is still open to conversations about repair and restorative justice. This could take the form of public meetings mediated by a third party, but has to include a discussion regarding the acknowledgement of and action against genocide. We want to work to build a better city together. Until City Council has good-faith discussions with us, council chambers will not be where that work happens.
Towards a Better Future,
CU Muslim Action Committee
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