Honestly, Vanessa

What extremists do to Islam is a second act of violence against Muslims.

The violence does not end with the attack or the headline. It continues in our bodies, in our safety, in how visible we are allowed to be in public without being read as a threat.

What people dismiss as over-sensitivity is actually the weight of collective stigma being placed on people who had nothing to do with the violence.

It’s the quiet tension in our chest when a story breaks. The hesitation before opening the comments. The way we scan a room differently afterward, even if yesterday we feel fine. That is not fragility. That is conditioning.

Before anything else, I need to be clear about what I am not talking about. I don’t want any confusion when it comes to whom I am referring to when I say extremists.

I am not talking about people who are oppressed and fight back against occupation, displacement, or systemic violence.

Conflating that with what I am about to say is part of the problem.

What I am talking about is violence against civilians carried out in the name of Islam. I am talking about acts that deliberately target innocents and then cloak themselves in religious language.

Extremists commit two crimes. The first is obvious. The second is rarely named. They hijack our language, hijack our faith, hijack our visibility, and then disappear. They leave us to carry the consequences.

Explaining ourselves. Defending ourselves. Shrinking. Reconsidering how we dress, how we speak, how visible we allow ourselves to be. That harm is not accidental. It is collateral damage they do not care about.

There is also something many people choose to ignore is that some extremist groups are influenced, manipulated, or quietly allowed to exist by the very powers that claim to be fighting them. Chaos has always been useful.

Violent groups divide communities, undermine real resistance, and give governments an excuse to crack down harder. Whether through money, weapons, interference, or simply looking the other way, extremism often grows where it serves someone else’s interests.

Ordinary muslims are then left paying the price for violence that reinforces the idea that we are inherently dangerous.

Islam is not singled out because it is uniquely violent. It is singled out because of things like timing, geopolitics, and misuse of power. Most people alive today emotionally remember violence claimed in Islamic language.

They do not emotionally remember the Crusades, the Inquisition, or colonial massacres, even though those killed far more people. Memory is selective, and power decides which memories stay alive.

Media framing also reinforces this. When violence is committed by a Christian or a white nationalist, it is framed as a mental health issue or just a troubled individual that was radicalized.

When the perpetrator is Muslim, the religion itself is welded to the act. The headline does the work before anyone reads the article. This framing is not neutral, and it is not applied equally.

There is also geopolitical convenience in portraying Muslims as inherently dangerous because this justifies foreign wars, normalizes surveillance and over-policing, and makes civilian deaths abroad feel less tragic.

Fear is useful. Fear travels fast. Fear keeps systems intact.

Then there is the phrase extremists love to weaponize. “Allahu Akbar” means God is greater. It is said in prayer, in grief, in joy, in fear, during childbirth, and in moments of awe.

Extremists scream it at the moment of violence to claim divine authority, to terrorize psychologically, and to corrupt the phrase itself.

They know exactly what they are doing. And afterward, we are left flinching when our own words echo back at us through headlines.

The cruel irony that rarely gets acknowledged is that extremist groups hate ordinary Muslims.

They kill Muslims who disagree with them. They kill scholars, women who do not conform, children in mosques, aid workers, and journalists.

Most victims of so-called Islamic terrorism are Muslims. That fact does not circulate. It does not trend. It does not satisfy the narratives people want to believe.

Islam’s actual position is not ambiguous. In Islamic law, suicide is forbidden. Killing civilians is forbidden. Killing oneself while killing others is doubly forbidden. Intention does not make forbidden actions permissible.

There is no legitimate scholarly consensus that allows suicide bombing. None. Groups that claim otherwise are operating outside Islamic jurisprudence entirely.

We are constantly asked to prove our innocence just to exist.

No one asks Christians to condemn the KKK every time it comes up. No one asks Jews to answer for extremist settlers. Muslims are expected to perform moral disclaimers as an entry fee into public life.

This is why dressing visibly Muslim can feel heavy and unsafe. That tension makes sense. Some people respond by dressing more visibly as an act of resistance.

Others dress less visibly as an act of protection. Both are valid. Neither makes someone less Muslim. Faith is not measured by how much danger you are willing to endure.

The deepest injustice is this. They yell our words, commit murder, and walk away untouched.

We carry suspicion, fear, humiliation, and hyper-visibility. We did not choose this burden. It was placed on us.

We are allowed to be angry. At extremists. At media narratives. At governments. At anyone who collapses our humanity into a headline.

Our faith is deeply peaceful, rooted in mercy, restraint, and the sanctity of life and I refuse to let that truth be erased by propaganda, fear, and by people who have never taken the time to truly get to know us.