by Indran Amirthanayagam
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today responded to the murder of another Albuquerque Muslim by a serial shooter who has allegedly been targeting Muslims for nine months by raising its reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible to $10,000. Photo: People spread dirt over Aftab Hussein's grave at Fairview Memorial Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Aug. 5, 2022. (The Albuquerque Journal via AP) |
Four Muslim men in New Mexico—a grocer,
a busser, a city planner, and Friday night
another, a worker in a refugee center—
have been shot dead, three over the last
week, serial killer roaming, targeting
brown people who worship Allah,
the news not breaking yet in all
the feeds of the nation but spilling
digitally here; and I am asking you
to report suspicious behavior where
you live. Be your brother's and sister's
keeper, your brown and Muslim
brother’s, your brown and Muslim
sister’s. Take care of your back,
their backs. Work with the police.
Provide any leads. Find
the killer. It takes a village.
It takes a country.
Indran Amirthanayagam's newest book is Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks). Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.