Far-right, anti-Muslim protestor Jake Lang speaks Aug. 18 during the Aug. 18 Dearborn City Council meeting held in the Henry Ford Centennial Library auditorium.
Agitator Jake Lane releases rhetoric at city council meeting
By SUE SUCHYTA
Times-Herald Newspapers
DEARBORN – A strong, well-coordinated law enforcement presence kept right-wing, anti-Muslim protestors in check outside Henry Ford Centennial Library, where the City Council held its Aug. 18 meeting.
A “Christian Crusader March,” led by agitator Jake Lang, gathered in front of the library, to which the council meeting was moved at Police Chief Issa Shahin recommendation to enhance safety protocols.
While city officials urged residents, especially Muslims, to stay home and not engage with the protestors, some altercations took place, and media sources report that several people were arrested outside the library during the protest. Police Cpl. Dan Bartok confirmed that arrests were made, but did not release a number.
At one point, police officers in riot gear prevented protestors from trying to force their way into the north entrance to the library.
Among the protestors were people carrying Nazi swastikas.
During the first half hour of public comment time during the beginning of the council meeting, Lang, the Rev. Lorenzo Sewell of Detroit and a third person loudly proclaimed numerous anti-Muslim sentiments, which were countered by Dearborn residents who praised the city’s diversity, its inclusive community and its political and religious leadership.
The agitators claimed white Christians were being replaced with Muslims, and Lang, despite being told that props were not permitted during public comment time, attempted to tear pages out of a Quran, and was subsequently escorted out of the auditorium by law enforcement personnel.
Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and Shahin met Aug. 17 with Christian faith leaders in a show of unity and to put forth a call for residents to not engage with the protestors.
Following the first public comment time, Hammoud shared a heartfelt story about a young Dearborn boy who asked him if the crusaders were coming to kill him.
The mayor said he paused long enough that a police officer accompanying him assured the little boy that he would be safe.
“I paused because I never expected that, and as a father, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that,” Hammoud said. “Children at that age should be thinking about what game they are going to the park to play, they should be thinking about whether they can have another scoop of ice cream at the end of the night, they should be wondering whether they will get an extra hour before time for bed, and they should not be wondering whether someone wants to kill them because of how their family prays.”
The mayor said children are listening to adult conversations and they notice when their parents are worried, and that the fear being created has consequences.
Hammoud said that each resident of Dearborn belongs in the city as much as anyone else.
“Generations of people who built this city prove that Dearborn was built by people with different names, different accents, different traditions and different ways of worshiping God,” he said. “Some trace their roots here through generations, while others arrived with little more than a suitcase and hope, and they worked the assembly lines, they opened small businesses, they taught our children, they have served our country, they built houses of worship.
“They built homes next to people who did not look like them, and somewhere along the way strangers became neighbors and they shared a meal across the fence line.”
Hammoud said that is the story of Dearborn as well as the story of America.
He said he stood with Christian clergy from Dearborn Aug. 17 whose theology is different but who share similar beliefs: love thy neighbor, care for the vulnerable, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger and stand against hatred.
Hammoud said Dearborn has 30 churches and 12 mosques, and every week thousands of people walk through their doors.
“They may pray differently, but they pray for many of the same things: for their children to be safe, for their families to be healthy, for peace, for justice, for dignity, and for the strength to leave this world a little better than they inherited it,” he said.
Hammoud said the verbal attacks on the Muslim community also attack the city’s Christian brothers and sisters, as well as people of other faiths.
“They are attacking the idea that all of us can belong to America at the same time,” he said. “There are people outside tonight whose idea of America is much smaller than ours, an America where belonging comes with conditions, where your name matters, where your ancestry matters, where the direction in which you pray somehow determines whether you are sufficiently American.
“I reject that vision for our country, because what matters is not the articles of your faith, but what matters is the content of your character, the kindness in your heart, do you provide for your family, do you check in on your neighbor, do you help someone when they are struggling, and do you leave your community better than how you found it.”
Hammoud said he has always believed that there is something exceptional about the American experience, not because Americans are inherently better than anyone else, but because of the audacity of the promise made to one another.
“People come here from every corner of the earth, carrying different stories and traditions, worshipping God differently or not at all, and somehow built one country together,” he said. “That promise has never been perfectly fulfilled, but every generation has had to fight to make it more real, and now it is our turn to carry on that way.”
Hammoud said people can allow fear to make their lives smaller or they can allow their communities to make them stronger.
“The greatest victory we can hand those who seek to divide us would be allowing them to convince us to be afraid of being ourselves, and we will not give them that victory,” he said. “Instead, we are going to do what Dearborn has always done: we are going to keep opening our doors because one of the most powerful antidotes to fear is simply knowing one another.”
Hammoud encouraged people to come and experience Dearborn and its people.
“Dearborn welcomes everybody, and that will not change under our watch,” he said. “And to that little boy I met this morning, I want you to go and be a kid and play with your friends, laugh too loudly.”
Hammoud said the promise of America belongs to each and every one of us.
“This is the Dearborn that we will protect, and that is the Dearborn that we will pass on to generations and generations,” he said.