Outrage among Pakistanis over acid attack

Recently, a Peruvian immigrant was attacked by a white man in Milwaukee. According to The Journal Sentinal:

Mahud Villalaz, 42, on Saturday remained stunned by his encounter on Milwaukee’s south side with a man at a bus stop who began berating him and then threw acid onto his face from a metal bottle.

Police said early Sunday that they had arrested a 61-year-old man in connection with an “aggravated battery” near the same location on Friday…

Milwaukee police had described the suspect as a white man, about 6 feet tall with a medium build…

“We find this incident to be problematic,” says Gulam Hammza, an elder of Milwaukee’s Pakistani community. “There is a sense of outrage and violation among our people. The Acid Attack is a distinctly South Asian, and specifically sub-continent, cultural tradition.”

Independent sources support Hammza’s contention. According to Wikipedia:

Since the 1990s, Bangladesh has been reporting the highest number of attacks and highest incidence rates for women, with 3,512 Bangladeshi people acid attacked between 1999 and 2013, and in Pakistan and India acid attacks are at an all-time high and increasing every year. Although acid attacks occur all over the world, this type of violence is most common in South Asia.

Hammza went on to say, “When Pamela Anderson appropriated Native American culture for Halloween, she was criticized, and rightfully so. But where’s the uproar when OUR culture is appropriated? The silence is deafening. I blame Islamophobia.”

Hammza has a message for white bigots:

“THINK before you attack! Use your fists, use your guns, use explosives or even insults – but DO NOT use Acid Attacks, or suicide bombings. That is NOT OKAY! It is NOT OKAY to appropriate the cultural traditions of my people.”