Challenging Islamophobia: Liveblog

Today I'm liveblogging a panel at the Center for American Progress titled "Challenging Islamophobia: The Role of Civic and Faith Groups in Combating Anti-Muslim Hate Speech and Crimes." Here's a list of the participants:

Moderated by:

Faiz Shakir, Vice President and Editor of Think Progress (CAP Action)

Featured panelists:

Wajahat Ali, playwright, essayist, humorist, and attorney
Haris Tarin, Washington, D.C. Office Director, Muslim Public Affairs Council
Rev. Chloe Breyer, Executive Director, Interfaith Center of New York and Episcopal Priest, Diocese of New York
Ken Gude, Managing Director of National Security and International Policy, Center for American Progress

These types of panels are a sort of outreach attempt by think tanks like CAP, The New America Foundation, CATO, and others. It's a kind of interesting attempt by people who make policy to try to invite in the public. I have my doubts as to how much the policymakers actually are influenced by the audience input at these kinds of events, but it's at least an interesting thought. The room where this is taking place is pretty full, only a couple of empty seats.

As a side note, it's a wonderful thing that this panel has at least one Christian in the panel.

• Shakir talks about a discussion last week on ABC's This Week. The topic was "Should Americans be afraid of Islam?"
• Ali cites a statistic that says 60 percent of Americans don't know a Muslim...so going only on recent history, he doesn't blame most people for being afraid. Ergo, we need to get to know each other better to eliminate fear.
• Tarin talks about people who buy into the idea of a clash of civilizations promoting that idea actively: Frank Gafney, Pamela Gellar, people "who have no credentials" who have been given a platform to speak about Islam. According to him, it's these people who want to exclude and are against American pluralism.
• Rev. Breyer works with people of about 16 different faiths to work on issues like foreclosuers, education, etc. She seems to see interfaith support networks as a powerful counter-balance to things like "Burn A Quran Day."
• Another important point by Breyer: there's a real need for people to be asked questions on topics they're ignorant about without fear of being called bigots. Pretty much true of any religion.
  
• Gude talks about the pastor who was going to burn the Quran being big news in the Muslim world before it was news here. This in spite of the fact that that pastor has 50 congregants...what a clear example of relatively small actions having huge implications in the Internet era.
• Tarin: "The Muslim-American community sees itself as an American body."
• Ali gets talking about Park 51 (the "Ground Zero Mosque")...gives the media credit for being actually pretty fair about the issue.
  
• Another good point by Ali about the pre-9/11 media cycle of Muslim-related stories, starting back in 1979: Islamic revolution, violence somewhere else, reaction, no story about Muslims, Gulf War, violence, war, victory, no story about Muslims, 1993 bombing of WTC, anger, no story about Muslims...
  
• Tarin: If you've never met a Muslim, the idea of jihad, or Muslim prayer, or shariah, or any other Muslim concept, is abstract to you...those people who only have Google to rely on are receiving distorted information at best.
• Question asked: there's a push by some people, such as the Tea Party and some other xenophobes to view American culture and identity as Christian...how do you combat that? Ali answers: get more voices of not "white, Christian, middle class" people out there, and create non-Muslim allies, people like Jon Stewart, Kanye West.
  
• Breyer points out that in the 1830s, there were similar arguments about Catholicism not being a religion. It takes time to integrate.
• Tarin: African-American Muslim experience goes far back and shouldn't be ignored...25% of slaves brought to US were Muslim.
• Ali: storytelling is what will ultimately unite us, you need a Cosby Show, or a Dave Chappelle, you need to illuminate the ordinary and do in one year what 10 years worth of policy papers can do.

image by muslim page