On Sept. 29, 2021 OBI held a 90-minute-long live event to launch a new survey on the views of Muslims in the United States. The survey, authored by OBI's Global Justice Director Elsadig Elsheikh and research Basima Sisemore, revealed the ubiquity and far reaching impacts of Islamophobia on millions of Muslim Americans, more than two-thirds of whom reported encountering Islamophobia in their lives. But there were positive findings too. Learn more by viewing this event recording, and by visiting our Islamophobia site to download the survey.
Also, see media coverage of the survey in HuffPost, the San Francisco Chronicle, Religion News Service, and elsewhere.
Transcript
Hatem Bazian:
Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Welcome wherever you are joining us online for Islamophobia National Survey Report. This really is a report on Islamophobia in post 9-11 America. I'm Dr. Hatem Bazian, President of International Islamophobia Studies Research Association, an association that has almost 200 different academics, researchers connected to this network to study the phenomenon of Islamophobia. Today, this program is organized by Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley and the Islamophobia Study Center. Let me first really thank all of the organizations that have made this work possible. Islamophobia Research And Documentation Project, at UC Berkeley, Center for Race and Gender, a partner organization on campus, CAIR Council on American Islamic Relations, Justice for Muslims Collectives, and Muslim Advocates, and ISPU, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. This is really an important time for us in examining the phenomenon of Islamophobia and the variety of ways it shows itself.Hatem Bazian:
One is often there is a discussion and debate about the term Islamophobia. And the debate is, in my view, is already foregone, but if we want to date the term itself, it actually originates in the French context around 1910 describing and articulating the French treatment of Muslims in north Africa. And at that time, it just described as an inimical feelings toward Muslims. This term was picked up by Edward Said, who really one of the early trailblazers in examining stereotyping and representation of Muslims. And I think his trilogy is still one of the most important ways to engage the subject covering Islam and early work on how the media and the representation framed the subject of Islam and Muslims. Orientalism is still a must read both in academic setting, as well as in the broader setting. And it also was connected to the question of Palestine.Hatem Bazian:
So these are really the trilogy of Edward Said, many have built upon it, and the field can really be looked upon as a major contribution to Edward Said and those that really came after him. In general, we often, post 9-11, media pundits, individuals in academia in policy circles, preoccupied themselves with trying to answer the dubious racist Islamophobic question of why they hate us, never in their mind, attempting to actually understand the ramification of policy, both domestic as well as international. We often have the framing of Can The Subaltern Speak, and I think we could translate this Can The Muslim Speak, and if they speak as a class or a group, do we listen? And if we listen, do we actually attempt to change policy and take their statements and their perspectives into consideration? The challenge of Islamophobia is not only a debate about the term, imperfect that it is.Hatem Bazian:
It's about the implication. It's the ways that Muslims are often acted upon, marginalized, zones of inclusion and exclusion and relations to racial geography and all the various ways that Islamophobia manifest, whether it's verbal, employment, and for sure violence. And I think as we speak about the survey report, we'll begin to identify some of the major findings as Muslims are telling us of what they are facing on a daily basis in America. And this could be also made a point of comparison between the United States, France, Canada, and other locations around the globe, but really it's a very, very important groundbreaking work and survey that we begin to look at those who are impacted by Islamophobia. Having looked at much of the work on Islamophobia for quite some time, the focus was on media analysis, political actors, the Islamophobia industry, all are legitimate areas of examination.Hatem Bazian:
But today, and I think moving forward is to begin to actually look at those who are impacted by Islamophobia as a group. This survey had 1100 respondents, and I think it's a very, very critical piece of material that should be deployed in our classrooms, should be read by policy makers, should be read by leadership, Muslim leadership in the nonprofit organizations, as well as in the broader society. So I look forward for us to listen to the findings of the survey, and I would like to bring really two key figures that made this survey possible. First is my dear colleague, Elsadig Elsheikh is the Director of the Global Justice Program at the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley. He has been a key contributor to many fields, but really has been a partner in the work on Islamophobia that we are undertaking.Hatem Bazian:
And I'll recommend for people to read his full bio because we want to give them the time to really speak about the survey. And Basima Sisemore is a researcher for the Global Justice Program at the Othering & Belonging Institute as well. Both have been co-participants and partners, not only on this research, but also on other research in relations to Islamophobia. So welcome both, and really it's a pleasure to have you. So let's really get this going, Elsadig. Why this research? What is the impetus behind it? Why only research Muslims, which is a small percentage of the American public. Why is this research needed from the Othering & Belonging Institute and what was behind making this survey a reality?Elsadig Elsheikh:
Thank you so much, professor Bazian for generous introductions and also, yes, before I start answering your question, I want to thank all the co-sponsor and our esteemed scope analyst. And also I want to thank all those who worked really hard behind the scenes to support the making of this report and this events, in particular, I would like to thank our colleague, Marc Abizeid for making this event reality. So I remember when we said, Basima and I, back in almost two years ago to design this survey, we struck with the lack of data that documents the voices of Muslim American in sending the impact of Islamophobia in their daily lives. So we never find a comprehensive kind of stock of how Muslims themselves feel about the phenomena. And when we conducted this study last year, we intentionally decided to survey only the US Muslim population in order to bring their voices and views about Islamophobia and its impact on their daily life.Elsadig Elsheikh:
So, we designed the survey to cover many areas, such as US Muslims' perceptions, behavior, and attitudes, concerning Islamophobia, and the US Muslims, a worldview on many other social issues. But someone might ask why Islamophobia as you suggest it, and why surveying only US Muslim population. Beside what you stated Hatem, why Islamophobia, because we know that Islamophobia has a long history in the United States, and did not emerge after 9-11. Also because we know that Islamophobia built on the backdrop of the structural racism and racialization in US society. Also, we know that Islamophobia has been used as a political utility for demagogues and white supremacist. Because also we know that Islamophobia has been used to drive a national security narrative that justifies militarism, securitization and imperial foreign policy. And also because we know that Islamophobia does not only impact US Muslims, but the US society as a whole.Elsadig Elsheikh:
So for all these reasons, we decided that we need to study Islamophobia as we've been doing, but we needed to create a data-driven survey to allow us to look farther on other issues related to Islamophobia. And that will answer to the question and why we have to conduct this survey with US Muslims only. Because in the US and in other parts of the world is a common to study social phenomenon without asking those who are impacted the most with the issue. And Islamophobia is not an exception.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Therefore, we wanted to hear directly from those who are impacted mostly by Islamophobia. So we designed our survey to ask Muslims about their perception about Islamophobia, and if it does exist, then we wanted to know how big is it and the social, psychological, and legal impact of Islamophobia on their attitudes, behavior, and their struggle as they navigate their daily lives in society. On other hand, we also wanted to provide a window for the general public and scholar and activist and organizer into the US Muslims' diverse backgrounds, their point of view in civic engagement, their views in racial equity, immigration, intercultural interaction, mainstream media, and above all, we wanted it to deploy their resilience to belong in the US society. So this kind of, what is that guiding principle, what led us to conduct the survey.Hatem Bazian:
Thank you. Just remind our audience, please, if you have any questions, make sure to include it with the comments. We will get to your questions later on in the panel and to really entertain some of the broader questions that you have across. And I see some people joining us from across the country, so make sure to do so. So Basima, let me return to you in terms of what we always say at the university method, method, method, what was the methods? What was the process of both within the survey together and approaching it since again, you're going to be asked the question. So what was your method then? Can you warm us about it?Basima Sisemore:
Yes. Thank you so much, Dr. Bazian, and again, thank you to everyone joining us. It's a pleasure to be here and happy to provide an overview of our survey process and methods. So the survey ran from October 14th, 2020, to November 2nd, 2020, which was almost a total of three weeks. It was a national survey. So it was disseminated to all 50 US states. We had 1800 respondents participate in the survey, but due to the criteria, we had 1,123 US Muslims who met the full criteria to have their data or to have their responses collected and analyzed in our final data findings and analysis. And so the criteria to participate was for one, they had to consent to the consent form that we provided in the survey. They had to be Muslim. They had to be citizens or non-citizen residents living and/or working in the US, but we did not specify or the requirement wasn't for people to actually be citizens.Basima Sisemore:
And we didn't ask about citizenship status. And participants had to be age 18 or older. And as Elsadig mentioned, the intention and goal of the study was to understand the prevalence of Islamophobia in the United States and how it impacts Muslim individuals and communities. And it was really key for us to understand the perspectives of Muslim Americans, the perspectives, perception, and experience of the impacts of Islamophobia on Muslim Americans. And so that was key in our intent behind only wanting to survey Muslims. And in addition, we also wanted the survey findings to touch upon an account for the diversity of US Muslims, and to assess their societal engagement and worldviews and belonging. In terms of the survey design, to assess the viability of the study and to obtain diverse insight and perspectives and together relevant concerns and questions surrounding the impacts of Islamophobia on US Muslims, we had scheduled several in-person focus groups with Muslim parents, Muslim professionals, and Muslim students, but unfortunately, due to COVID, we were only able to hold one in-person focus group with Muslim female students.Basima Sisemore:
And the focus group participants and their feedback, as well as the feedback that we received from external reviewers was incredibly important and insightful and useful in terms of us crafting the questions and framing for the survey. In terms of the survey instrument and how it was actually disseminated was it was designed and disseminated through Qualtrics, which is a web-based platform to create and conduct online surveys. And as I mentioned, respondents had to consent to participate in the survey. It was limited to only participants who identified as Muslims. And one thing to add on that note is that beyond asking if respondents identified as Muslim, we didn't have any additional questions or safeguards posed to participants to ensure that those responding were actually Muslim. And the reason being that while we would hope and extend the expectation and hope that individuals who participated responded honestly in identifying as Muslim.Basima Sisemore:
But in reality, we were limited in terms of our ability to ethically and reasonably screen and assess individuals participating in the survey to ensure that they were Muslim. So we acknowledged that we cannot guarantee that all survey respondents were Muslim, but again, we wanted to extend the hope and the expectation that those who participated responded honestly. And in regards to our dissemination strategy, again, it was disseminated through Qualtrics and through email. And so we used social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as the networks of individuals and organizations that supported and collaborate on the project to help us with outreach and to disseminate the survey, and participants were able to re-share the survey on social media platforms or email. And it was essential that the survey be disseminated through as many different platforms and channels as possible, whether that was through our partner organizations or networks or individuals in order to avoid selection bias and to accurately represent the diverse Muslim American population in our data collection and findings.Basima Sisemore:
So it was extremely important that we cast a really wide net in terms of who was able to participate in the survey. In addition to our partner networks and individuals who supported with outreach and dissemination, we developed a robust national database to connect and disseminate the survey to Muslim individuals, Muslim serving organizations, institutions, and mosques across the entire US. And we also used social media posts and ads to expand outreach, and to again, avoid selection bias in order to connect with Muslims more at random. And the survey was completely conducted online.Basima Sisemore:
Again, due to COVID, there were some limitations and much of our work preparing for the survey and then disseminating or connecting with individuals had to be done virtually. And our national outreach efforts targeted Muslim community organizations and mosques, civil rights and advocacy organizations, higher education Muslim student groups, Muslim academics, Muslim elected officials, and research and policy institutions that address social justice issues and issues impacting US Muslims. So again, really wanting to cast a wide net to have the diversity of Muslims reflected in our survey findings. And yeah, the survey outreach and dissemination again was not selective and was intended to engage as many US Muslims as possible.Hatem Bazian:
Right. I know how difficult it is to reach to 1,123 respondents, and you actually had more, but some were, did not fulfill the criteria. So it's really very impressive. Maybe you could just go into, a little bit into some of the findings, so maybe we will begin with you, Elsadig. What stood out and really shocking in terms of findings, and I really looked at some of the findings that really stood out. So for you, what was really findings of issues of concerns, things that really needs our immediate attention broadly?Elsadig Elsheikh:
Yeah, sure. There is several of troubling findings that stand out for us or surprise us as we examine the survey results. So let me walk you through the major one. Even though we know that Islamophobia existed in the US because of work done by people like yourself, professor Bazian and others, but the consensus of US Muslims that we survey about such reality was astonishing. So regardless of age, gender, or place of birth, nearly all participants believe that Islamophobia exist in the United States with almost close to 98%, but also 95% of the participants agreed that Islamophobic is a problem in the United States. Also, there is more than seven out of 10 participants believe that women are more at risk of experiencing Islamophobia and significantly more than eight out of 10 men than women survey participants believe Muslim women are at a greater risk of experiencing Islamophobia.Hatem Bazian:
Sorry, maybe, I could add in here that this almost is a universal phenomenon. It's the same type of data we see in France, in Canada, and our colleagues in New Zealand. So really, this is almost mirror across different regions.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Absolutely, absolutely. And that will bug the question, whether the Muslim visibility and Muslimness in Western society is a problem. And we could infer from that is almost across the world, as you suggested, that's because of visibility of Muslim women that subjugate them and also the patriotic notion of who the attackers are as well, will tell us that. Also almost seven out of 10 participants have personally experienced Islamophobia in their lifetimes. This is also very significant. Among them, 76% responded that they experienced Islamophobia in the last 12 months. By the last 12 months, we meant October 2019 to October 2020. So again, that coincides with political climate at the time. So if you could imagine 76% of the surveyed folks experienced Islamophobia in one way or another. And also regardless of age, gender or place of birth, more than six out of 10 participants responded that they themselves or family members, friends, or members of their community have been affected by federal and/or state policies that discriminate against Muslims.Elsadig Elsheikh:
In addition, more than half of the respondents have been treated unfairly by a law enforcement officer because of their religious identity. And again, here, I want to just highlight that it's not only just an act of individual attacking Muslims or subjugating Muslims to Islamophobic tropes, but also the state itself, how the state facilitated the way in which Muslim to be viewed, or others are viewed suspiciously or scrutinized or being surveilled most of their lifetime as I suggested. But despite all this, only 12%, 12 out of 100 people of the participant have reported any Islamophobic incident to the authority.Elsadig Elsheikh:
And that again will beg the question why people, when they encounter such incidents, why don't they report? The sub-question we have, we noticed that they respond either, they didn't know, even if they can report such incidents or where to report those incidents. So this might be a good window for going forward for us working within civil society, whether academia or otherwise, or policy makers to really think about what we can do with this information. Also, 3 out of 10 survey participants have hide, and this is really sad, or try to hide their religious identity, at some point in their lives. But participants between the age of 18 and 29 were more likely than any other group to have tried to hide their religious identity.Elsadig Elsheikh:
One of the most troubling findings is how the majority of U.S. Muslims censored themselves. This is also another sad reality that the survey found. That regardless of age more than 8 out of 10 of the respondents, censored their speech or action out of fear of how people might respond or react to them. But more significantly, 9 out of 10 women censor themselves. This, also another sad reality. In addition, survey participant age 18 and 29 were more likely to censor themselves than other group.Elsadig Elsheikh:
So also, when we are assessing the psychological and emotional impact of Islamophobia, more survey participants respond is that Islamophobia actually affecting their emotional and mental well-being. And that's another strike in reality as well. Also, almost 8 out of 10 participants says that Islamophobia preventing them from building social connection with non Muslims. And almost 7 out of 10 of the responding find it very difficult to build community with other U.S. Muslims because of Islamophobia. This is another reality is that we encounter even anecdotally that most people will say that I would love to get along with other Muslim community, but I'm not quite sure because of how Muslims space has been surveilled. And we don't know who is there either Muslim or they are infiltrated individuals that they might get me in trouble.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Lastly, I will say this 7 out of 10 survey participants, they feel uncomfortable making demand on their local authority or Congress person. This is also another reality that despite all the attempt of Muslim American to some of us to participate in civically engaged with our society, but Islamophobia make those people really reluctant to make any demand in their local authority or Congress person. I will stop here. Thank you.Hatem Bazian:
Maybe we could shift to Basima. Are there any positive findings from the survey? Not to say half full half empty, but what are some of the things that we could actually say that there are some positive outcomes in this survey?Basima Sisemore:
Yes. Thankfully we have some positive outcomes from the survey to share out with everyone. Thank you Elsadig, for providing an overview of those findings. I'm happy to provide an overview of some of the major positive findings that we were able to collect through our survey, through the responses that we gathered. I'll add, or sort of premise that most positive and uplifting findings were in the assessment of the societal engagement of U.S. Muslims, as well as U.S. Muslims world views and belonging. This is despite a general climate of hostility in the United States and what the survey is showing or what the findings show, is that Muslims have a strong desire to belong. They have a strong desire for their children to have a sense of belonging and to feel a part of U.S. society and that they have a place here. Muslims believe and have strong beliefs and ideals toward pluralism and equity.Basima Sisemore:
So those are the general theme in terms of like positive findings that we were able to gather. Speaking to diversity, almost all Muslims, 99.1%, irrespective of age, agree that it is a good thing that the U.S. is made up of people from different cultures. So this speaks to Muslim Americans believing that the U.S. is diverse in supporting that diversity and the different cultures and backgrounds and people that come here that this is a good thing. In considering racial prejudice, most survey participants, 97.1% agree that racial prejudice is a major problem in the U.S. and of those 83% strongly agree that it's a major problem in the United States. Also, an important point to uplift here. In terms of racial equity, almost all survey participants, we're talking 99% agree that all races and ethnicities of people should be treated equally. Also an incredibly important finding.Basima Sisemore:
And some of these findings, I think go to demystify sort of the ideas that people might have of Muslims in terms of Muslims world views, or takes on race, racial equity, diversity. So this kind of goes to maybe dismantle some of those beliefs and to paint a more accurate picture of the actual beliefs, world views that Muslim Americans have. In terms of intercultural mixing, almost three quarters of survey participants, 72.9% agree that relations between Muslims and non Muslims in the U.S. are friendly.Basima Sisemore:
In terms of moving onto identity, intensive belonging, more than half of U.S. Muslims identify themselves in everyday encounters as Muslim American. I think this is important because again, it goes to speak to the sense of belonging that Muslim Americans feel and have, and being in the United States, and that it's important for them. They feel American and that they belong in this country and are a part of the culture society, the fabric that makes up the United States.Basima Sisemore:
In terms of healthcare, this was an interesting finding. Most survey participants, 97.5%, feel that they're treated fairly by healthcare providers when seeking medical attention. And I think that's something important to pin for healthcare and medical providers and, caring for Muslim patients. So, that was a nice finding there. In considering Muslim's ability to navigate and access public spaces, nearly all survey participants, 97.9%, feel that they can safely access community or social public spaces. Tagging onto that nearly all women, 98% and men 97.7% feel that they can safely access social public spaces. This is important because it's obviously incredibly important that Muslims should feel comfortable accessing public spaces and it's good that it's being reflected that they feel that they can do that. They can exist in these spaces and not have fear or be worried of harm or any kind of repercussions around that.Basima Sisemore:
Seven out of 10, 72.9% participants agree that relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the U.S. are friendly. And the final finding that I'll share it with you is most respondents 93.7%, agree that it is important that to them, that their children are or would be fully accepted as Americans. Again, tying back to that sense of identity and belonging and belonging in us society.Hatem Bazian:
Great. Thank you. Now assume that the full server will be available on Othering & Belonging Institute website. So I do encourage our audience to download it, to share it, and to amplify both the positive findings, as well as the challenges that we face in relations to the Muslim American experience. Now I'm going to shift and actually introduce three other panelists that will take us into a conversation about the findings. And then also later on, we'll bring both Elsadig and Basima back to the conversation. So thank you for really giving us the survey and introducing us to the findings.Hatem Bazian:
And now I'll shift and bring first, Sumayyah Waheed, senior policy council with Muslim advocates and policy experts for 15 years, but also, she received her JD from UC Berkeley School of Law. So welcome, we'll celebrate another alumni joining us in this conversation. Second I'll bring forth Dr. Maha Hilal. Mala Hilal is a researcher, writer on institutionalized Islamophobia. I'd like to congratulate Maha for her book. I haven't read it. So I just congratulate you on Innocent Until Proven Muslim Islamophobia, The War on Terror and the Muslim Experience Since 9/11. Maha also is the co-director of Justice for Muslims Collective. Welcome and thank you for joining us. And then my third panelist coming in is Edward Ahmed Mitchell. He is Civil Rights attorney who serves as the deputy director of the National Council on American Islamic relations. I met Edward first in Georgia. So definitely the shift to the national scene is welcome and look forward to continue to working with you. So welcome, our three panelists.Hatem Bazian:
So first let me begin with Sumayyah. It's good to have you with us. Maybe you could actually take us through the general scene of legislation policy relative to anti-Muslim hate, Islamophobia. How does the landscape of the legal, what you call, setup, examines and approaches the Muslim subject as it relates to policy on law?Sumayyah Waheed:
Yes. Thank you, Hatem. I want to thank the Othering & Belonging Institute for having me and for doing this research because this data is really important when we talk to policy makers. To have that evidence-base for some of the changes that we seek. So I wanted to actually take a step back and acknowledge that in time, Muslim hate doesn't happen in a vacuum. That it happens within the context of American history. Which is a history of settler, colonialism, of genocide, and race based slavery. And that the first American Muslims were in fact, enslaved Africans, stolen from the continent of Africa. Around 20% of them are estimated to have been Muslim and were not permitted to practice their faith. And so lost all, but a hint of the faith until about the 1900's. And then that is when you see the black Muslim community starting to grow again, but then also experiencing government surveillance, being targeted, and seen as an anti-American threat.Sumayyah Waheed:
So Islamophobia is nothing new. It's been around. But what happened in 9/11 was that it was amplified and I think made extremely pervasive. And so to answer Dr. Bazian's question or start to at least it's a pretty extensive question. So I'll just take a couple of pieces as examples. As we all know the Patriot act was passed in the aftermath of 9/11, and it greatly expanded surveillance of our communities. Then what we also saw was an expansion of the executive branches powers. So the president and federal law enforcement expanded their powers in many ways, citing national security. We saw national security becoming a huge exception to constitutional protections and civil liberties. Some of the ways that that happened that are germane to this talk are racial and religious profiling.Sumayyah Waheed:
So federal law enforcement, the Department of Homeland security, which was created again in the aftermath of 9/11 to focus on terror and target Muslim populations. Then the transportation security administration, which is pretty notorious for its treatment of Muslims. Both of these and other agencies becoming, like enshrining in Islamophobia, as a practice of targeting Muslims for our religious expression, categorizing our religious practice as inherently a threat; and even when, and this is through administration. So in the past 20 years, we've had Republican and Democrat administrations under the Obama administration. When they banned religious and racial profiling and federal law enforcement, they maintain the exception for the border and for national security. So we are still fighting to change that. And that's one of the legacies, just one piece of the legacies of 9/11. And so just to draw the point out, that's basically the government telling us we don't trust you and your civil liberties aren't important because we don't trust you.Sumayyah Waheed:
So, that remains in existence today. I thought that that was the finding that was mentioned before in the comments, about nearly all Muslims have engaged in some form of self censorship. I just want to take a moment and let that sink in because when you engage in self censorship, you're basically doing the work of the government for it, right? There's no lawsuit that you can pursue to stop self censorship, and that's a pervasive effect of what we're experiencing from federal law enforcement or local law enforcement because there's been a lot of cooperation as well with local and state law enforcement to target our communities.Sumayyah Waheed:
So that curtailment of individual and collective freedom really mirrors the ways in which law enforcement and the FBI have targeted our religious practices. That was pretty disheartening to see and I think that a lot of marginalized communities experienced this in some way. But, we can actually point to current FBI training protocols, for example, that problematize our religious expression, criminalize it, and then target us because of that. So for Muslim advocates, that's just our continuing work. To undo some of those harms that are enshrined in our policies and practices and laws today.Hatem Bazian:
Thank you again. The fact that almost 90% or 9 out of 10 women, as well as 8 out of 10 men, don't censor themselves and then 88% don't report points to really a barrier of fear. And maybe we could turn to Maha since we often focus on the media as the site of Islamophobia or public discourse, but really we're dealing with state apparatus, the government, that both uses the instruments of its power, to undertake violence, structure violence toward the Muslim community in a variety of ways. Including surveillance, sending individuals to crawl in the Muslim. So how do you situate in your work and in this survey, the role of the state, in really approaching the Muslim community?Maha Hilal:
So thank you Dr. Bazian for the question and thank you to the Othering & Belonging Institute for having me here today, as well as my amazing co-panelists. So to me, what this event is really about is putting into context, the survey results, and thinking about what context would lead to the responses that were given by participants. Whether, it was about not reporting Islamophobic incidents to law enforcement. Whether it's about not wanting to, or fearing some sort of association with other U.S. Muslims. And to me, the starting point for this in the current context, when we talk about post 9/11, is the concerted government effort to demonize and target Muslims. Visa V, the war on terror that started almost immediately after 9/11, specifically in a speech that president Bush gave on September 20th, 2001. Even though Bush and other administrations have repeatedly stated that the target of the war on terror, is not sort of, the average Muslim or sort of the good Muslim. In practice, Muslims have been targeted both domestically and abroad.Maha Hilal:
And the war on terror notably, is not just a domestic apparatus. The war on terror is a global apparatus. And while we're often forced as Muslims to see what's happening on the global level or the international level, as separate from what's happening on the domestic level, they're very intertwined. And when we see these very visible manifestations of U.S. military and warfare abroad, undoubtedly the policies, as well as the narratives and images coming out of U.S., of operations abroad impact what happens in the United States and how Muslims are being treated. So the war on terror obviously has numerous impacts. Among them state violence. State violence is the driving force of the war on terror, but there's also hate violence and interpersonal violence. And when we think about the ways in which the state models the targeting of Muslims, namely that they can be targeted without recourse, without accountability, society then responds in turn, to that message that it is similarly okay to target Muslims. And that there will be no consequences of the targeting of Muslims.Maha Hilal:
And we can think about this sort of even more, more broadly, right? What is the purpose of targeting Muslims? In the framework of the war on terror, it has been sort of a narrated as acts of vengeance. This is about restoring our image in the world. This is about, why is it or how could it be that the United States was targeted? So oftentimes when we look at the ways Muslims have been targeted, it's also about humiliation. It's about how do we humiliate Muslims, both domestically and abroad? And then what does that humiliation mean? These public displays of humiliation mean for Muslims, the average Muslim, who's observing and conceptualizing and thinking about what their place in society is.Maha Hilal:
So a couple other points that I want to capture is one of the findings, again, around 7 of 10 Muslims, in this survey, find it difficult to build with other U.S. Muslims. And as Dr. Bazian said, this is a direct ramification of the fact that Muslims know that it's quite often the case, that there will be some sort of surveillance in their spaces. In addition, from the research and work that I've done, we can also think about this through the lens of internalized Islamophobia. Namely, how the environment of external Islamophobia becomes internalized within Muslims themselves. So what do we start to believe and think about Muslims as a result of what the messages are consistently and repeatedly. and do we then want to associate with other Muslims, at the risk of being targeted even more?Maha Hilal:
Second, I think when we talk about some of the survey findings in this, one of the interesting results and unfortunate results, is that Muslims are not reporting Islamophobic incidents. This makes me think back to the unfortunate murder of our three winners, Deah, Yosur, and Razan. Who were murdered by their neighbor in 2015 in North Carolina, and whose death was repeatedly attributed to a parking dispute. So if you can't even go to law enforcement with significant evidence that this in fact was not motivated by a parking dispute, but rather, was a direct consequence of institutionalized, structural, interpersonal, Islamophobia. Then what then is the point? And how do we address that consequence?Maha Hilal:
And I think the last thing I'll say for the sake of moving on is, just to think about the idea of the public sphere. Which is addressed in the survey as well. And I think that, that's really important because it's promising that Muslims can generally feel safe. I think obviously we'd have to, a next step could be also to break down the results and findings by different ethnic, linguistic, cultural groups within the Muslims captured in this survey. Unfortunately, that will probably lead to even more depressing findings, especially, for example, black Muslims who are often doubly targeted.Maha Hilal:
But that is to say that, you know, when we think about the public sphere, when I first read the survey, my initial thought was, when do public spaces become political spaces by virtue of a Muslim being in them, especially when they're experiencing prejudice and discrimination. And I think that's very important because, when you're in those spaces, what could be a public space for one person who is not Muslim, who does not identify as Muslim, again, becomes a political space. And so, how do we exist as Muslims, if every space we're in, we can't go to the grocery store without being harassed, right? Or called some sort of name, right? Then the grocery store becomes a political space. So how do we begin to dismantle and get at the root of some of these issues that are surfacing in the everyday experiences of Muslims? And I'll stop there. Thank you.Hatem Bazian:
Great. Thank you for these comments and views. The internalized Islamophobia is definitely a major, major piece, which reminds me of the double consciousness of W.E.B. Du Bois and how that shapes an individual's perspective. And then, geography of inclusion and exclusion, we did another survey where, asking the question, do Muslim feel anxious in public space? And, actually, a larger segment of them feel anxious. So they might actually show up in public space, but they have an anxiety about it that also we need to delve in it. Maybe I'll go to Edward at this point. CAIR has been doing a lot of work on civil rights for a long period of time. I remember we partnered with CAIR on a number of reports, including legislating fear and others, and then the annual data on Muslim civil rights. So maybe take us on, how does civil rights for Muslims look today in America, and where do you see parts of the survey that are both promising, but also where do you see challenges in there in relations to Muslim civil rights?Edward Mitchell:
Inshallah. BismAllah... Thank you, professor and Assalam Allekum to all of you. I join Maha and Sumayyah in thanking the Othering and Belonging Institute for conducting this important survey and hosting this event. It's an honor to be with you. As the professor noted, I was asked to discuss civil rights and civil liberties in America in the context of the survey. And I want to start by just laying out what I'm going to discuss inshallah. One, I want to highlight one particular aspect of the survey that addresses this issue. Then, I want to talk about some of the factors that I think led to that survey result. And then, I'd like to share some not, not good news, but promising news, some progress for making and addressing the problems that this survey highlighted inshallah to all of the above.Edward Mitchell:
So first, the part of the survey I want to highlight is the issue of Muslims reporting on whether or not discriminatory policies implemented by the state have impacted them. Now, anecdotally, we know that this happens, right? We know about racial profiling at the airport, the Muslim ban, and many other things, but we often think of these things as wrong, just as a matter of principle. Whether or not they impacted a large number of the community or not, it's just wrong as a matter of principle. But what the survey showed is, not only is it wrong as a matter of principle, not only does it impact people, it impacts a very large segment of the Muslim American community, a much larger segment than I honestly expected. So, if you check out this part of the survey, it indicates that of those people who are a question two thirds, 62%, said that they, their family members, their friends or members of their community have been impacted by federal or state policies that discriminate against Muslims. That's two thirds of the American Muslim community.Edward Mitchell:
Now, what's interesting about this is that, on other questions, you'll see a difference between how U.S.-born Muslims respond to questions versus foreign-born Muslims. On this question, there is no significant difference. 63% of U.S.-born Muslims said yes to that question, 62% of foreign-born said yes. That, to me, is remarkable. And it shows that this is real issue that impacts our entire community, regardless of whether you're black, Arab, white born here, born overseas, that the fact that our government's policies, what our government is doing, reaches all of us and reaches our family.Edward Mitchell:
So, what are some of the manifestations of this and some of the causes for this? So, the survey highlights one of the things that I think happens at the local level to everyone. We are all at some point likely to interact, not necessarily with an FBI agent, but with a local police officer, right? We all, at some point our lives get pulled over despite your excellent driving habits, I'm sure. And so, what the survey indicated is that 53% of Muslims said they'd been treated unfairly by a law enforcement officer. Now, it didn't say what kind of officer that was, but I can bet you that that includes police officers, that includes immigration officers at the airport.Edward Mitchell:
Those are probably the two major examples of when people are interacting with government authorities, officers, and being treated differently because they are Muslim. That could be everything from a secondary screen at the airport, being forced to turn over your cell phone when you're traveling, extra pat downs, those sort of things. And then, when you're being pulled over by a police officer, of course, we've heard horror stories about the way Muslims have been treated on the side of the road. And of course, if you're Muslim and black, then you're facing a double risk.Edward Mitchell:
So, what are some of the government policies, the structural things that exist that are leading to all of this? So, there are about 10 things I want to note here. So one has already mentioned is the Patriot Act. That's perhaps the most famous thing that all Americans are aware of, even if they don't know exactly what's in the Patriot Act, but essentially, it allowed the government to do so much more in terms of surveillance, spying, targeting individuals that they suspected posed a threat to our country, even without any evidence. The Patriot Act is still the law of the land. That's the bad news. The good news is that, if you look at polls back in 2004, 2002, Patriot Act had wide support in the United States. And in fact, criticizing it could have been the end of your political career. If you look 10 years later, in 2015, evenly split, with a slight majority of American people saying the Patriot Act should be reformed. That still hasn't happened yet. But the first step towards that happening is changing hearts and minds in the public. That, alhamdulilah, has happened.Edward Mitchell:
The next thing I want to note is entrapment. This is something that I think impacts the community at a very wide level. Right now, CAIR and the ACLU are going to the Supreme Court over a case in Los Angeles in which the FBI was sending in informants to target the community. And that is not unique. That happens all across the country. We estimate there are at least 10,000 FBI informants that have been established over the past 10 years that go into communities, supposedly looking for plots, and if a plot cannot be found, we fear they are inventing plots and using people who are mentally ill, young, impressionable, to make those cases. That is a huge, that continues to persist under both Democratic and Republican administrations. The good news on that is that it's been exposed. It's being fought in court, as we said, we're going to SCOTUS right now. And though I don't expect the FBI to end that practice anytime soon, again, the first step towards changing it is exposing it, fighting it in court, and making sure the public is aware of why this is problematic.Edward Mitchell:
The other thing, another example is the NYPD spying program that went on for over 10 years, alhamdulilah, that has completely come to an end. It did incredible damage to the Muslim community in New York, but that community persevered, they fought back and it's over. That's the good news. The CBE program, alhamdulilah, the community, most of the Muslim community rallied against that program, spoke out against it, or refused to participate in it. Some did sadly, but most of us did not. And that program eventually failed.Edward Mitchell:
And now, the government's trying to reinvent it with a new name, but it's still not getting any sort of significant support from the Muslim community. That's the good news. The terrorist watch list, the no fly list, those things are still in existence. They're still causing problems for Muslims. But again, we're fighting it. Right now, CAIR and others are in court fighting the watch list. We managed to subpoena government officials, interview them, interrogate them on the record about this watch list. We found out that not only has the government been spying on Muslims using this list, but they've been giving names on this list to employers and local government agencies, which could explain why Muslims experience some difficulties in terms of banking, housing, and other such things.Edward Mitchell:
Another issue, bulk data collection. This is something that Edward Snowden and others obviously exposed, and was real unconstitutional and has been reformed. Still happening, but been reformed and, in some cases, shut down. Anti-Sharia laws, for years, you had local state governments passing these anti-foreign law bills. That has stopped. There are not really many of those that are still being passed. Some states have them and they have not activated them. They're not being used. And that's again, thanks to the community speaking up, filing successful lawsuits, in particular in Oklahoma.Edward Mitchell:
And so that's the good news, that that trend has stopped. The Muslim ban obviously was repealed, took obviously four years and a lot of work, but it's done. So these are some of the things that have highlighted and emphasized and led to Muslims feeling targeted and Muslims being targeted. But the good news is, we're fighting back against that. Some of these things have been changed and the things that haven't been changed, we are continuing to fight them. So this survey is important, because, as it shows, these things are not as strong in principle. They really do impact individual people, but alhamdulilah, I think it also shows that we can make progress against these sort of things.Hatem Bazian:
Thank you, Edward. Being a person that experienced being Muslim was while flying more often than I could recount, I could relate to the 10 items that you highlighted. Maybe, you could actually bring back both Elsadig and Basima so we could have a conversation with everyone on the panel. And I really want to throw the questions, because this survey, as well as other studies, the whole field of actually studying Muslims, documenting Muslims and approaching Muslims as Muslims rather than actually studying Muslims for other purposes. So often, many of the studies, at least my critique post 9/11, really objectified the Muslims for studies that is not for the Muslims, but rather set against the Muslims and the whole field of security studies and so on. So how do you view, and anyone can jump for this question, how to study Muslims as Muslims, methodologically as well as the key issues and points. Anyone could jump on this question, if you would like.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Let me. Let me kick us off. I think one of the ways we thought about it, at least I remember sitting in our office at UC Berkeley, Basima and I, and I just glance at the New York Times and it says Muslim, this. It was about securitization of Muslim bodies. So when I read, and I have look this, they surveying 15 people and this is what they come up in generalizing the subject matter. And that's what really energized are thinking about this survey. Like I stated earlier, the problem with the studying Muslim, because Muslim always been the non-indigenous to this place, the foreigner, the coming taking over, the remnants of his sleeping cells and all the likes, because it is so ingrained in the way in which the structure of this society that for other non-dominant group is subjugated Muslim.Elsadig Elsheikh:
And we became just like the Imperial time. We send an anthropologist to study us with local people. So I think a time of that is over. I think a lot of Muslims, themselves, Muslims-Americans, they are taking the lead, they are speaking out, they are asserting their position by creating just like what we do, Basima and I, for example. In this, or all of you doing the same fantastic work that we see our struggle in relation to other groups. It's not just us. We are not alone in this. But I think it's about time for us to step up the plate, to work in designing our own voices, to study and to be in communication with our communities, to bring their voices, their concern out and to work with our communities themselves. That way, the more we do this type of work, I think it will make us able to speak with certainty about the voices of the voiceless, of the one, they try to be silent.Elsadig Elsheikh:
So I think studying Muslims in America and also within the confinement of the academia, because we all, most of us are work or operate there is how we can study Muslim and Islams, especially Muslims beyond the idea of the just theology or part of this department or that department. It required to study Muslims as also social groups that they deserve own department with all facet of knowledge that Muslim have and contribution and their resilience that they brought to the society.Hatem Bazian:
Maybe I could follow up. Have we maybe overcame what Mahmood Mandani, The Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, or Moustafa Bayoumi's book, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Are we in a different space or we're still in that space?Edward Mitchell:
I would just note, so number one, to the first question, I want to briefly say that I think a real benefit of Muslims, polling Muslims, and doing this work is that we know what questions to ask. And also, we can do a better job of trying to make sure we're reflecting the diversity of the community. One of the most difficult things when you do these surveys is to try to accurately get at the racial makeup of the American Muslim community, because no one really knows for sure what it looks like. But that really can make a huge difference in these surveys. When we did a survey recently, we ended up weighting it to show how the results will be different if you increase the number of African American response to match their estimated population, and it really changes things. So, I think Muslims are aware of that and we probably make a real effort to address that. And so that's a benefit of us diving in.Edward Mitchell:
And then I would say that I think your survey indicates that for many Muslims, we're still not comfortable. We still don't feel accepted as Americans. And we still want to be accepted as Americans. I think that the poll indicated over 90% said it was important to them that their children feel fully accepted as Americans. And so, I still think there is, for many people, that desire not to be viewed as a bad Muslim, but I think we are in a much better place on that problem than we were 10 years ago. I think the community has matured in many ways beyond that. We're moving beyond condemning every bad thing that's done by Muslim and we've moved on to proactive things and just standing up for ourselves and saying what we believe in.Edward Mitchell:
So I think those are, are good things, but I still think we have a problem in the community in so far as we feel that we need to be accepted. I don't care if anyone accepts me as an American, I am an American and whatever my neighbor thinks about that does not matter. And I don't even care if they like me as a Muslim, all I care about is that they respect my rights. And so I think if we internalize that perspective, not an indifference, but a feeling of strength that at the end of the day, my only job is to be able to ensure that I can live out my life and practice my faith. And that's all I need. If you like me, that's great. But at the least, I'm going to make sure you respect me. Then I think we won't feel the need to please anyone at all, or to be a good Muslim or a bad Muslim or fit in those binaries.Hatem Bazian:
Maybe to jump to another question, I do really want to dive into a little bit on the gendered aspect of Islamophobia. Again, the data from this survey, the data from the earlier surveys, France's CCIF, points to the gender dimension of Islamophobia and how to understand it. And is it a matter because Muslim women with Islamic dress in public space are a visible target, or there's something else at work? So also, women who are not wearing the headscarf, likewise, face Islamophobic incidents in the workplace. So we don't want to make it only in terms of that part. So, how do we understand the gender dimension of Islamophobia? Sumayyah or Maha, if you want to join, not because I'm pointing you because you're women, I want to include you in the conversation. So just to make sure.Sumayyah Waheed:
I'll start, to take a stab, and definitely welcome comments from the others. I think there's a number of things going on. As I had mentioned before, Islamophobia doesn't happen in a vacuum, so gendered Islamophobia doesn't happen in a vacuum either, and we do live in a sexist and misogynistic society. And so that's definitely at play. And I think that, in terms of, when we're talking about Muslim women who are visibly, you know, either wearing a head scarf or in some other way are targeted because of visibly being Muslim, for me, I see it as both being extra visible, and then also what our dress might represent to other people.Sumayyah Waheed:
And I kind of harp on this, but the white feminist kind of construction of Muslim women as needing to be saved and how that can lead to violence against women or assaults, because then they turn the blame on us for subscribing to a set of beliefs that they haven't asked us about, but they assume that we hold. So I think that can be at play as well. And yeah, I would welcome comments from the others. I thought that was an interesting piece of the survey and definitely worth delving into further.Basima Sisemore:
One thing that I can add, in relation to this, is some of our work on Anti-Sharia legislation. We've been documenting since 2017 Anti-Sharia legislation and the Anti-Sharia Law movement in the United States. And one thing that's particularly interesting is, this type of legislation is introduced to quote unquote protect Muslim woman in some way from Sharia and the harms that it supposedly inflicts on women. But, interestingly enough, some of our research has indicated that it does, I mean, in many ways it harms everybody, but it doubly impacts women in the sense that, if there's a state, for example, Mississippi, that has enacted an Anti-Sharia law or has passed that into legislation. One of the issues with that is that a woman, if in her marriage contract, she seeks a divorce from her husband in the Islamic marriage contract. There is a stipulation in which, in the event of divorce, she might receive some financial support, some money in the case of divorce.Basima Sisemore:
And if the state has enacted an Anti-Sharia law in that state, then that contract is essentially null and void and can't be looked to. And so, she therefore isn't eligible, or she isn't able to access that the money that was promised to her through her marriage contract. And so it therefore goes to harm Muslim woman. In addition to the legislation being Islamophobic, it also goes to impact women at that level as well. So just wanted to tag that, in terms of also contextualizing the impacts of Islamophobia and how it impacts what Muslim at also the structural level and outside of thinking about how women might be more easily targeted based on dress. It also expands to the structural level.Maha Hilal:
I guess I would add that, along the lines of what Sumayyah said, right, that there is this Western feminism desire and obsession to save Muslim women. Obviously, the war on Afghanistan has been an acute example of that, whether it was from the beginning in 2001, when Laura Bush specifically campaigned for the war in Afghanistan to save Muslim women, or whether it's now, where Muslim women again are sort of problematized and used and weaponized to sort of legitimize a militaristic agenda. That said, I think dress is one part of it. You know, Muslim women who wear hijab are often visible reminders of the Muslim presence, right? And it's easier to recognize the sort of, what you despise or what you hate, when someone is cuing you to say that they are of this identity. And so there's just a lot of ways that women are being impacted and targeted and it makes sense.Maha Hilal:
And I think there's also another way that's, I think, has been quite neglected, and it's not necessarily the purview of the study. But when we look at the ways that state violence has impacted the Muslim community in general with, for example, entrapments in federal terrorism prosecutions, detention, torture, that has disproportionately targeted men, Muslim men specifically. But, what ends up happening is that Muslim women are left then to pick up the pieces and to sort of take care of the family, to deal with often the Islamophobia resulting from the stigma of their loved ones, whether they're in prison, whatever it is. And so there's also that element of it. And I'm not sure that that was necessarily captured or incorporated into the ways that we generally understand impacts on Muslim women and the reasons why we think that they are more of the targets. But I think that there is obviously multiple reasons for that, but I think prime among them being that there's a specific construction by the government and the media in terms of what Muslim women represent and sort of being the embodiment of a threat.Maha Hilal:
And at the same time, it's sort of nuanced imagery, right? Because it's, we're a threat, but at the same time, we're helpless. And so there's a lot of navigating on what to do and how to act on those assumptions and tropes.Hatem Bazian:
Right? I'm going to try to fuse a few things together, because we are coming close to, in terms of our time. The service shows that 98% say that Islamophobia is real, it exists. That's what they're expressing. Yet, almost 80 to 90% give and take between men and women don't report censorship, censoring themselves, and also 76+ don't make demand on public policy circles. So you could see that there's a problem, but the problem's almost constructed not to be addressed. So if you are taking a lens of recommendation, what would you recommend to educators, to policy makers, to community leaders and organizations of how to attack all these seemingly serious problem that also has elements that actually prevents it from being addressed at the individual level in the community.Elsadig Elsheikh:
I will start us off. I think those are really very important findings, and one of the purpose of the survey is actually to layout the ground, to highlight challenges that we face as a communities, but also as a society. And I have to say that is there is multiple way to do this. And one of them is, for example, I know Hatem Bazian's center, they have an app. For example, that just through your phone, you can report the incidents. I think, to popularize our work in the communities among everybody, at least we can drive in data to force the national and local authority to look into that. But of course that would never happen without forcing our way in terms of educating, but it should not fall into our own as Muslim communities to educate everybody.Elsadig Elsheikh:
But how we can think about including Muslims experience within the educational curriculum. And this goes to k12 and art world, because without the knowledge, our Institute, one of the promise that we keep saying and touching about othering and belonging. If you don't revert the mechanism of othering, belonging became an elusive idea. It will never materialize. And one of the ways to do that is actually to bridging and bridging not required for me as a marginalized, invisible, harm to give up anything is actually to create a bridge with other group like myself. Second, that the larger society structures, including education, health, housing, et cetera, and public policy. Is to facilitate the way in which to create those bridges. So to answer your questions, I think raising social awareness, societal awareness about the problem is very important.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Second is really one of the elephant in the room that we didn't talk a lot about it. It is like the media, the way in which media, even signal sometimes by passing about the Muslimness of some part of our population as if you always have to defend something. It is really troubling, so many times when we engage in media interviews, I have to correct the reporter. Like, no, listen, I'm not going to do that, but I'm going to say this. So I think those type of work, and I don't want to take up so much time, but I think this type of work involve all of us in different field. That to rethink the way in which we position ourself and I really like what Edward said earlier, this idea of creating laws to protect all of us, and we should stand for that. So if the indigenous people have to fight Dakota pipelines, we should be there all of us, because that's the only way we secure our clean water. Maybe here in California or somewhere in Montana, it doesn't have to be just South Dakota.Edward Mitchell:
I would note Dr. Bazian very quickly. So when I saw that poll result, that scared me. I mean, that was very concerning to me that that many Muslims said they do not report Islamophobic incidents, but the one possible silver lining is that many Islamophobic incidents may not be reported because there's nothing to report. So for example, if you're walking down the street and someone in a car drive by and says, go back to your country, a Muslim person may say, all right, well, I'm not going to call the police. The person's gone. I'm not going to call care. There's nothing they can do. So it may not be that the person's afraid to report doesn't know, it may be that in some cases they feel like there's nothing that can be done. But to the extent there are other cases that people who are just they're afraid to report it.Edward Mitchell:
They don't know where to report it. That's very concerning. And I think as Elading mentioned, education is key that to the extent a significant number of people said, they didn't even know where to go to report. People have got to know about care and Muslim advocates and others they can call. Muslims to help point them in the right direction, help give them guidance. Especially if it's discrimination the workplace, something illegal or a crime. Those things have to be reported. Because if you don't, the next person is going to be a victim. And then someone after that, until someone stands up for themselves and says, this is not okay. But I just want to note there is a possible silver lining in that result that maybe it's not as bad as we think.Hatem Bazian:
Or maybe another way is that the level of tolerance of victims, of Islamophobia, that the rate of what they consider to be Islamophobia has almost went to only direct violence and therefore everything beyond that is seen as normal. So a woman in the grocery store being assaulted verbally which should not be acceptable, is being seen as just where in a time where open type of verbal hostilities is acceptable. So that's also a way to maybe nuance some of these findings, but I think delving deeper into the data will be very important and maybe do a follow up interviews with some of the respondents on those questions. Let me take a question, go ahead.Sumayyah Waheed:
Sorry. I would just also add that in some cases, what happens, maybe the stated policy of the agency. So if you think of the stop at the airport, who are you going to complain about TSA too? I think they do have a complaint line, but I don't know anyone who's ever gone anything measurable from that. Right? So if it's their stated policy that they can do a double a secondary screening on you. You just accept that and don't feel like there's any point in complaining about it.Hatem Bazian:
Let me take a question directly and then you could add to it from the audience, Sana, who's an expert, presented in our Islamophobia conference here at Berkeley, while back, she said, I'm curious to know if there is a correlation between skin, eye, color and Islamophobia, are darker skin Muslims, more at risk of experiencing Islamophobia in the United States? So really speaking or discussing here, the issue of race, skin tone, as it relates to Islamophobia.Hatem Bazian:
Anyone feel free to, to jump.Maha Hilal:
So I think we can say yes, obviously, and especially when we're talking, we're talking about the United States, which is at its core, right, anti-black and so there is the threat of anti-black that runs throughout the entire history of this country as in the entire colonial history of this country. And when I've talked to black Muslims, myself, or some of the research projects that I've worked on, they've often told me we feel like we're doubly targeted, or we don't know why we're target. Is it because we're Muslim or is it because we're black? So I think that's definitely an issue. And I think we're also operating within a racial hierarchy in the United States. And that is very clear. And so whenever there's a system of oppression of which there are many that are operating the United States, it's sort of incumbent to sort of place it alongside or within to better understand who's going to be the most impacted by any given system of oppression, such as IslamophobiaHatem Bazian:
Anyone like to add to, to this.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Yeah, just One. I 100% agree with what Maha said and I think, another issue that would like to point out to our communities as well is this idea that regardless of whether we would like to integrate or to feel belong to the American society, we have to understand what is structure that we are earning to belong to the structure that is really based on racial hierarchy white supremacist. Structure that negate and try to invisibilize that the weak and marginalized even farther. So understanding the structural racialization of this country is really very important for our work cause Islamophobia is not uniquely just to, we are the fairest people we've been subjugated to. We have to remember the Chinese Exclusion Act. We have to remember the Japanese entrapment and before the genocide against native American and enslavement of African people.Elsadig Elsheikh:
So when you put all this together, Islamophobia, it just, it comes into a time that is just our time. So in order, even to fight it back, we need to understand it, which context that existed. And when we know that, that will help us to fight it in more effective ways. So I think I definitely agree as, as a black Muslim male that I oftentimes don't know exactly which one is you coming at me because I'm my Muslim name or my feature or my cause I'm a black male. So all that combined. And, and I will add, imagine if I'm a Muslim black woman wearing hijab, that will be triple times. So I think race and gender play, very important role of our understanding and that should inform our way in which we combat Islamophobia, but also our solidarity is with the most marginalized group. And we have to remember that we can not also yearn to belong to a structure racialization notion of American society. We have to yearn to for all of us to belong, and when we do that work, I think Islamophobia could be issues the past.Hatem Bazian:
There was an earlier question that post, and I think maybe if we have some information, has there been any survey or research done on Islamophobia focusing on students, whether it's college or K-12, do we have such material that we could direct some of our audience to?Edward Mitchell:
Oh yeah. There have been a lot of surveys, especially on K-12. So ISPU has done this work care California has, I think an almost an annual survey they do about school bullying. So those are two resources you might want to check. ISPU whatever they've done, school bullying and also care California, a lot of data about what students have experienced and it's as bad as you would expect.Hatem Bazian:
Yeah. I'm aware of the care California that did, which bullying as it relates to religious identity. And as far as I remember the data, 55% of Muslim, and K-12 age kids experience bullying for their religious identity. So these are important materials and information to share. And I know ISPU partnered with MSA west Muslim student association of the west to actually look at the university setting. And I think the research came out last year, if I'm not mistaken, Shahbaz asked the question, what kind of work needs to happen from the bottom up for society to understand the severe, the severe impacts of institutionalized Islamophobia and to feel a sense of responsibility to take action? So this is to anyone he shared it on Facebook, but also on our comments line, what kind of works need, maybe we could just say what type of work, what type of research, what type of projects, programs that can be taken from the bottom up at the grassroots level?Edward Mitchell:
Well, I would just say when, when Muslims are engaged in politics, either as people running for office or people engaging with candidates that especially at the federal level with people running for Congress, this needs to be a key issue. You're presenting not just the typical things like the Muslim ban we were raising, but these nitty gritty things like watch list, no fly list and other things that people may not know a lot about, but do represent institutionalized Islamophobia, racial profiling, or religious profiling, the border. Candidates should be making commitments to address these issues when they were in Congress. And especially if they're running for president or any other federal office. So I do think that it's a priority that we should be making when we're engaging in politics, and that can help because at the end of the day, people can know all about these things and that's important, but it's, it's going to take legislative regulatory for a change to impact them.Hatem Bazian:
Great. We're coming to the end of our program. So I'm going to give each one of you just a minute to wrap up just what, how do you see or assess the survey and what other works that you need that we need to do begin from Maha. I see it on top of my screen. So go ahead.Maha Hilal:
So I think one of the first thing is that these perspectives are grounded in reality it might be easy to dismiss for those who want to dismiss that. There are reasons why there's a context in which Muslims exist that has produced the resolve of the survey as it were. Second, I think just trying to assess and position ourselves as Muslims within the current historical social political context. And I think the one thing that I will say is, although there are some aspects of the survey that are very not as bleak, I do think it's important to think about what we need to do to advocate for ourselves. And part of that is when we're thinking about policies, policy, and, and legal changes, a lot of what has been discussed if, for example, a policy's appealed like the Muslim ban, that is simply a restoration of rights. It's not a proactive gain of rights. And so I think that has to be in context in terms of thinking about how far we've come and how much more work we have to doHatem Bazian:
Thank you and Basima.Basima Sisemore:
Hi, thank you. Yeah, just extending a big, thanks and gratitude to everyone for joining and for the co panelist for speaking and Dr. Bazian for moderating the conversation. In terms of next steps, kind of piggybacking of what Maha said. I think there's a lot to be done. And one thing that popped into mind just thinking about that is, I know Edward mentioned that the anti Sharia legislation has kind of come to a halt and in a lot of ways, it has slowed down significantly. Last year in 2020, there were only three bills introduced compared to years prior in which 10 plus bills were introduced over the several years period. But an issue stands in that there's 231 anti Sharia bills or anti Sheia legislation that have been introduced at the state level. And I think that in some of those have been enacted into laws, 20 bills have been enacted into law.Basima Sisemore:
And so in part, I think in one way, not only is it anti Sharia legislation, but these other federal measures that have been brought into the conversation, these need to be dismantled. And there's a lot of work to be done to, to address that because ultimately that trickles down from the federal level or state level into our communities and greatly impacts us as we've engaged in the conversation today around. I think one thing that Elsadig shared and brought to the floor was thinking about a curriculum around addressing Islamophobia, a K-12 curriculum and understanding the difficulties and implementing something like that, but just how important it is to be engaging these conversations at that level with children and young people, and really kind of baking that into to the American fabric. So those are just some, some thoughts that I haveHatem Bazian:
And EdwardEdward Mitchell:
I think we, we talked about the issue of making sure that Muslims can and are reporting Islamophobic incidents. So I think we need to make a big concerted effort to continue educating our community about the options they have to report employment discrimination, which is a huge issue that everyone, so many people face and also government discrimination and hate crimes and hate speech. So I think we need to educate people and not just in the mosques it's great that you know your rights presentation in a MOS that's important, but to even go beyond the mosque, to try to reach Muslims and educate them about their rights so they can defend their rights. And the last thing I've noticed that just as a philosophical matter when our fight to be quote unquote accepted and get our rights, we can't sacrifice our faith.Edward Mitchell:
It's so tempting to hide a religion, which many of us done it's so tempted not to stand up for our rights, not to get involved in politics. And I think most of us are resisting that. And so I think we just have to keep in mind that we will never win our rights by giving up our faith, by giving our values. We've got to hold on tight to those. And regardless of what anyone thinks it will be okay in the end, God willing. And so just stand up for yourself, fight for your rights, but don't give up you in the processHatem Bazian:
And SumayyahSumayyah Waheed:
Thank you. I really appreciate those comments and I echo them and would just reiterate that given the discomfort that people might feel in demanding change, that it's on us to really help people fight through that, to, to continue to engage with our communities so that people are making demands on our elected officials who work for us. And I really appreciate Edward talking about really holding elected officials to task for how they will stand up for our communities. And I think that that can also trickle down to the local level, particularly with hate speech and disrupting hate speech in a safe way. And that also needs to move online as well. So there's plenty of work to do. I think this survey helps us direct some of our attention to where we need, and really you appreciate the conversation.Hatem Bazian:
Thank you. Elsadig you get the last word.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Thank you. And I don't want to hold people beyond one theory, but I think couple of items that stand out for me that as our next level is really we have to strengthening our, solidarity, we using our community and organizing power, if we do that, I think we will be able to do money of above is, is to be in solidarity with other marginalized people to educate the others. And, and that will give us a bright and sense of belonging, who we are without jeopardizing anything. And also we just really need to work in cross sectoral coalition.Hatem Bazian:
Thank you. Let me thank everyone first. I, let me thank Marc, who actually is in the background, making all of us look good and switching through and managing the presentation. Thank you, Marc, for your work, for making this a smooth panel. I'll thank all of our audience. Some friends that we know some colleagues from across the country that joined this important conversation, thank the panelists Elsadig, Basima, Edward, Maha, and Sumayyah. For Maha, I encourage people to pick the book, Innocent Until Proven Muslim. It's very important to support materials and books that are written from within the community. The narrative is so important. So I encourage people to pick the book, to access it and to share it with others. I'd like to thank Othering and Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley for the great work that is being undertaken on Islamophobia and their partnership with the Islamophobia study center.Hatem Bazian:
We've been really blessed with a list of co-sponsors Islamophobia research and documentation project, Center for race and gender, Care justice for Muslim collective, Muslim advocates and ISPU. You enriched us. You blessed us for your presence, the work continues. And then we see each other on the long struggle for justice Assalem Allekum and see you in the near future.
