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tv   Capital News Today  CSPAN  January 4, 2011 11:00pm-2:00am EST

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monopoly. it wasn't the federal government that broke up at&t, the huge monopoly on telephones. it was a private individual and a judge by the name of green, district judge that unraveled that whole thing because the space institutions couldn't do it. ..ññ
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congressman sarasin, you stated earlier that you would like the opportunity to go back and change some of your posts after-the-fact because you weren't satisfied with what happened. what are some examples of what happened with that? >> is it referring to the tax code? >> just imposed in general as you said you wish you could go back. >> as he voted for that you wish you hadn't voted for. >> again, most of them are -- i am more than comfortable with something not too long ago and frankly now i forgot. it couldn't have been too important. i don't know. i cannot think and not that
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there are any, but nothing jumps to my mind that i would change. i'm sure there are many of them. >> and i kind of enjoyed in a political question here? it's my question that those of you represented the degree of competitiveness that you are no congressman carter are highly competitive district and it's my opinion congressman sarasin achieve a fairly republican district. >> have a very competitive district to the congress who has been there for 14 years. i came to congress in 1972 just in time to get embroiled in watergate. as a republican member of congress, trying to run for reelection in a democratic district was not a fun time when i was running against the
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speaker of the house, bill hatcher who died sunday. did you know that? bill is my -- i talked a moment ago about bipartisanship. but this is a very competitive district. bill and i stood together in a state legislature. he was the speaker of the house. at that he did a magnificent job. i was in the minority. using the maturity obviously. we became great friends. in 1874, he ran against me for congress and we debated 28 times. it was like nobody renders my reference now. if they get like the bobbin ratio. at any rate, we could have been taking each other's part in these debates. we became -- we became gator friends during the campaign. fortunately i won, he laughs. he came back three years or two turns later when i was running for governor to run for the open
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seat and he came here to washington, served for six terms. and remained my friend. we were so great friends. we would go to dinner often for lunch together and unfortunately just i don't than they can do as a couple of months older than i was. but those are the kind of relationships you have back then. and we don't have today. as far as a competitive district, it was very competitive. and it come back and forth several times since then and it's not democratic again. >> very competitive. >> just another site. i live in the smallest time in my district. a group in the time i did when i was a kid the 2500 people in it. i call it a power base. and obviously he was and was also a great democratic counter and those republican thomas mahon town first time i went to the incumbent democrat is running against. the moral is if you're going to run for congress in is your hometown, make sure you come
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from the smallest one in the district. [laughter] at any rate. >> but you had actually exchanged incumbency is with republican challengers over several election? >> yeah, i was very teen years and a skip a turn when i was defeated and then came back and one may see back, which incidentally is pretty hard to do. you have to gingerly tell voters they made a mistake. and voters never -- [laughter] it's a very tough job to run for your seat after you've been bounced. but my district is always at a republican tilt to it. i'd say this is an oversimplification. but in michigan, at the same
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time, we had a run sarasin type government attending the gin mill again. and my district was at the state capitol of lansing. well, and included it. but other parts too. that bill milliken was very moderate republican in the people in future to government where very moderate republicans. and among that group were moderate republican women. and so, my margin of the tree i could always sort of way to the moderate republican pro-choice women who would vote with name. and i had these very narrow the various. anytime straight party voting reasserted his love, i was in trouble and that's when i lost
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that one time, was when ronald reagan defeated jimmy carter but their republican tie. so, i'm you can do it, but it's very, very difficult to survive in a district that doesn't favor your party. >> we have obviously just had a sense and later on today were going to have someone talk about the reapportionment process. knowing that the district lines will be reached on, what does they host number two in order to get the most favorable outcome? >> prey. [laughter] it's the legislature that will reach at least in most states and that tends to be a mostly
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partisan exercise. the fact that so many legislatures turned over this year will make a difference in the next congress because the districts will be redrawn with a more favorable tilt i think to the republicans. again, as i said earlier there's many districts that have been created by clamor for democrat in a few districts that is really contested district. otherwise mostly are pretty safe. double probably change at least for a while. i'm not sure the system is a good one for figuring all this out. i would change their congressional districts as some kind of aim nonpartisan committee that actually creates or tries to create cohesive districts. if you look at congressional districts in the united states, you see the most bizarre looking shapes. i mean, talk about gerrymandering.
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you never have in mind what has existed in some of the states today, where you find a district where the boundary is one street that connects to two pockets of people. the more cohesive districts where they have an economic cohesiveness, cultural cohesiveness as to whatever probably makes more sense, that's what i do attempts to do. mostly for purely are purely partisan. he put most on the pieces of political gain. i wouldn't have been in congress in 1972 if it hadn't been for the 1970 senses, which didn't change the number of seats in my status connecticut, the required two redistricting and better balance. and they actually took some towns are those my district and put them into a republican to democratic towns out of a pipe congressional district and put
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them in the republican district next door, attempting to defeat the republican congressman who hope to beat. and instead, the democratic congressman lost. i would applaud theo district and i won the new district. and it was only the basis of reapportionment admit that different. it would've been a narrow loss, but that wouldn't have been as much consolation is winning this district because of what the democrats were trying to do partisanly coming defeat the republican next-door. he won, i want and they lost an incumbent. >> i want to come back to something i said earlier and that is we are in a period of time, reapportionment timer there is a distortion whatever democracy we have in the house of representatives as members of congress cast votes of the nine with the reapportionment process is going to mean for them. and so, they're really in a way serving two masters.
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the legislative redistricting machinery and their constituents and so look for lots of distortions and voting behavior. the other thing is that, keep in mind that a lot of states, for whatever reason they deadlocked. and i think you'll see more of the vacation this time that we've seen in the past. my districts that i read in an were all in a federal judge, not by the state legislature. there was always a death. i had to raise money and carl purcell for republican, a friend of ours. carl and i intervened disparities in the case in michigan reapportionment and 92.
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so we -- the federal district judges frequently draw a federal boundaries. of course then people are starting to look at who appointed those judges and how partisan are they going to be? and it's all very interesting. [inaudible] >> we have time for one more question. >> actually, congressman sarasin has requested a little bit of time to talk about the congress to campus program. >> only because they are so many of you here. bob and i have both participated in this program. it's a creature of the united states association to former member of congress. we do have an alumni association would do a lot of good things within this group. one of them is the congress to campus program and we encourage you to go back to your schools and ask your professors to invited to the. what it will do is bring to
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members of congress, two former members, democrat and republican to speak to your classes. it usually works to the government section of your school, the political science section. and they would set up a schedule for us. the school is responsible for housing us and feeding a period for a couple of days we go out usually for a few days. go on a sunday, come back, late tuesday. and would then go to classes. we do it together. it's a twofold purpose. one, to encourage people to get involved in service and secondly to show by way of example of no other way that a democrat and republican mimicry and more things than they would disagree about. and they might even like each other, which comes as a surprise to an awful lot of people. i don't know what bob's experience has been, but i've
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done a lot of the programs and quite often with somebody who didn't serve with. so it's my first time to meet them as well. it's an amazing experience because it's an obviously friendly thing. but we do find we agree on more issues than we would disagree about. for us, it's wonderful because we cannot congress know for a for a number of years. nobody really cares what we think anymore, so it's good for her ego to be honest what we think about these issues. so i encourage you to go back and encourage her political science department and so forth to come to the u.s. association of former members in them by its members -- to your college campus program. >> anything to add? >> i really liked ron sarasin. [laughter] [applause]
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>> benching hopper from the washington center. on behalf of the washington center, i'd like to thank the u.s. association of former members of congress in helping us to together the panel and requesting that these fine gentlemen, former congressman be with us today. we also have washington centric effects for each of you so you won't go away empty-handed. dr. banker, congressman sarasin, congressman carr, thank you so very much. [applause] >> will continue now with more from the washington center. the president of election datay services discusses the 2010y census and how it affects congressional redistricting in the future of presidential races. this is an hour.y
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>> well, it's my great pleasure to introduce someone who is making his inaugural appearance for a washington center audience, kimball brace. but for those of us who loved reapportionment and redistricting, this is the raw meat on which we feed. and this is just a tremendously exciting time because of the results from the 2010 census iran. we know pretty much now which states are going to be losing steeves, which will be gaining seats. but even those state which retain the same number of seats they had under the 2000 census within the state itself, they're going to have to be adjustments made because population shift within states and because the supreme court decisions, congressional districts have to
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be almost exactly the same size, which right now is about 700,000 people. moreover of course the state legislative districts are also being redistricting redistricted. so this is a huge operation. and kimball brace and the election data services: state legislatures to help them draw the lines. and it's a very, very challenging process because for example of the need to accommodate under the voting rights act so-called minority influence districts that are mandated by the voting rights act. so it's a fascinating process and kimball brace is the best person to talk to about it and it's my great pleasure to introduce to you kimball brace, president of election data services.
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[applause] >> thank you very much they are by all means unwelcome to washington d.c. for all of you. how many of you are from northern states? wow, no wonder we got cold weather to hear. sorry to all the other of you. this is washington d.c. with politics and the change in weather. so we'll see and talk to you about what they say in the last couple of months as well as fire we might be going in the next several months. so i'm here to talk a little bit about the 2010 election, the impact in the shape of things to come. the first of all, who was election data services? well, election data services is basically since 1986 we've been on a lot of people's walls. we produce the election poster that comes out immediately after
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election day. and we have copies here for each of your groups so that during your lunch break to be able to take a look in more detail about what was taking place in 2010. we also, since 1979, we've been involved in more than half the nation in every district team. we draw district boundaries. we help states and local governments create the kind of districts, build databases, provides software, help them through that whole redistricting process. but we also, since 1980 were the ones that have kept track of what kind of voting equipment is used in every single county in the country. and so, from a.d. 22010, we have been tracking every election, what is changing in terms of
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voting equipment. so election administration has another side of our avenue as it relates to politics and how to conduct elections. so if the concerns elections and if it deals with data, then we're probably involved with that somewhere along the lines in that regard. as far as the 2010 elections, exciting times before the election, we saw the democrats holding sway in most of the state government, particularly in the state legislatures. the democrats were holding 27 states. republicans who holding 14 states and eight states were split in terms of one party held one chamber. the other party held the other chamber. when we got in the results from 2010, it was dramatically
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different. i always than dealing with our poster, i have an ongoing discussion with my printer does he need to order more red ink or does he need to order more blue ink? obviously the selection was the red ink time of seeing the results. and so, you see the overall state legislatures were very much changed from the standpoint standpoint -- this is another cursor. the upper northeast and upper midwest is where you see dramatic changes in terms of the control of state legislatures so that after election day, republicans are controlling 25 states. democrats are 16 and only six worse for it. dramatically different make of the country because of the election results. if you look to change over time, the lighter blue is republican
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seats in the darker blue as democratic seats. you see that democrats have held sway in many, many more elections really since 1900. but indeed by the time we get to 2010, a dramatic switch on that regard. one of the other things it has to be taken into an account from a redistricting site is who controls the governorship because governors are the ones that after the legislature passes a bill, governors in many instances have the right to veto that bill. so republicans are -- republicans are doing very well on the governorships also taking over seats and all those herscher red states. so now you have 29 state where governors are in control with
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democrats only in control in 20 states. so when you look at the combine but then and when we look at redistricting, we always look at the legs of a stool as itwa relates to control of the pen and who has the rights to withdraw the thing. set from the standpoint of all of that, it all comes down to the senses. and indeed for many of you, you might tend to use for a theistic standpoint. but that's not what the census bureau win. after all, the key is dealing with two different aspects of what we're going to be seen. one is called reapportionment and the other is called redistricting. there's a difference between those two terms. so from the standpoint of reapportionment, which reapportionment is is the
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allocation of congressional district standpoint, the number of congressional districts to states. but in a number of states, they used to allocate legislative districts to counties and so you might see some state where they talk about the reapportionment process like in florida and they're really talking about redistricting. so redistricting on the other side -- redistricting is the crafting of those considerations within that area. you gave that area x number of seats and indeed now you're going to draw those seats and that is the redistricting process. that takes place at congressional district level, but also takes place in state legislative district level as well as county level, city
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council, words, all sorts of levels. anytime you have a legislature, but were bubbles, smaller levels of geography. any time that legislature is governed by a single member districts, they have to be redrawn after each census. so as a result, we see redistricting taking place, usually once a decade. but of course you try to get it in twice this last decade in texas. what we end up seeing is that over time there's been a lot of change in this country. indeed, the census was set up by our founding fathers to do, to do with that lower house of representatives and how the people's choices are being reflect to in our legislature.
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and they divided the states at that point in time, according to that methodology they are. and the average size of a district in 1789 was 39,000 people. that's what the average size. by 1790, we started expanding and adding more states and we went up to 34,000. 1801 to 34,000 again. again with each census, we ended up adding states. by the civil war time, we are filled and an awful lot of the states and indeed you still see that conglomeration of districts and a higher number of districts in the upper northeast and upper midwest. that was the pattern we were seeing in this country. the civil war times were up to
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122,000 persons in a district. by the turn-of-the-century, we filled in more of this country and given more seats out and we were up to 193,000 per district. and we were up at that point in time of 391,000 -- 391 representatives in congress at the turn-of-the-century. in 1910, we expanded again to 435 and that's where we stayed. after 1910, and they kept the number of members. at that point in time we were at 210,000 people in each district. in 1820, there was no reapportionment because congress suddenly saw for the first time the urban areas of this country at war people in the census and the rural areas of this country.
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and at that point in time, the rural representatives were in control. so they just didn't you reapportionment in 1920. 1930, we ended up getting back in track, but we kept things at 435. that came into being in 1910 that the capital for 35. so that meant that the seat sizes continue to grow as our population grew. we were up to 280,000 in 1830. 1940, up to 301,000. and then in 1950 -- actually 1959 we added alaska and hawaii when it temporarily to 437. over up to 344,000 people. you notice how none of the states are starting -- growth in states are starting to move south into the west. this is a pattern that we have now been seen on an ongoing
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basis as it relates to reapportionment and redistricting. so by 1970, we're up to 469,000 members for persons in ac. in 1980, notice how california is now at 45 congressional seats, had grown dramatically in each decade. 1990, up to 52. and in 2000 they went to 53. we're up in 2,646,000 persons in a district. so what we were seeing in this country, really since world war ii is the movement of population from upper midwest and from the industrial belt of this country to the south and to the west. you can see how many seats california gained 42 seats just since world war ii.
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new york was 15. considering the last 18. so a dramatic change in this country was taking place because of that. indeed when you look at how things were looking for 2010, we were seeing a continuation of that. and indeed by the time we came up with final numbers from the census, it was indeed that movement. but the movement was governed because under the reapportionment formula, you have a set number of seats. and so the key was for a receipt number 435 and who is getting seat number 436 if we had had 4036. the numbers were very, very close. there's other fact or is there impact in the reapportionment. militaries overseas are now added in to the population numbers by the department of defense. we were not involved in two wars
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this time unlike last decade when we were. that had an ongoing impact. and indeed, from the military standpoint, that added almost 200,000 people. there is no adjustment to census data for how the census is being done. the courts have excluded that possibility for reapportionment purposes. for redistricting purposes, but still an open question. but for reapportionment it's not. the part of what is governed is how well is that this? how well did they take the this? here we have county by county the response rate. it is the nail in, mail back operation. again what we see is the upper midwest area continues to have the highest response rate. if you look that ended him up on turnout in any election, you'll
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see the same pattern. i don't know what it is. something about the scandinavians love to be involved in the process. indeed they participate in the census. they participate in voting. part of what was also govern this time around was how well people were staying in place. in the past 40 years, since world war ii, census bureau has kept track of how many people have moved with each election. generally it averaged about 17, 18%. but in the most recent time and effort to update this with the 2009 study they just cannot live, it's now down to 11%. the housing foreclosure and whole converses basically stopped us right in track where there was no move in the population. and that will have an ongoing
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impact as we deal with the redistricting side of things. so, dates to keep in mind. we have 30 seen the census bureau released the final numbers of how many seats were going to each state and tracked exactly what we were showing on the mount. and then started in february, through the end of march, the census bureau will be releasing the population numbers that sent this block level. this is numbers that will be used by the states and by the legislatures and by the county councils to actually draw those districts. these numbers have minority population. they have voting age population and they have the care restates that a lot of the states will use to create the districts that will be creating over the next two years. we will be seeing in may of
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2011, will be seeing a new file that is coming now, looking at prisoner population. and it do the prisoner population will have an impact on the redistricting side. we'll see on late brain will have a new tabulation coming from the census bureau on citizenship. you will be hearing this more and more. immigration policy in this country and the impact on citizenship and whether or not citizen voting age population is the key to be using on redistricting. there are about three circuits of the upper level of the court process in this country that has that impacted his citizenship and voting age that needs to be used for drawing districts. not in all states, so it remains to be seen. so we'll get that deactivate screen. and then from basically the
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summer of 2011 through the summer of 2012, you will have the actual line drawing process taking place. the state of new jersey and state of virginia has to do it early because they have state legislative elections in 2011. but most other states, basically they have to do it in time for the filing deadline for when candidates file for office. and indeed, if you move to strip andres around and you move a number or some else out of the district, that impacts whether or not they can run. in deed in chicago in 2000, there was a discussion on whether or not an up-and-coming state senator should be put into a congressional district are taken out of the congressional district. he was moved out of the
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congressional district. his name is barack obama. so even -- everybody is impacted by redistricting on that side. indeed if you take a look at the overall impacts of november's election, it is rather dramatic in terms of his hand is now on the mouse as it relates to redistricting. republicans will be drawing in republican-controlled state, 210 congressional districts. while democrats only will be trying 104 congressional districts and states that they control. and the remaining split states have 121 congressional districts. again, you see the tilting more toward the republican side this time around, that hasn't been there before. indeed, as they get into the
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redistricting process and hopefully get to it and of the redistricting process and we found the remainders of what happens in redistricting. we also find people like myself to get more gray hair because the redistricting on that side. so, that is the reapportionment process as it relates to that. i also brought along, since we had a little bit of time. we do have time, right click i brought along another presentation that i do. as i mentioned to you, we do election administration in dealing with election administrators around the country as it relates to conducting elections. and there's some interesting information like that with a valuable to present to you and information that would be
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useful. there are some things that are important when you're dealing with how elections are. indeed, one of the key factors that came into play is that diversity is the underpinning of elections. elections are not uniform in this country. indeed, we have 50 states. each state has its own set of election laws. the most election laws are different in each state. so instead of having a nationwide process by which we run elections, it is not. it is governed by the 50 states in each of their state election laws. but we have the process of conduct aimed the election taking place at the county by county level and it is the implementation of those laws that may differ down at the county level.
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indeed, that was part of what we were finding in florida in 2000 the bush v. gore controversy and how elections are managed by each county. indeed, that makes a difference in how they are being implemented. so when we're dealing with??? elections, you've got to do wit? counties, not 50 states, but 3000 counties in this country. it's not as simple as that because the new england, there are 1600 jurisdictions, townships and cities. they are the ones that conduct the election. that's not the county clerks in new england, but it's town clerks and city clerks. so it another 1600 that to do with that. but then, there is also three other states: michigan, wisconsin and minnesota, where they also conduct elections at the township by township level.
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so when you're dealing and due out this the same and there's another 5000 jurisdictions in this country that conduct elections. so when you get all of it together, you have 10,000 entities in this nation that are the ones that conduct the election. and i've venture to say they do it differently in just about every little one. so the key is to understand my if you're looking on elections and understanding how elections in the elections process ultimately decide who represents us indeed. the other thing you have to take into account is that size is something important to remember. so, let me ask you a question. what is the main site features of jurisdictions in the nation in terms of the numbers of
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registered voters? anybody venture to guess what anybody? call out a number. how many registered voters? >> 600,000. >> 600,000 in aperture section? no, way too high. how much? >> 300,000. >> 3000? no. you're getting in the right direction. 15,000. well, actually 1492. christopher columbus here, right clicks that the mean. that's the average size of the number of registered voters in those 10,000 jurisdictions. ladies and gentlemen, elections are run in very small areas. that's one of the keys here. it is done at the very local level. there's over a third nation's
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counties that have less than 10,000 registered voters in that, over a third. indeed half of the nation's counties have less than 16,000 registered voters. half of the country. there's only 343 jurisdictions that have more than 100,000 registered voters. a very small number. large number of people, but a small number of jurisdictions. this would 14 with more than 100 registered voters. so you see this great dichotomy. the smallest jurisdiction in this country is texas, loving texas has 136 registered voters. the largest is los angeles. 3.9 million registered voters. kind of a big difference, isn't
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it? a lot of big difference on that side. in fact, it would take 930 at the smallest counties in this country to sql los angeles. 930 counties. that's an awful lot for one jurisdiction. what is interesting in looking at affectionate menstruation is looking at the difference in terms of number of jurisdictions and the size come as a of registered voters. if you look at it from a schematic, you see the difference with less than 1000 persons in the jurisdiction. there's almost a dozen jurisdictions in the country with less than a thousand. it's almost less than eight tons of the nation's registered voters. one of the keys here is that a lot of jurisdictions have a very small number of registered voters. so indeed that dichotomy is what
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governs the election administration process. you can summarize it this way. 340 jurisdictions over 100,000 registered voters effect 60% of the nation. 60% of the nation's registered voters are in just 340 jurisdictions in this country. big difference. in the big difference is that presidential candidates look at. indeed, if you were to look at the poster that we did two years ago in 2008, you see that difference. indeed when we pulled that out at election night, as we got the first set of data in, we were in shock. in fact, i asked my mapper, i've got too much red on this map. obama won. and yet, look at all the red. indeed, when he looked at the
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final numbers, bush -- mccain carried almost 2000 counties in this country while obama only. 875. big, big difference. indeed, the obama campaign focused on those urban areas, on where the people were. indeed, that's not what you see when you look at a map necessarily. so from a data disc, as we look at things, particularly when i'm looking at it from a redistrict team standpoint, i'm cognizant of an ongoing stepping stool when i'm looking at and evaluating the impact within a jurisdiction. we look at course of total population. but not everybody in the total population can go. you have to be of voting age. that cuts down the number of
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persons, okay? not everybody of voting age can vote because you have to be a citizen in this country to go. that cuts down how many people are there. indeed, not everybody of citizenship can vote because you have to be registered in this country. you have to be registered in order to participate in the elections and that cuts down an awful lot. registration is not good enough. you have to turn out. you have to show up at the polls or vote your absentee ballot. but that cuts down the number of people involved in the elections process. indeed, in presidential years, you vote for president, the highest office on the ballot usually, but not everybody that turns out votes for the highest office. for that cuts down the number of people participating. indeed, when you look at statewide offices, further
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decreasing the number that are participating. at a congressional level, drop dramatically. at state legislative level, dropped even more genetically. so when you look at the pyramid and how it rates and how far down it goes. and if you study the numbers and look at those numbers in each of those columns, yost discovered that the demographics of the election change at each of these. indeed, the population that 40%? is? hispanic, but because of?? citizenship at the time you get down t?o? registration in all? that, hispanic goes to the teams because the dramatic shift takes place. so when you are looking at it from re-redistricting standpoint
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?d tried where the boundaries? are, these are one of the key factors to take and because it changes at each level and that's part of the data we compile as we go about doing redistricting. it is also different, depending on what kind of voting equipment is used in each county. indeed in 1980, i only say that i was crazy enough to try and keep track of this. indeed, we've continued to be crazy and we've kept track since 1980 with every county in the country. you take a look of punch card and read. they were using a lot of jurisdictions in 1980. but indeed the most jurisdictions was in fact paper ballot, all traditional paper ballots in the midwest.
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okay. lever machines and light blue. a lot of jurisdictions run in 1988. indeed by 2000, when we have our famous 2000 election president, there was a dramatic change because a lot of those, particularly the rural jurisdictions that have been using paper ballots 20 years before have now switched to a different kind of paper called optical scan. it was simply a paper ballot was used in and read by a computer that made it easy for rural jurisdictions to count those ballots. but that change dramatically. in indeed, in 2000, you see this dichotomy have been talking about before, number of jurisdictions versus number persons which registered has an impact when you look at voting equipment in fact. punch cards were used for 16% of
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the counties, but 20% of the registered voters because punch cards were used mainly in the suburban jurisdictions this country. the paper ballots, 11% of the counties, a lot of counties, but they only had 1% of the voters because it was mostly rural areas. so you see this dichotomy comes difference that takes place, even when he studied voting equipment, for example. 1980 we had -- 2000 at the famous butterfly ballot. indeed, i was al gore's expert witness in florida, talking about the butterfly policy in problems with punchcard. so i was the one that kept you awake on that saturday morning in court cases for three hours. but when you look at different voting equipment, you see differences as it relates to those by people.
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and indeed, elected 2000 across the country, use a greater number of unrecorded votes taking place in punchcard jurisdictions. this is the table that convinced congress to change the law and enact the help america vote act in 2002 to do with countries because of the large number of unrecorded votes. as you look at it over time and affect unrecorded votes have always been there. indeed in presidential elections, we see about 1.5% to 2%. and on presidential elections it's almost 3.5, almost 4% that don't vote for the highest office. and so you see the stepping stone that we saw before. it's come down now by 2008. it went down dramatically,
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partly because 2010, some of the early numbers safari seems to indicate the started to go back up again. so we'll see what happens on not side. but there is an change in voting equipment across the country since 2000. indeed from 2000 to 2002, upwards of 11% of the counties changed what kind of voting equipment. how they came into being in 2002. an seventh 2002 to 2004, some more jurisdictions ended up changing another 9% of the counties in this country, changed voting equipment. finally, between 2004 at 2006, we thought a much more dramatic change as people finally got the money people got any changes to their voting equipment.
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the overall, dramatic changes against the country. it impacts all of the elections that we have. so there's a lot of different things that impact elections, not only district boundaries, but voting equipment in all of this back as come into play and that is part of what we end up doing this trying to keep track of that. so by 2008, we see that most of the country was going in optical scan. in indeed if you look at the percentage of counties, the skin and green just grew dramatically in the last 25 years since we've been collecting a. indeed lever machines have gone down and paper ballots have gone down. when you look at% of registered voters, again looking at that dichotomy, use the optical has
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gone up, but indeed the electronic systems hit a peak in 2006 and have gone down since then. as more concerned on electronic equipment took into place. so, those are the different things we study the real fun looking at in trying to figure out. but all that is going to impact what we are going to see over the next fears can be a voting equipment equipment, save the jurisdiction as well as be at the voting patterns in that governs what ultimately takes place in the next two years on redistricting. and that's why i have gray hair. because of all of that. [applause] sign happy to take questions.
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[inaudible] >> yeah, go ahead. >> feel free to end lineup at the microphone. >> print from classic university in boston and i have a question. while the 2010 census results hope how to predict the 2012 presidential elections? >> it will impact the 2012 presidential election. in fact, what you lose see is the lack rural college changes. it ships with the change in reapportionment. it ships about seven or eight
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electoral college votes. if you're to run the 2000 election under this new set of apportionment numbers, indeed obama would've received it last, sexless electoral votes. they wouldn't have caused them to lose clearly, but it would've caused it to be closer. now, if you were to run the 2000 election, well, bush carried that on the electoral college site. he would gain more votes with the new reapportionment process. but imagine if indeed we had found 537 more votes for gore and gore had been elect good, then under this new reapportionment, it wouldn't change that outcome.
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>> hi, my name is kathleen duffy. i go to the university of san diego. and i was wondering how do you become a member on the committee that does the redistrict gene in each state? >> it varies from state. indeed you're in california and u.s. a new experience going on out there. the voters in 2008 decided that instead of legislators you would have a commission to draw the district. there's 14 members of that commission. they have now been selected on that site. but they started off with 60,000 people applying for those 14,000 positions. >> said offense clicks the next rate citizens. under the california law passed they cannot be incumbents. they could not be people who are politically at it on that site. so they put some restrictions and in that regard. but that's only in california.
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again, it each state is different. there are six states that have commissions that draw congressional districts. but about 14 states have commissions that draw state legislative districts. in many instances, those commissions, you have to look at who appoints the commissioners. and a lot of instances, it is the members in cells, the speaker in the main minority member. so when not in tents, it's still politics have a mayor hand on this way that regard. >> finance jessica baraka from wesley college. he said there's over 10,000 irks were jurisdictions i mean. why do they do it if it's such a small number? why don't they make it so these people within some of the jurisdictions? why don't they make us others more people are a standard
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number of people rather than 100 versus 3 million? >> i would give me more jobs to do because i had to change that after each census. it's basically because of history. indeed, counties came into being as states were formed. and you look at county boundaries and township boundaries in the upper midwest. they were created out of historical pattern. ..
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the key is, and as i un3 the key is, and as i unifies county governments and state governments is that you have to understand what the pluses are but more importantly, understand what the minuses are coming and to be able to think of whether or not you can manage those minuses. indeed, we have seen that with the electronic equipment, the concern in terms of not having a physical balad, you know, so do you manage the differently by doing that electronic? as i said, electronics have benefits. as we look in this country and more and more are governed by the multi legal balance we have to have because of state and federal law, that becomes easier
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to do with electronics. if you've got to print five different versions of the ballot, you're printing costs go up the walls to when you're dealing with optical scans, so again its pluses and the minuses. basically the electronic a equipment you're investing in front end but in the long run, the feeling is that you will save money in the long run because with optical scanners you're not investing front end, but you are continuing that high investment of printing at each election and has not everybody votes you are throwing away an awful lot of your budget. so it's really a question of how do you want to manage the process as well as what is your jurisdiction used to? so you have to take into account what people have used before. any time there is a change what
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has happened, and it's happened numerous times this decade. the first election gets run under a new voting equipment that's the best time you are going to have a slump and we've had that this year, or this decade. so the key is from a management standpoint being able to manage those kind of things. >> i am also from suffolk university, and while there is a lot of local administration and provides your flexibility it seems to believe there is such a diversity in the administration. given that, do you think that they are positive steps there should be more federal oversight?hñ(ñ(ñ >> that's a very good question. following the 2000 election is the degree to which people didn't understand there was the
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diversity. the was the one big lesson we all learned after 2000 is that it is different out there. it takes into account what are the local circumstances. by doing it that those local levels, they understand it's easier for their role farmers to come in to some place to vote on a paper ballot than it is -- or to send out about what's more so than to come into a polling place, farming or whenever the case may become so it is that localized knowledge that comes into play. i'm one of those that like the localized knowledge, the you do need to take into account some overarching parameters and that is part of what he did but it put into place understanding the basic structure so still leaving some latitude to come into play.
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>> i'm from bradley university and want to know how much of a degree was it based on each state plea in to the turnout and do you think you would be better if there was uniform law for the country? >> i'm sorry, there is what? >> would be better if there was a uniform law we for the country to follow to increase the voter turnout, does that play any affect? >> that is one of the dates that we have. it is a debate we have expected quote in congress. what is interesting listening to those debates going up into the galleries as you will have the opportunity you will discover there are 435 experts on the election process. they got elected. they know how it's run. but they don't realize that the colleague sitting next to them runs in a different process and
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that is what was interesting to watch as they were debating in 2001, 2,002. the suddenly started seeing how i would do it back in my jurisdiction is and how you do it in your jurisdiction. so they started the struggling with that kind of process and whether or not to impose something on a uniform national level. they did to a certain degree, they did away with the punch cards so that went by the wayside. but they left the states and local jurisdictions with a double the of coming up with a solution of what do you replace the punch cards with, for example. the other thing the in the doing, the more dramatic thing is require that each state have a statewide voter registration file because up to that point in time, you had to go to every single county to find out who
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was registered and get a list of registered voters to do a mailing list for example. that caused enormous costs and so the congress dictated that states create a conglomerate statewide legislation filed and system by collecting all of those counties to get their in the one uniform format. it helped from a candian standpoint and it helped get rid of some of the dead wood that was there because indeed, with all those people moving between jurisdictions they were not canceling the vote. they were not canceling their registration in the world jurisdiction, and so that's what creating a statewide voter registration system has helped do this time so there is that it's on that site for doing something on a uniform basis.
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at various. i think there are some things that congress could do and has done in terms of creating something that is a better usage comfort example the voter registration system. but i still think local governments are basically the better know their jurisdiction and what's going to work in their richard addiction. >> one more question. >> i'm from wellesley college. for the presidential elections with out the census and demographics how do you feel the what impact the results? >> the census and the demographics? >> without knowing what their constituents in the electoral college how that would impact it. >> yes, it will impact it. we have seen already in terms of the electoral college, but what
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you find also is as you draw on the district and changes to the districts that itself is kling to impact. so the important information is the understanding how that change is going to take place. that's part of what you do when you do redistricting and you have the kind of databases that we've put together. you have registration numbers, you have turnout numbers, you have the votes cast for all these candidates, and as you're doing redistricting, you are constantly reading those votes into that new district configurations so that you can see what kind of performance might that district have. it doesn't mean that you're going to look towards can i create more republican seats or can i create more democratic seats, but you're able to see the impact and that is one of the keys.
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>> thank you very much. [applause] >> before you leave, tony had a question about although the average number of people in each congressional district is about 700,000, clearly there are districts which are smaller. can you tell us what they are and what the smallest congressional district is in terms of population???? >> actually,? the smallest one? this time around will be in the ?ate of? rhode island.???? the two congressional districts that they were? allocating wil? only have about 512,000 people? in them.???????? the biggest one will be the ?ate? of montana.?? they have got over 980,000??? people. so you see almost 2-1 change.?? it is rather dramatic.????? that is why there has been a?? court case???????????
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by the way gene it reminded me this was not you're needed performance, it was 20 years ago so welcome back after long absence. >> thank you. [applause] >> as i said there is the map for your lunch break.ccc >> we will distribute eight matt to each group so you can take a look at those in your small group meeting and i didn't realize that rhode island had the smallest congressional /strict, but it always -- as a
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child growing up we used to have to congressional districts in montana and of my earliest memories of think it was in the 80 census when we lost one of the seats and seeing all of the commotion that caused in the state and the commotion that has been focused on the united states census ever since in the state of montana because we have 56 counties and are the fourth rgest state in the country an we have one representative covering all 56 of those counties, and he is a guy that sleeps in his office, one of the congressman that sleeps in his office, has a pullout couch and goes back to montana almost every single weekend with the goal of hitting every single county every single year, and i would imagine it's a lot easier for those to representatives from ryland to cover that state.
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single member of congress in the states all have the same name. what do you mean? he said they are all called al. [laughter] >> thank you again for coming and we are going to break. [applause] >> on behalf of the washington center for internships and academic seminars and inside
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washington 2011 academic seminar, thank you for your participation this morning and in july capitol hill this afternoon. [applause] [inaudible conversations]
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>> now part of the muslim public affairs council tenth annual convention held in los angeles. american muslim scholars, journalists and religious leaders discussed the state of the muslim community in america. this is just under two hours. >> i have been excited to be able to have the privilege of moderating this discussion. we decided this year for our tenth annual convention to take our program to the next level, to make this as conversation oriented as possible and to engage a diverse set of voices both from outside of our community and within our community on some of the issues that are determining our lives and livelihood today and the future of the country and so
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this session is the identity, the fraternal twin of the earlier recession and the state of the union, our country we are in the session talking about the state of our community and the subtitle of that is facing a court challenges. the goal today if we get it right with all of our panelists is to have a candid conversation about truly what our talents are. over the course of the next two hours it is our goal to talk about everything from identity to read the youth, to the role of imam to violent extremism and radicalization to the issues of gender, to issues of public perception and whatever else you bring to the table, and of course our viewers online bring to the table. so one more reminder please keep the center aisles clear because we have c-span in the back, and if you see people walking down the center aisle, if you could be my friend and help get them
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out of the way that would be much appreciated. so, let me first introduce our amazing panel, which is a cross section of the american muslim and bring together people from academia, mosques, the private-sector, media. it's a very wide range. we want to be diverse in age and ethnicity and in careers in all of the ways we possibly can. so let me start from my right. we have been a resident scholar of the muslim american society and who has been studying at the university in cairo egypt for a few years now, and based at the santa clara as well and is a
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frequent blogger and prolific thinker who also runs his own web site which is also a unique discussion or you need discussion forum. next to him we have a stand-up comedian, a journalist, and also the co creator of a unique project called for the mosques and 30 days which began first as an effort last year we will talk more about come began first last year as an effort to cover -- to go to 30 mosques in the 30 days of ramadan in new york city, and this year it standing to 30 mosques and 30 states around the country during the month of ramadan. and so we will have a lot of national flavor to also share with him that. next to him we have the director about reached for the islamic center in washington, d.c.. he was also the first muslim chaplain applied to the university in the country at
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howard university, and he also works with a government relations for the muslim alliance in north america. to my left, we have the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the parallel traffic and she is also a prolific blotter and is an attorney with the fund. next to her we have a professor of religion at the university of virginia in charlottesville. also a prolific author and noted figure and finally on the end dr. maher hathout who is a prolific author himself and a man i like to call one of the forefathers of the american muslim community. so please join me in welcoming our panel. [applause]
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okay, let's get to it. i want to start with public perception. because this is -- what is by and large shipping our regality as muslims in 2010. when we look at the year that we have had, you look at part 51, you look at the plan, you look at the asphalt and the arson attempt on mosques around the country and muslims around the country, most recently a imam being attacked in the subway system and a host of other things that are going on. in light of that, a recent informal poll from that in a survey of 1,000 american adults, that 49% of americans believe that islam is incompatible with american values. a full 49% meaning half of americans believe that islam is incompatible with american values. so i want to ask a dicey question. rather than think about what he is it people have the wrong idea, i want to ask a different
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question which is where have we gone wrong? what could we be doing better in order to change the reality? who wants to start? >> nobody. [laughter] >> we start with the problem on the survey that 49% of americans consider islam as incompatible to believe american values are compatible. and if we have an honest and candid answer to that, we put our foot on the first step toward a solution or change. >> if i may come and i am not
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going to be too deep today. i feel there are some fundamental issues. the first is as a person who grew up in richmond, i know that most the average american's it's not us. the average american is pretty isolated. the average american that is living in some remote area what is that on of late night show, jaywalking? asking americans all kind of questions they should know and they don't know where colorado is so half of the american people to know something about that is probably not as bad as we think it is. clearly this kind of subject was
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recently a socioeconomic divide because if you were in the black neighborhood everybody thinks that is linus compatible with what's going on in their neighborhood because most of them have muslim relatives. they think it is a positive transformative affect. like malcolm x or somebody like that that depends on where the question is asked and then how 50% of people haven't gotten a right. that's not a bad thing. i really think that underneath this is an even deeper question. and that is the question of when are we going to have your dog use impact not inside the message. we try to create a fortress with islamic schools and the community center and we live in the bubble and that was an idea we had we want it together and now the real challenges can we put islam in the streets, can we
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let the art, the culture, the songs, the spirit of islam flow out and into the community? [applause] i think he touches on something that is crucial when the discussion and that is that we have to be to revive the what we have tried in the community and many places is to have religious authority in america to have their religious beliefs. but it wasn't a religious voice until he was a voice of character, so we have to as he mentioned i think it's more important unfortunately we even have a muslim cleric, was one canadian, if you just comedians and clinics and then people will say why do these people conduct themselves in this manner so before the selection with religious authority he had authority to his character to the point that when the profit
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married his daughter that was the height of the war with a profit so to speak. they told him your daughter married mohammed he said i could think of no one better i just don't like the guy. [laughter] so if you have a response of the. number 1i don't think that we are giving a message that's really american, and i see that as a conflict now. a lot of us when we convert to islam we eat five alarm chili or whatever and we adopted culture which is in the hour own and then we are in effective with our own people and got ideas of gender and community which we never had before due to certain trends within the community and then second, we have to gain of four to this character and the respect of people before they are going to listen to what we have to say about religion. people think you're telling them they are not going to care what religion you bring to them. >> i don't know who did that
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poll. many of the cases when it says 39% always look at how many of those people have actually met a muslim and so i understandably so when it comes to people having islam a. lovkvist of the ignorance and not even knowing muslims and if you want to see where did we go wrong i don't look at it as where we went wrong, i think what just to be somewhat critical is we've focused so much of the spiritual the aspect and i don't want to say we should downplay that but we forget about the character but about humanizing muslims, you - point talking not to the but critics but comedians and things like that like if you look at our history -- >> until probably five years ago to meet these so we are just coming into this. >> i am saying if you look at our history it isn't just the most profound thinkers, they
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have the best medicine and science and sports and architecture, things like that. we have entertainers and things like that and i think we need to humanize ourselves and we all play a role, not just canadians, entertainers, politicians and things like that, it's people with office jobs, getting involved at the local school board and things like that and i think that is what we need to do now is just played more of a presence. yes, talked about religion and value but just interact with people, have friends and hang out with people coming and that is one of the most interesting things that we take in the project is the perception we as muslims have that are mad at us and we can't even sit out the door without someone throwing a rock at us but i feel like people don't realize how increasing they are and our project 30 states in 40 days yes we had problems in terms of backlash or opposition things like that, but to say that was
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even remotely reflected on most of reach americans is ridiculous. estimate of one to use that as a sickly to introduce a little bit more about 30 mosques in 30 days. the project was unique and many ways groundbreaking at a time when muslims were trying to better understand how to share their values with other americans and the same time many americans are trying to better understand muslims and so i want to show a brief video from footage that cnn actually did covering one leg of 30 mosques and surveys the southern end of the journey, and then we will talk a little bit more about what you gain from that experience. it reveals states and i will get out of the way so everybody can see. let's cut to the cnn video. [laughter]
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>> if anybody needs prayer [inaudible] [laughter] >> i am the co create enough for kiosks and 30 days where my partner and i are traveling to a different mosque in a different state each night for the month of ramadan. ramadan is obviously a month of spiritual clarification so that's part of it. i've always been degette venture kind of person though. i've always been a person that loves to go on road ships. it gives me an opportunity. i want a full spiritual purification and the road trip at venture as well. >> my friends have always been supportive of this. you're driving almost all thousand miles across the country driving every single day. i've never done anything
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remotely as crazy as this before but it just may be to give it even more. >> [inaudible] we start heading toward the south of downtown jacksonville and as we are driving down the highway, there is a huge massive confederate flag just waiting in the air. we all agree this place is too awesome to pass without taking a photograph and we go toward the place and it turns out the flag is next to this confederate souvenir shop and there are a couple of guys sitting on the bench in front of the shop as we
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are pulling in and they are basically right in front of the car giving us almost a dirty look is what i interpreted to be a dirty look and they were staring at us as we pull in and everyone else in the car is like no, no, we are not going in, no, no pity and i'm the kind of person you tell me not to do something that motivates me even more to do it. i'm going in and as soon as we stood outside the car, the people on the bench are like a great letter today, welcome. even the body inside was just as cool talking of about his shop like i'm friendly with everyone, i'm so sick of the confederate flag and getting a dead rat and the civil war people associate with it. i accept people here from all walks of life. i've got people from this country and this country that is it, and he let us take his picture and he took pictures of us. just a cool guy, and here i was
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walking into this place expecting he was going to be prejudiced towards me because of my skin color and me being muslim and what ended up happening is i was being prejudiced towards him because i thought these guys were bigots, right next, whatever you want to call them, and it was a kind of unique experience for me, kind of realizing the personal baggage i bring to the table. right now we're in a very troubling time in america. i will admit. i think they are very difficult right now in america and my parents first came in to 27 years ago it's just not the same country anymore and i don't know, part of me still feels like it's their. going on this road trip it's one of those journeys to see how broad a definition are people
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willing to accept and, you know, i think that's -- are not here trying to see. i really hope that -- i hope one thing that they draw is that a lot of this is a part of their community and i hope they accepted that. that what we are covering isn't [inaudible] but it's part of the american fabric and if we can get that through and people feel that. [applause] >> i want you to talk about where did the idea for the 30 mosques come from and what did you hope to learn and accomplish and what were some of the surprises along the way like to share in the video? >> it was near the city last year and my friend and i got the project we live in new york but we love the senate but it's not
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our home originally that is, and one said to the other wouldn't it be crazy if we went to a different moscow every day in new york city and we posted on facebook and twitter. nobody's going to read that. to people are going to look at. but he kept insisting and from there we finally the blog just to shut them not and we are not only getting e-mails for our family and friends and people across the city and across the country and people in china, luxembourg, i don't know that is that it's all some. and unlike the national media we are calling ourselves and it just showed me that there is this first, there is substantive per trail, a lot of shouting against muslims but there is no substance. when you talk about people blocking the mosque for whatever
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reason people don't even know who they are just going back to that poll and what we are trying to do in this project isn't trying to preach, we were not trying to respond to any controversy or anything. i know ground zero was going on as we were doing it. is we talked about it but this wasn't a response to it. we wanted to show people what muslims were like and we talked about the positive things and - things, we talked about that. we talked unfortunately nothing to do with islam but with some cultures interracial marriage. we talked about muslims working in liquor stores and alcohol and we talked about what it's like for them. >> [inaudible] >> both, both. and for his gambling and it's a clear and he explains why. and we talk about the struggle and things like that and we didn't want to bash muslims but we wanted to get into the substantive issues and i don't know if there is a photograph you can do to real quick. to me that captures muslims in
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america in this photograph as soon as we took this photograph we were like we are done. this is to muslims are in this country. >> that is muslims in america. [laughter] this was taken in a basement. we took this photograph at a basement and just muslims smiling and having a good time and that to me was the essence of our project. and words can summarize it any way they want but that photograph really captures the portrayal so when it comes to the controversies, yes, racial profiling, backlash, people getting beaten up and profiled and things like that i don't want to downplay the severity that the state of that reflects my life style at all is ridiculous. i'm on the road about a fourth of the year and for the most part i don't have problems flying like here and there there are some stories and things like
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that but those aren't the issues. the conversations we are hearing is my mortgage, how am i going to pay the mortgage, what kind of public schools should i put my kids and? by wife won't let me watch the game triet [laughter] these are not unique to muslims. these are issues and that is what we wanted to get into to talk about so instead of talking about that, we talked about fatherhood, and i could go on but we talked to this guy that is a truck driver on the road like two-thirds of the year what it's like for him missing his kids' soccer practice and daughter's ballet class, a man providing for his kids. those are the issues affecting muslims just like anybody else and i think we are not talking about those enough's and relations with the other issues. >> if i could china and the acoustics chime in. has anybody seen any of us on television? three c's your hand. anybody seen us on television?
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probably every time you saw one of us on television, some things that was happening. [laughter] that is the narrative we have to change we need to be talking about things that are interesting. for people to see muslims and especially our leadership at a time when it is not a crisis because of that is the case then we always become framed as the crisis people. >> i think another angle of this conversation i want to bring is precisely this idea that people don't get to see enough of this which is an internal conversation among the muslims about the issue is going on within our community, and so i am curious particularly i want to turn to you, doctor, and thinking about the kind of -- what is the internal dialogue that you think america needs to
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year and needs to see based on your own vantage point? >> we need to mask tough questions. it's easy to build mosques than to build mines in the mosque. [applause] [inaudible] made a prediction that there would come a time when as you said [inaudible] mosques will be large, decorated, it will be empty of guidance. and i think what we are faced with is a real issue, there is no building in moscow, it is building the mine in a mosque. the same that was done by the foundation let's do it to the mosque ask our own people in the mosque how many are they
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believing that of the telugus in america? that's the question we need to ask. how many of us think it's important? civil society is important because then we were among ourselves there is the recognition of one another is totally absent. in our own mosques we don't encourage tolerance. other imam don't speak about civil society. so the kind of information that we are getting in the mosques, how are we going to have a voice in the public if the voice doesn't change? we are talking of that curriculum, about creating the mind. how many parents to become a muslim parents are sending our boys and girls to college just
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to study religious studies, to do humanities, social science muslim professional schools professors who can teach islamic studies in this country and these are the professors who are being trained who are becoming influential. by the way, academia played a major role in the public opinion formation. we need to have information, and our way of informing other public is weekend at this point, and we need a lot of work. it's compatible. i say, and again i repeat building mosques isn't going to solve the problem. what is going to solve the problem is to get connected to america. there has to be people who are
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among you to lead you to your religious faith or saudi arabia or pakistan or india. there are native americans in egypt and that will teach the way we ought to be taught to read this is the exception we need to be honest with what we are doing in the mosque, what we are doing with our religion. we need a shorter character and the strength of the muslim character should be such that it would raise the question of the profit raised, calling people to dhaka with action, not with your language but you need to show your character what you stand for, and i think the moment you do that you have influence. my students come to me and say professor, we want to learn praying. we are not supposed to teach praying in the university, but they want to learn.
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[inaudible] don't need to learn about islam, they know everything about islam. they are experts on islam. they can write a letter, they can write opinions because he will mislead you. why would he mislead you? dhaka about women's rights, the men and women altogether. this is what we do in the university, my friends. let's recap for once to see how we can have an intact on american society. the society is open. it is ours if we want -- if we know how to make, and we have to begin exactly where we need to begin if the source of information. what kind of information we can give to the [applause]
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>> i want to address a couple of points. in issue the professor brought up. on the question of the showcase diversity there is the element brought up in terms of the humanity and the everyday issues that are important to us and that we share with fellow americans but also the diversity of the intellectual discourse and the way to respond to the common questions and i think one of the things i do at altmuslimah.com is that so much gender come in the shape of one being a press and being a violent. it's very black-and-white and supplied and to complicate the from perspective what we essentially do this showcase the discussion within the community about so many different perspectives and ways people are struggling in our faith and community. it could be issues ranging from the question of dress and wearing head scarves to the question of the co-ed
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interaction and whether muslim women should be allowed to marry non-muslim men. there is so much diversity and the showcase of humanities a strong compelling way. and then both professors raise and the doctor earlier but the question of to what extent are muslims in america and generally really beginning, how much do they think that there is a parallel between so-called western values and muslim values and this is a question i deal with in my other role as an international attorney freedom issues and free speech issues and a lot of the work is an internationally and the issue consistently see what they're dealing with high level of officials in cairo to the constitutional court in indonesia is [inaudible] the idea is always first of all we believe in free speech but it should be red line or free speech so there is always a place of limitations as opposed to the broad rights of themselves and the idea that well they're talking a lot of
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the international treaties that you're giving under are really based on again the western and there is no compatibility because we are a muslim nation and we are distinct from the western code and moreover on the investor is no appreciation or respect for religion to be there is in our society and the source is completely not true. there is a vibrant space for religion and the public square in the u.s. and so one loveless definitely ignorance and to the extent we see the phenomenon in the u.s. we see it as a need to do we find comfort and power and say we are somehow better and have to position ourselves in contrast with oversight the initial use and i think the biggest way of getting past that scriven task is to understand there is common humanity and so many people in this society who are religious, their faith but there is so much commonality it's because of these common discourses. >> you know what is interesting i think you can kind of
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training. i converted to islam almost 30 years ago. i didn't hear the word until about 11 years ago. the idea that we were not talking or having the discourse about what this whole thing is really about. what are the objectives, the goals. we were not talking about that. we were talking about whether you can wear this one not where that and so that now i think our community is maw. i would like us not to feel so bad about ourselves. we have come a long way. we have rampton been a way that i don't think people expected. 9/11 was a great tragedy. but after 9/11, the community galvanized itself in a way that shocked many people, and america oddly enough shock itself that
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we didn't have a rwanda affect. we have a dialogue of civilization, not a clash of civilizations. out of that this course there are some challenges that we have come and that is the challenge to the medieval narrative. we wouldn't have touched the women's rights if it were not for the fact that after 9/11 the korean was sold out. to get to chapter 4, hey, what about this. now you've got millions of americans in the universities and other places asking questions, and it is at that point that it challenges our traditional thinking and also, we have to recognize in america of the importance of popular culture. if islam isn't going to happen on popular culture is it's not going to make it in the future.
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i know we have an x rapper with a feature comedian here. [laughter] once we make that engagement, and it is already happening in different ways but we have to promote eight. when you say there are people now who if you tell them my son is going to be a playwright like ought but what they're doing in the play is edify in so many people about subjects not safe to talk about, not safe to talk about the war button that the sunni man is a poet and a robert giving voice to young people in space that is safe governor than being on the internet and becoming radicalized. >> being a native american, you
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are able to tease out the topics that are very i think the essential to the formation of our identity as american muslims. and i think many of the leaders i come across in my travels even in north america alone i find that there are not as constant understanding the values which would we need to work on the situation that we are confronted with. i think that is what am talking about and your generation of the imam come in your generation of the leaders which should actually include the women, the women are important because we have been representing muslim women. men do talk about their rights. the need to tell us what are their rights we need to do this for a time. [applause]
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>> on this point that first i want to translate for the c-span audience to the goal or the objectives of such sharia law and if we use arabic term cells mature we translate. second, let's transition to thinking about what is the role of the mosque in america today? we talked about issues of gender and of youth where people are touching on some of these related issues that go back to the role of imam today and fundamentally to the role of the mosques. what should the role of the mosque be today to address the needs of today? >> you can take it either way. >> what is now the are institutions. [applause]
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this is why i go to the mosque because imus egypt so if i go to an egyptian mosque [inaudible] brucker the only thing missing is [inaudible] >> you have to translate -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> at least for our c-span audience [inaudible] [laughter] the greatest thing in egypt, egyptian modern history. this is why when i go to the moscow issue that is brought here i find that the pakistani guy sitting next to me once
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hostilities even in the cafeteria we have to be political so i went to the mosque and they have this party table [inaudible] and they say >> i have news to you. if he went to the mosques the pakistanis want the food war. [laughter] >> i was curious about the 30 mosques in 30 cities during the month of ramadan. [inaudible] [laughter]
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[laughter] but this is why when i find it is not egyptian [inaudible] so the mosque became to mosques, we were one moscow and we became too mosque's then we became for mosques, we keep dividing. [inaudible] and we are celebrating. this would leave us to what the professors have said the imam can't speak about it because we don't know. how can we speak about something we don't know?
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what we need is a reform of our ideas, reformed intellectual movement. [inaudible] the composition of the muslim mind to shift from a mind receiving a cassette recorder to a mind that is critical. >> you wrote a book on the subject? >> i was hoping that nobody read it. [laughter] >> i want to turn if i can based on your experiences, traveling all over the country and interacting with a lot of different people and what your experiences i read a recent interviews where you talked a
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lot about the time to think about how to sort of we engage the muslim american scene and talking about the role of and the need for indigenous imam, american and trained who can handle the current issues and challenges facing the muslim american youth and broad community at large. what can you share with us? >> a few points i will make not to offend anyone here but i think using imam as universal isn't fair. the imam are things or antisocial justice. i want to say would be like saying the social activist and loggers. it is always a very problematic issue. most of the imams have come back to america. most of them are talking about social justice issues and many of them at the forefront of getting the ball knocked down and a loving sisters to play a much greater role it's also important the imam i'm not sure
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what we are talking about. >> most in america don't have imam. >> we have uncles. estimate to even within that the one you're talking about are full-time responsible most of them on what your saying but don't have them. >> it's right on the mark. the generalization [inaudible] >> i know some are not really from the quarter and the kiribati they're going to be like do these people use in definite articles ever? we have to be very careful, and also talking about using false universal spirit and went to egypt seven years ago and converted to islam and 92 and a
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lot of what i learned with my wife and my children i took them with me to egypt and with my wife, without her wouldn't have been able to do it. it is just to realize that faith in this age is negotiated. we are no longer in a era where it can be negotiated. still living in egypt and being allowed older, i went in my early thirties i realized first of all the important role that we have as american muslims because we have the ability to increase the pluralistic message in a way that is very unique because as you said you said something interesting now that the the table you will find but when are we going to find the mashed potatoes, corn bread and the fried chicken? [applause] and i think it goes back to the
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earlier point why the americans don't know. [laughter] >> and for some of as a protein shake. the point being when i lived in egypt, and i don't want to make egyptians mad at me because i know they are a little sensitive. [laughter] i learned what not to do and i realized that for me to be successful in light of islam, not in light of what people think, i had to be committed to being an american imam. i cannot come back like [inaudible] speaking like egyptian dialect. i have to come back with somebody say hooo. but i realize [inaudible] [laughter] -- "wave your hands," [laughter]
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and i am the youngest person here probably after you, that we have to facilitate people's ability to negotiate their faith. we talked to young muslims in america. we did a camp a few weeks from here to read the number one topic of professionals who graduate from berkeley samford usc is we have talked about islam, we have serious concerns. women in our community taking prozac because they're looking at a wall their whole life and told you are part of a community. are we facilitating that negotiation? is it wrong to doubt? ibrahaem has a greater right on knous [inaudible] show me life-and-death. so i think the job of the mosque is to facilitate, number one. the larger definition of what our community is. if you look at the time of the profits, the sender was at his mosque. the trunk man from the first thing he does when he gets drunk is goes to the mosque in medina
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and the first person he asks for is the president because he trusts the ability of the mosque and the leader of the mosque to facilitate this negotiation. he is not in fighting, he is inviting. he's not condemning, he's opening. he says everyone makes mistakes and the best of those to make mistakes are those who turn backed. so being able to allow people -- every book in theology you find that it increases and decreases. for some reason we think that it's always a send where as increase and decrease the reader we going to increase people's ability to struggle and negotiate in the trends modern world or are we going to punish their ability to do that. so it's important for them to embrace.
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>> i'm like, i'm not -- [inaudible] i'm a person. >> exactly. >> revelations are being given to me. we have to allow each other wrong. we're going through growing pains. we can't just be strict modernists with a bunch of rules and principals and tell people this is how it will be. >> exactly.
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>> please. >> i think the exchange is good, you know? i had a group of journalists come, and they were doing a study on why people came to the house of worship, christians, jews, hindus, ect., and i said, well, i know you vice president finished your study yet, but can we break the seal on what it is you know so far. they said, let me tell you what we've learned. in worship there's two axis, and i'm having a christian flak back. [laughter] one is you want to have a relationship with god. you want a relationship thans tran sen dent, but then you also want a horizontal axis that's development. people primarily go for the
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horizontal axis to have fellowship, ministries with one another, and in the end they go to have a vertical relationship. their concern is that the reward is 25 times and they win the high speed dialup, so as many people they can get to play and have that flash back and it's like, we are really connected to a law because there's so many people here with us, but if you died, and we had this in my message, an old man used to sit in the orner on the left hand side. nobody knew his name because the only thing they needed him for was to fill in the gaps. they were happy to see him so they he would fill the gap, but the issues of having community, it is something that we as muslims have to learn from the
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other faiths in america, and they have something to learn from us. >> how many mosques can be seen by visitor carts? when i went to church, you couldn't walk in a church house without getting tackled by someone who didn't know you, welcome, brother, here's a visitor card. negotiates faces is important because it allows us to consider other phak fors that -- factors that affect the relationship. it's a big issue and nobody talks about it. >> except the msa. >> muslims mat trough moan yal society. it's affecting how they negotiate their faith. marital problems are swept under the rug; right? abuse is happening in the community, and we are not talking about it. our rug is so big now if we walk in the front room, we're going to trip over it, and also the idea of loneliness.
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at the larger communities, people are more lonely. i went to a prayer where there were 12,000 people. i went to dinner with a friend and his wife. he said we have one problem here. i said what? he said, we're lonely. i asked how. he said they're good at having events after event and saving the world and muslims focus on these things, but we don't have community building functions, we're nationally connected, but not locally connected. negotiating causes us to look at a number of factors. >> absolutely. >> i think what we are missing in this conversation is that the muslims are living few people. there's a larger community that does not participate in the mosque activity. >> the unmosqued.
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>> yes. >> this is a silent majority that you don't hear about, and the mosque case becomes a social club for those who are like-minded in some way. like minded christians talk about gathering. people come, those who are faithful, they come, and they also are worried about those who don't come. i think we have still not opened our conversations to find out why are the few people coming to the mosque? why aren't more people participating in activities of the mosque? we join together, fine, but let's see on other occasions if there are not prayers, we will not only know the number of the community, there must be something missing that we have the young people not coming, professionals who don't come. they are not satisfied with
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what's delivered in the mosque. clearly, we are looking for is the role of the mosque only to care for the needs of those converted or is the mosque to be with those who are distrusted. i think we are not opening up the discussion of why we are not getting enough people to come. >> well -- >> i want to jump in here. i think a really relevant aspect of the question you're discussing in terms of the mosque's role is the women questions. there's so many identity crisis that begin at the mosque for women and they go is the space for you is in the back door in the cramped space -- >> or the basement >> or you stay with the children because the men need their space and need to focus. [laughter] [applause] >> it's true. >> i mean, there's an article
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called the wire woman in the box. it's an idea that even just in terms of raising our children, our daughters, it's like everywhere else the mosque, we are told you can achieve what you want to achieve, but as soon as you get to the mosque, you are put in the back, and then we have another article that says women behaving badly in mosques. that was in response to a number of cases where you can't have any breakdown and strict generalization in mosque of men and women praying side by side because women don't know how to be themselves. they are noisy or don't dress properly. there's all things we have heard of, i'm sure. >> or the men don't dress them properly. [laughter] >> right. the -- >> skinny jeans. [laughter] >> i heard that as well. >> sorry to interrupt you. [laughter] >> the problematic aspect wasn't
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so much that we had all heard it, but it was attributed to their being women. opposed to thinking, well, let's take a look. women get a screen, if that. it's nothing different from being at home watching it on television. there's no connection with the person giving the speech. i don't have a sense of connection, and furthermore, what does it say we're giving space to women and preserving the men's space for a silent calm place. what does that say how we value women's spiritualties? there's so many more aspects of that and how they are related to the women's space. >> well, one thing that's interesting also i think is our view of our own sexual sexuality, and i feel we are very uncomfortable to a point that a mosque i was in a few years ago, and i apologize for
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interrupting you. they had the security apparatus and the women could see out and the men could see in, the banker windows. [laughter] they started turning off the lights to pray on that side, and the woman said i pray for years with lites on. i contacted the head of sister's community and asked what was going on. she said there's men starring out us through that stuff, so i said to her, you know, we live in the age of internet porn. i'll be suede with you, not frank with you. [laughter] we live in the age of sexuality, pornification of society. if a man is looking at the window at 65-year-olds, he has a
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problem that goes beyond the mosque. you don't go to the mosque to get hot. [laughter] i hate to say it that way, but i think that goes back to one thing. we're not comfortable with who we are. are you telling me if we take the wall down in the mosque and sister's pray behind it it's turning into xxx? [laughter] honestly some people have that mentality. if you look at the sisters, every day outside look at halle barry and you have no problem with that, but you come to the mosque, i don't take my daughter to certain mosques because you are talking now about psychology. i'm an educator and all public schools were torn down because the mind set of the child and his understanding of education. we're not appreciating the public benefit, but the majority
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of great scholars of islamic laws say that public benefit not only is regulated to the tangible, but deals with the emotional state of people. >> right. >> if we're talking about the objectives and benefits of our community, listen to what she's saying. women are not living a dignified religious existence in our community. >> i want to add -- [applause] i want to just add in a layer of that is introduced by a question we received through our web cast from london. we are listened in and participated in as far as london who is asking on the layer of young people. the issues of women, youth, and sadly are interchangeable. it says the otherrization within the mosque space. those who feel their space is not as, you know, as equal as other space, and so she asks,
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how do we support young people and what do we need to give them to skillfully navigate between the different aspects of their identities? >> oh -- >> we need to create a culture in which we operate in which we live. we are importing cultures from outside that are creating this dissect. these are the issues that are so important in the home countries we are importing without calculating the damage it could do to the woman or what it could do to young people. we are not calculating that. we are simply importing whatever was told in the mosque. this is how we used to do. this is how you are doing it in a different context. now you are living in a different context. you need to create your identity in this context and there's nothing wrong. i teach in the classroom and i
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can tell you that my women students are not just in half, and my men are more covered in summer than my women students are. should i stop teaching? i don't stop teaching because i don't deal with the diseases that i have in my heart. i think i have no -- i don't allow those things to come in. how come we in the community are constantly raising questions about this whole thing as if everything between men and women is nothing but sexuality? it is wrong. i have women sisters of me, and there's nothing that happens to us. i think -- [laughter] i'm simply saying -- [laughter] [applause] i'm simply underscoring our
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ability to train ourselves. this is what islam wanted that we should train ourselves to a level where by we don't need this kind of checks and balances. we can go into society and function in all honesty, in all dignity and preserve the dignity of other human human human beings whether she is a woman or a man or a black or white, all these things are connected. [applause] >> sure. okay. >> i just have -- i am agreeing. i ultimately enjoyed the conversation especially the doctors -- [inaudible] one thing to a muslim woman is i think there is a mentality that was formed that they are protesting their status and lack of space without trying to get
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to take it. i am still and anything i'm seeing i come back it up with real stories. went to a mosque with my wife and some of our friend, and these ladies, go sit with the ladies and they said no, i'm not sitting there, we are sitting here. if you have to go to the basement, go. [laughter] [applause] what happened, they brought the women from the basement to sit up with us. we need that kind of guts. still our sisters are waiting for ab noxious -- obobnoxious men like myself to fight the battle and get the bad reputation. it is still -- she is the subject that needs a man to defend her, so even if this man wins the battle, she
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did not win nothing. [applause] muslim women should be a character -- [applause] [inaudible] that was young woman, she was going to pray and shives praying and the man came to her and said this is not your place to pray. go to other room. you know what she did? she started to pray. what is he going to do? [laughter] snap her out of the prayer? no. [laughter] this is what i mean. the second thing is a challenge. i want to put it with you and with everyone here. we need to know what is this obsession that muslim people
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have with sex. what is the issue? i meant some people very angry in one of the countries i was at. they give me the islamic magazine, and i read the magazine, and they were of old glowing what do you think of the magazine? i told them this is the playboy islam type. the playboy is showing nudity and describing nudity, and all what you do is say no, she should not expel her breasts. you are doing the same thing. you are saying how nice and how that is. what fuels this obsession because we need to treat it. i think it is psychological and that needs to be treated. >> well, i think if you look at, there's --
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i forgot who did the study, but i talked about muslims, and they said 10-15% of muslims are regular mosque attendee. clearly, the mosques are not addressing the needs of the community fully. it's safe to say that. some are doing great things, and i don't want to discredit that. sorry, go ahead? oh, okay. when i talk to muslim women, for example, i ask why they don't go to the mosque. one said, when i show up to the mosque, i don't feel like i'm going to the mosque but going to court. she talked about stepping inside the mosque and the jury, we find the defendant guilty of three strands of hair showing. like that's what it is. i don't want to be too critical because are you just going to say, well, i'm not welcome there, i'm not going. somebody has to take the initiative to change things. you talked about how this
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problem with muslims going to hooker bars, and you know, smoking and going to bars and hanging out, and he said a lot of them, not to condone what they are doing, but they don't know where to go. they need a place to talk. the mosque to question earlier what role should the mosque play, it should be our country club, our barbershop not only for prayer, but to hang out and decide what to do next. there are communities doing that, but i feel it's not enough. [applause] >> i'm actually on -- i hate to say this, but i'm actually on another level. maybe it's because i grew up in brooklyn. i don't think it's appropriate to keep, to try to create a message that's all things to all people. it's not a beauty salon or a movie theater. people come there, you want to pray, you want to learn the
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koran and so on, and then you go back out into the street and you do the things that you do. we have been trying and the architects can show you the design of the recent message. they have a gym, why? to protect our children from interacting with the other children in the community. they go to school with 97% of muslim children go to public school. why not adopt the public school, make that a better place, and you'll save your child and everybody else. [applause] >> one thing about that because a brother came to me and said i have a trouble and i go to bars and i don't smoke or drink, but i go there because i'm lonely. i'm lonely. i don't think they can hear me. >> he said get a wife. >> he and the wife are lonely too. [laughter]
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they are both at the bar. [laughter] >> we're complaining a lot. right? there's a lot to complain about; right? everybody community has its own set of challenges, the things they would like to see improve. what's going right? where do we see mosques that are getting it right? there's a lot of them. there is a leading edge of mosques. i mean, of course; i go to southern california, a ray of sunshine. [applause] i know there's many mosques -- [applause] i know there's many mosques like that whether it's the add m's center in virginia or many others that exist around the country. in your experiences in the communities that you have traversed, can you share a story about a mosque or a community that's getting are right for those with us that we can duplicate things going well and amplify those. >> well, i'm going to sit down
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until we get through this because again, my thesis is where we have the real vitality is when the muslim life is more than the message. >> that's where we are going now. >> i can tell you there are a number of those getting is righter, but i want to remind you we created something in america that doesn't exist in other places where 40 years ago the blacks were in one place, the pakistanis were in another, the egyptians in other, and then we created the paradigm, the megamessage, everybody came no matter what your background was, and that was great, but we only came together for that one hour. that population we discovered something that are very women friendly or convert friendly or
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whatever that the core client is the one i call the lamar. they are no, no, no. they are the ones who are the judge, jury, and executioner. they pray there five times a day. they are the core client. we can bring the politician in, but we can't bring them in in the evening. >> i'm going to cut you off because i want to get to the positives, the places that are doing it right. >> i think these places are moving in the right direction. >> okay. >> but they haven't taken the other 167 hours back. it is creating that wider engagement. i think you've listed a number of them. i live -- i moved to sterling, virginia, so that my family could be in walking distance of the adam's
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center because my teacher is there and my children see that as a place that they can go to on their own. they can walk from the house, and there are phenomenal youth directors that are engaging my son in environmental projects for recycling. we have reduced its use of consumables as a personal contract by 30%. i mean, so it's a greening community. there are many other communities that are doing these things. >> all right. sure. >> the experiment of the mosque today in california is running in its 5th year maybe, but this last year was phenomenal because it was kind of reaching maturity where a group of mosques are trained and this is the mag to
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do of it to invite all kind of neighbors to the moving. a good number of korean americans and of course christians and jewish-americans, ect.. >> you know why i love you? because you didn't say nonmuslim. >> i love you too. [laughter] >> exactly. >> in addition to this mentalities, really the experiment was a smashing success about the number of people who came with one faith and left with a better faith. came with one attitude, and left with a better attitude. this is because it was not done open your mosque and tell them islam is good which is the very troubling statement that we
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often use. all activities boil down to islam is good. congratulations. how's come you are the best? but anyway, we trained to have a training course and this was volunteers about attitude, about section, and about the kinds of questions you expect to be asked and how to answer them in a way that will not make the situation worse. if this model is effective and goes throughout the country, i think this is where we achieved so many things. our fellow citizens are familiar with the mosque. they ask the questions on their mind, and they are reassured. our fellow americans just wanted to know is not about the pillars or what you say, but they want
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to know if you are going to blow them up. if not, they will listen. >> all right, i'm going to move -- i remind you if you have questions, the ushers are moving around. i'm getting a steady stream and integrating them. this is going off the last statement you made, but let's turn the page and talk about one the most troubling issues of this issue of violence extremism and the string of cases we continue to take place most recently in portland and maryland and regardless of the two lair layers of the conversation, the fbi sting policy level, and then there's the level of violent extremism and the fact it is happening one way or another. the question one of our audience member had is do you disagree
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with the notion that radicalism has roots in the mosque and those who join extremists get their message from their imam. i want to ask about the interesting development that they released a letter to a would-be freedom fighter -- a person who would want to engage in jihad. he released a letter this week to a person who might be considering violence because of whatever anger or whatever issues they may have. this is an example, a bold example of, you know, one of our respective leaders attacking the issue head on. i know you have been a part of this and many others and impact
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released a video in conjunction with you and many other scholars called injustice cannot defeat injustice. that was a message of muslim scholars to muslims confronting the would-be jihads and so on. i want to think about this question and how all of needs factors fit together and how we deal with this issue head on with the complexities on the policy level and community level. >> may i start? >> you may. >> okay. [inaudible] the u.n. comitial looks -- commission looks into programs in nigeria, saudi arabia, and jordan, deequalization programs. i was invited by a certain group, i will not mention them by name, but this foundation is
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wanted a person like me or someone like me in academia to write treaties about and against the jihad, and there was this simplistic view that if i wrote as they wrote something about jihad would be accepted by someone in the jail, let's say in algeria or saudi arabia. this is what i call the wishful thinking on the part of those working in the programs because it is a problem in the mosque who are responsible to decimate education or how we fight injustices, and the political agenda is quite clear, and i must confess this, as long as the palestinian issue is going to remain unresolved at the international language will have this language and discourse
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emerging from a number of people who are actually worried about their leaders, muslim leaders, completely indifferent to the situation of the muslim world and are therefore, you know, somehow rather conceding to the power of the superpower or superpowers whoever they are, and therefore i think we need to understand the wait of the militant of islam come from and where does particular islam come from? those who are preaching to the community, especially those young minds, i get an e-mail from canada, what is my duty as a young muslim to go and fight the americans in afghanistan? what am i going to tell him? if i'm one that is going to encourage him, then i will do that. maybe i say, yeah, your objective is to plan, in other
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words, we are trying to somehow brainwash thisdown minds who are very much insecure in the american social universe, and therefore their security is very much filled by those who can really give them, those preachers who give them some kind of alternative, islamic alternative which is quite attractive, and unless this kind of education is controlled from within the community, we'll always have a problem of extremism. >> okay. we have about 20 minutes left, so i'm going to ask you to keep your comments concise to keep moving forward. >> yeah. i raise my hand before -- [laughter] >> well, you still have to keep it concise. [laughter] >> rules are rules. >> i, number one, i wanted to defend --
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i am so protective of the work and concept of jihad. i don't want them to force us to define us according to their religion. >> who is them? >> muslim -- [inaudible] or want to tell us that jihad means violence and means killing of the other and is the convert. they have their own definition, and they want to impose it on us. this is why 9/11 within a week i wrote my small book and i was made there because they are two different opposing the concept, and i hope in our discourses we defended that, we defend that we define that jihad is not anybody else, and the jihad has nothing to do with what they are talking about. having said that, i think also i
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would not only blame it on some violence in our community. we have to understand that there are very real grievances of muslim people and muslim youth who see their people killed and denamed and stampeded all over the world and robbed of their dignity of human beings and so we tell them, no, no, no it is your fault. no, it is, of course, anyone who hacks one it is his fault, but like any good criminologist, they expect robberies to increase when we see injustice rampant, you expect misguided reactions to that. we need to understand and i
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think i mentioned this once, we have to redefine islam. people don't, and i don't want to generalize on people, but a good number of our people don't understand what jihad is and what the whole islam is all about. we mentioned the preservation of life, mind, property, freedom of religion, and family. those are global, humanistic, unalienable rights of human beings, and this is the approximate of the answer. the his lum is mercy and the mission and statement of religion is justice. we have books and so that people
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-- so that the reason that is people can conduct in fairness. >> okay. >> we need to have to recapture this spirit, and p this we -- and this we need with visionary, intellectual new look to islam. i am not saying bump the heritage, but don't make the heritage holy. >> that's right. >> the heritage is the ideas of human beings that were the reflection of the time and the place. the time changed, and the place changed, and so the reflections change. >> okay. >> and as long as we are trying, and i attended this conference to see transplant, we are still on the path. >> okay.
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[applause] >> i want to turn to you for a moment on this question because i know that you participated in something in the u.k. called the radical middle way that was in some ways connected to this idea of fighting extremism or preventing extremism. can you weigh in here? >> make a few points. number one, i don't think it's fair to say most of the mosques in america are preaching radicalization. i think it depends on the mosque. >> well, i think it's few to -- mosques are kicking out extremists are the reality. >> yes, i think what is happening is you have virtual mosques online. >> yeah. >> young people don't even know who they are speaking to. they are radicalizing youth online. some things happen after the fact. thirdly, a problem i'm seeing, and i say this because i don't want to get myself into trouble, but i speak freely.
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>> why not. [laughter] >> do i have permission? [laughter] >> i think we have a mic problem. uh-oh, there we go. [laughter] okay, -- >> maybe that was on purpose. i think it depends on the mosque. i don't think most are preaching that message. radicalization is happening online. that's my experience. thirdly, muslim organizations happen to make radical decision a media cry and maybe it's to please other people to be seen in the middle way, and that's counterproductive. what happens is you lose the respect of those people who are already having somewhat of a militant mind set. our experience is that we've done it privately through conversations or phone conversations with young people. a lot are scared to talk about this openly. i had a young brother talk to me saying i buy into this message,
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and you tell me why it's wrong. we went eight or nine e-mails back and forth, and he said, i was wrong, i'm opening a soup kitchen in the ghetto. he is the spirit of doing good, it's just redirected. another brother had problems, and i met him in a parking lot late and night and i was worried. [laughter] he started talking. he felt he wasn't supposed to outright hate people, and he changed. using it as a media ploy is how it comes across sometimes. that's counterproductive. it should be undercover in the sense we reach out to the people, the opportunity for you to engage ideas with scholars, but we're not putting you on tv somewhere and blast you around to others. >> right. >> i think it's a critical part of that because if you look at the guy who brought a bomb in his underwear, when he came on the airplane, there's all these
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stories coming out that before this whole event he went on forums saying i'm lonely and looking for friends. when you are 15 or 16 or 17, and i think he was older, but when the community do you want empower you and says you can't do this, but if extreme is say you can do this. you get that at 17, this is awesome, i'm going to be a noble fighter. i think it's about empowerment and taking that energy. people want to do something and turn that positive towards doing good in the community. i think that's one way of many ways and strategies is really empowering the youth saying you can lead and take initiatives with the social service projects and things like that, i think that is is a powerful ant dote to the extremes. >> go ahead, uh-huh. >> this last christmas day when he was giving his version of
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what muslims should do to resolve their conflicts at the conference of reviving the islamic spirit in canada, i was giving a speech called a nonviolent resistance to social change. there were 10,000 muslims in that add yen, but -- audience, but for some reason the presentation of another way to wade this struggle is not reaching this population. i believe really that it's time for us to engage the process of saying to young people if you want to make social change, we are committed to that social change using nonviolence r violent resistance. some say oh, that's because you're a negro and you grew up in the civil rights movement, and that's why you think like that. guess what, i read gandhi and
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there's nothing cowardness about facing the enemy, speaking truth to power and being unarmed and saying i'm not going to exceed the limit. you sent me an e-mail off camera. >> uh-huh. >> saying 83% of the people who are killed by the radical extreme is are other muslims. >> yes. >> who are they really working for? right? they are hiding in the crowd in pakistan or afghanistan because they are afraid to meet the enemy, but they are going to hide behind women on their way to the market. call them what they are and engage in a notion that says war as we know it now would not be acceptable based on the understandings that i have from the son of the prophet. [applause] >> i just wanted to make a small point. earlier you asked about positive
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communities in a u.s., and i think one community we often overlook is the online community, and so he brought up the issue of radicalization through the web, and the antdote is there at the same time. also the question of social empowerment and social change. it's at a political level definitely and grass roots activism and the role of social media and happenings of our days, i think that's an element to keep emphasizing, the role of the internet. >> may i -- >> okay, yes. >> i wanted to shed light on something. however, the argument to you usually is, but the prophet said and -- [inaudible] >> i got to come back to that.
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>> sure, sure. >> let me tell you when people are looking at this now, oh this is how the prophet spread islam, very quickly, he spends 13 years in mecca; right? he spent six years -- >> this was not my argument. >> when we look at the prophet gaining success -- >> to tell you what i read and what they are saying and young people came to me with this argument. you see it, change it with your hand. if you cannot change it with your hand, it's with your tongue, if you cannot change it with your tongue, it is in your heart which means you kick, suck, and you curse and hate, those are the greats, and the ironny is they miss the very word to change it. the goal is the change. >> change, that's right. >> and if force is not going to
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change and it is proven it will not change anything except to worse and foul language will not change it, then the understanding of it itself is twisted. this is why i keep coming bag to that intellectual reexploration. we play with words in a way that disfigures our vision, and we have to go to that and say didn't you say change it? also you mentioned from coming to london, ect., they actually made that change. he did not make a change except to more misery so which side should i land on? >> we just have about 10 minutes left, and so i want to get to one last topic which has been a common theme among the few questions left in the pile which is the issue of islamphobia and
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bigotry, and there are many people who feel certainly overwhelmed or paralyzed by the continue yows challenges of first we had to redefine jihad, and then we had to in the light of the par-51 senate debate talk about what a mosque is, and now more recently, the issue of sharia and looking at the books in oklahoma that's being debated in the courts, the way that it is being used as the latest attack of how the islamization quote on quote of america not through warfare, but as the islamphobes call it, what are
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better ways and what should we be doing to engage these conversations on a national level and also a local level on issues, and i'll use the sharia situation since it's the most current as the starting point. >> i think we are faced with the biggest challenges that we are being represented by others. representational discourse damages our ability to really community kate the right way -- communicate the right way about issues that are political to us. i come back to the same issue that ultimately we ask the question who speaks to islam? if he continues to speak for islam or somebody else speaks for islam, then we need to have a countervoice, to have a voice in islam. i think at the moment we don't have that voice representing what we would call and educated
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information about our own tradition, and i think that's a draw back. there are so many voices that come from different sources. he is talking about the rest of the women. i don't know somebody else is talking about the rise of the women, and, you know, the media is actually jumping at those people who are not actually, i don't know where she studied islam, but she is the hero of the media, and we really need toe combat that with our names coming first, and i go back to the very early common point that i made that we need more and more ph.d.'s in islamic studies sincerely knowing islam to come forward and talk about our religion, and then we will be recognized. america recognizes academic excellence believe it or not. it's true. when you do well in academia,
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the world recognizes you. they have no choice. they do see this, and they will recognize it, and i think this is where our betters should go. we should take our better to the academia. that's where we prepare to come to those experts who speak for us. it needs to be spoken about by some who know it, not somebody else. these are the ones who are contested, so we really need to move forward. >> hold on -- >> even though we differ with each other, i think she has the right to put her discourse because that create creates that place with the dialogue. >> we are talking about the right that is created by the media. >> indeed. until we create our own media, have our own television shows.
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>> i think by the same token of creating muslim academics is having more muslim lawyers especially in the context of law -- >> we need more doctors. [laughter] >> i think to have to understand that we are fully protected under u.s. constitution, but oklahoma ban on this was supposed to be challenged to the constitution with the proper plaintiff and claims completely cannot with stand our free exercise of jurisprudence, and i think that brings up the point that we started the discussion with, the police where muslim values meet western values. we have to use the law and fully realize the ben fifth of the law -- benefits of it in defining your freedom. it begins to show you the value of the freedoms. if you're using them for yourself, you have to be table to use them for other people other than yourself. >> that's right. [applause] >> i live in new york city and
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the whole ground zero controversy were protesting. i was not there for the protest, and i was hanging out with a friend of mine who lives nearby, and we saw ten people take a break from the protest, and they breaking and one holds a sign that says muslims deponent belong and other says having a mosque here is a punch in the stomach. they were waiting in line at a food cart. [laughter] that's why in the country i feel people pick and choose what they are offended about. we live in a culture where whoever shouts the loudest gets the air time. they can talk, but we need to do the same thing, and i think that's what's lacking. it's not about responding and
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reacting. we were not trying to respond to anything. okay, it's great. we can talk about the issues, but we were trying to tell our own story because so many people tried to tell our story, it's time we tell our own, and that's how i look at it. >> sure. [applause] just to add -- i hope my mic is working. >> uh-huh. >> this process actually is going to create a greater confidence in many muslim's hearts about how the system works here, but the part of one troffers i think is a microcosm of a problem of leadership in america where leadership do you want have a mandate in the muslim community. when i came back from egypt people told me i was a leader in america. i was just eating and bread in egypt, and now i'm a leader. >> that pakistani food.
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[laughter] >> seriously, i think in a lot of ways our leadership is bought by people who have money and influence and it's not chosen by our community. it's not transparent. i don't want to go back to problems, but i think park 51 represents a small group of people making a decision that impacts all muslims in america without consultation not just with mosques, and mothers, and i know mothers after that decision was made started to face it at grocery stores, children threatened at schools. this is systemic impacts on our communities. we didn't talk about it today but the leadership of muslims in north america and until it is chosen and transparent, people will not have confidence in their organizations and officials. [applause] >> huh huh. >> secondly, instead of a voice, i love what you are saying, we need professors. i'm with you. you're saying we need lawyers. i'm with you. we need voices. that's what he's saying.
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if you see the movie "do the right thing" by spike lee. it's old school so for give me, but the italian pee disa owner who keeps saying the "in" word over and over, he says is print prince an n word? no, he's a singer. what about michael jordon? no, he's the greatest baskball player. the rhetoric changed, so we need to be able to appreciate capitalizing our rhetoric in america and frank luntz has a great book. not to plug him, but what he says is very profund. it's not just convert, but just like some womens are the greatest carriers, some converts to islams are the greatest
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carriers of imgrant muslim. i think it's a mind set, but we have to appreciate and fostering rhetoric at all levels in order to shape that discourse so people can see wow, that guy you bought the sandwich from is muslim and do you feel you got punched in the stomach or are you happy? so, you know -- >> yeah, exactly. [applause] >> yeah, i do feel exceedingly hopeful. >> uh-huh. >> i really believe that after 9/11 i really was impacted by an eye of the koran, the 32ndwhere you -- they were trying to extinguish the light of the law with their mouth, but allow the first to increase his light.
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while we were not doing our jobs in being willing to engage our neighbor, after the tragedy of 9/11, our neighbor came to us and said we want to come to our mosque mosque and see what you are doing. we are going to train our people and embrace you. others said, okay, on university campuses we have to do a real outreach because we do a lot of inreach. the only people who talk to is these groups, and now we have to talk to everybody. this is something we didn't want to do. i don't want to explain islam every time, you know, but this community has had to edify itself to learn what are the answers, to learn what are the arguments so we could reach out to our neighbors, and it has been overall a positive experience. people who have done what you
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said who met another muslim, their attitude is different no matter what fox news says. the muslim they know is a good guy, and i don't know about the rest of them, but i know based on what he told me about his religion because i asked him and he shared it with me. that is a profound witness. that is what makes us in this society americans, and i'm going to say this to you. there is another generation of muslims that are unmosqued, but they are not unmuslim. they are on facebook, twitter, and they are talking about these issues, and it's wide open and other people are joining the conversation and the haters and the lovers are all in the mix. >> absolutely. >> as a result of that it's widening this discourse not for the old gray haired people or no haired people like -- [laughter] but there is a new generation that is really building this new infruc

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