america's best and worth ranked chief executives." watch c-span2 from the museum. now the council on american islamic relations hosts a conference on islamophobia. human activists talk about islamophobia, anti-semitism and white supremacy. erica lee is the author of "america for americans: a history of xenophobia in the united states." this is about an hour and 15 minutes. welcome to this first panel, this first breakout session on the intersections of islamophobia, anti-semitism, white supremacy. my name is erica lee.

i direct when not on leave the immigration research center. i just want to say this conference is phenomenal. it doesn't exist in many other places in that it brings together amazing scholars, experts nationally and internationally, pioneers in the ways in which we understand both the consequences, the roots of islamophobia, but also in a really accessible and community-engaged environment. i just want to express my gratitude to cair minnesota for putting on this conference. today we're going to spend some time thinking about the intersections of hate, really, and i think we have a good beginning of some of that conversation in the first

planning session. and one of the takeaways i got from that earlier session is the obvious point, that islamophobia does not exist in a vacuum. i'm a historian, so all of the historical notes that we've been here before, this is another iteration or this is an evolution of earlier forms of state sanctioned as well as private acts of hate and violence obviously really resonated with me, and i just wanted to elaborate on that a little bit more. i think it was professor todd green who said this is racism. this is a form of racism. there is many different definitions of islamophobia, and i think part of the conversation is, is it irrational? yes, but it's expressed rationally and it's made -- it's legitimated, it's justified, it's moralized in very rational and sanctioned ways. and i think the more we think

about islamophobia as a system, as a system of hate, as an idealogy, and as a form of discrimination, i think that it moov moves us a little bit further in how we can better understand its intersections and its impact. another key point here is white supremacy and white nationalism. under undergirding all these issues in the world has been white supremacy. it's important to remember that the first others in the united states were native americans and african-americans, and the ways in which we interacted with every other group that came after them was always in relation to where they fit on this hierarchy of our ways of knowing of whether they were savages or violent, fit to be citizens, fit to become americans. so i'd like us to, as we engage

in this discussion about intersections today, i'd like us to think about that historical foundation as well. some of our panelists you have been introduced to, but they were much too humble. on your far right, professor todd green, associate professor of religion at luther college in decorah, iowa. advi adviser in the state department in washington, d.c. two books on islamophobia, "the fear of islam col: introduction islamophobia in the west" and

"why we shouldn't fear terrorism." we'll hear more about his article and get the exact citation. he's founded at berkeley the islamophobia research and documentation project at center for race and gender at uc berkeley. this is my go-to site. when i teach about islamophobia in my classes at the university of minnesota, i go directly to this site for not only its amazing research reports that have been produced, but also a really accessible and theoretically grounded definition of what islamophobia is and its frameworks. he has also launched the studies journal in the study of islamophobia. it is the only peer-reviewed academic journal on the subject. and he is founder and professor of islamic law and theology at

the first islamic accredited college in the united states. next is lauren lixoplat, has worked at the jewish community action as a community organizer around immigration and worker justice issues. j.c. is located in st. paul. and she currently serves as lead trainer for the institute and other educational initiatives, linking social justice and action. then closer to me is a law professor at the university of arkansas school of law and affiliated faculty at uc berkeley. as you heard from him, he focuses on constitutional law, but he is best known right now for two projects. one is his amazing book "american islamophobia:

understanding the roots and rise of fear." and he's been one of the most important sources of information and compassion in the wake of the terrorist attacks in new zealand. and if you go to twitter and look under the #50lives, you'll see the amazing work that dr. bazian has done in showcasing and redirecting the world's attention to the victims and not the terrorist. so this is an amazing panel. we are so fortunate to have these scholars and experts and activists with us. my plan is to open up the discussion for about 10 to 15 minutes of -- or as long as you want -- of commentaries on these intersections, and then my goal is to leave more time for questions and answers at the end of these formal areas so we can

have a conversation with many of you who i think have lots of things to say. who would like to volunteer to go first in our panel of distinguished speakers. awesome. lauren, please start. >> everyone can hear me? okay. good morning. it's really good to be in this room with everyone who is interested in learning about this and figuring out what we do about it. a lot of people have been doing this as lifelong work, and i am newer to the spectrum of this, but i will just share some perspectives from jewish community action and my own personal information. so when we have been working on different social issues, we kind of always look at this from the frame of white privilege and looking at the frames of how

that impacts people and what is the role for white people to step into and do things. and since the last election, since last presidential election, we've kind of been shifting in realizing, like dr. lee mentioned, this is much more systemic than maybe we realized before and we've kind of changed our approach to looking at both anti-semitism and islamophobia stemming from a reality of cl e colonial inheritance, colonial situation and seeing how the combination of white nationalism and christians have kind of positioned this hateful rhetoric, this kind of systemic way of looking at groups of people and dividing them from people who share interests. so we're really interested in looking at these ways that white nationalism is trying to divide us ask separate us and rejecting that and understanding that

that's an intentional behavior in order to stop people who naturally should be in alliance with each other from coming together and resolving some of these huge local nationwide and worldwide issues. >> first let me thank you for bringing this conference here for this important discussion. thank you for welcoming me here. professor lee is a graduate from uc berkeley, so it's really a privilege, and her professor that supervised her thesis, evelyn is the person in the center for race and gender that said, we need to do work on islamophobia, so she opened the door for us to create a project and a program in the center for race and gender. think of the japanese community

having went through the interment and the need to recognize islamophobia. there is a connection in the sense of real people's experiences being extended to the contemporary period. i teach a full course on islamophobia, deconstructing islamophobia and other studies at uc berkeley. the question is when do we start a discussion about islamophobia? it's not about 9/11, it's not about the turn of the 20th century. we actually begin with the inquisition, all right? because the construction of being white or the construction at a time was two large groups present in europe, the muslim and jewish community. so you could not construct the european world view at the time

without actually coming into the realization of expulsion of jews and putting in place a whole system systematic position. when we think of racism, it controls the body and space of muslims and jews initially in europe and there was a whole structure for the inquisition. muslims and jews could not dress in their normal religious garb. they should not actually engage in any type of practice that would be religiously relative to ritual bathing or cleansing. the culture was also obstructed,

which is why the meals were laced with pork to announce publicly you no longer held the rules required for consumption. synagogues and mosques were converted to churches, and then those who were forcefully converted to christianity were finally expelled in 1609. so the inquisition lasted almost 400 years, including in this also about 100,000 women who were brought into the inquisition because they were charged as being sourcerers and so on. they did not hold the religious orthodox. so islamophobia emerges from that moment, and then we get into the new world. the first exclusionary act in the new world was the record of muslims from western africa in 16 -- in 1526, the first

exclusionary measure directed at muslims from west africa as well as slaves who lived with the muslims of the east. so that's where you begin the discussion about where these ideas that every once in a while they get to percolate and a continuation of trying to create what we call purity of rights. so we speak about the theology or how the theology gets rolled into the discussion, and we had a whole debate in the new world about whether native americans have a soul and end up with the genocide of native population. then you take it to the arrival of the african-american slave who arrived not as a human being but arrived as cargo and we still have to deal with what that means still today. the debate about black lives matter, and everybody when you say black lives matter, people jump in and say, every life matters. yes, every life matters, but

black lives matter still don't matter today. so when you say every life matters, you subject the african-americans to what they have suffered through to this day. they were contesting african-american empowerment as the height of lynching. then you go to the jewish population and the exclusion of the jewish population and the birth of jewish organization to try to challenge anti-semitism. passing through the labor movement, the women movement, the japanese interment, civil rights movement, and then we speak of islamophobia as the normative pattern of authorization rather than trying to exceptionalize muslims by talking about islam, and all of a sudden we talk about the koran

and you lose the sense that america's norm is the exception. so once you put islamophobia in the normal trajectory, it will be easy to understand what took place rather than we begin the conversation with what the past says. europe has a problem with lifrg wi -- living with the other, because so far they have not demonstrated the capacity of living with the other. i think that's where we need to begin the conversation. good morning again.

the book i wrote last year called "presumed guilty: why we shouldn't condemn terrorism." the most important part is islamophobia is mostly a distraction and talking about violence and terrorism is really a distraction in new york toward white christians, toward white american violence. i don't lose too much sleep that we spend talking about muslims and violence in america. what we cannot talk about, what we struggle to talk about is white nationalists, white supremacists, right wing terrorism. i remember a long history of violence that targets religious and racial communities. when it comes to genocide and indigenous populations, where is the 9/11 memorial museum for

that? so remember what violence we forget, the islamophobia that drives that is actually intersected with white supremacy and white individualism. that is my preface. a few things to get going. first, i'm glad we have this panel on this particular topic. the intersections of islamophobia, anti-semitism, white supremacy. we're starting to see more of this in the museum, and that's good as long as we can sustain it and that's what i'm worried about. you see a manifesto peppered with comments. it starts about the birth rights in europe and it goes to white genocide, fear of identity in europe and the west. a replacement of immigrants to replace us.

for those of us who study islamophobia, it is no surprise that it's not unique. whatever that manifesto is, it's not unique, it's not individual. it's the same rhetoric we've been hearing for a long time undermining many political figures, including donald trump. not just him, france, hungary, they all hold similar views. this guy's views were not outlined views. what he did in terms of acting upon them was different, but the world views are very similar. so sitting at that intersection at work is important. the other thing about that attack that i think can help us conte contextualize this particular topic is it is the latest in a string of attacks for some time now where angry white men have targeted religious islam

communities mostly out of fear for white americanism or white supremacists and whatnot. pennsylvania, quebec city in canada and now christchurch. what do they share in common? angry white men deemed some kind of threat to them to what it means to be canadian or american or european or even white, right? there's some differences notices attacks well but maybe some commonality in making sense of all of this. when it comes to anti-semitism and islamophobia, i don't think this is talked about enough. there is some intersection in both europe and the united states, for example. i believe anti-semitism on both sides of the atlantic have actually gone to the same

wellspring. how did jews become white? that's telling you something about how jews were categorized, racialized themselves in that american identity and jewish identity weren't seen as synonymous. the same way we see extreme nationalism in jewish was brought over. that role of anti-semitism has been played, and terms of constructing white individuality is the same. that's what i see in a lot of muslim rhetoric i encounter in europe and even now in the united states. serious debates in britain and germany of can you be muslim in french? can you be muslim in american? ilhan omar couldn't be american because she wore a hijab, right?

that stereotype if you're in this racial religious category, you can't be one of us. that is one of the conducting points between anti-semitism and islamophobia that i think we need to pay a lot more attention to than we have. and finally, i'll say on that point, we need to pay careful attention to how many political operatives pit jews and muslims against each other for larger, more insidious purposes and, dare i say, imperialistic topics. islamophobia is not the solution to anti-semitism, anti-semitism is not the solution to islamophobia, but you would be surprised about the number of political figures that can say that and think that and articulate that very clearly. this is deliberate. it is orchestrated. it is insidious and we must resist it.

[ applause ] >> i'll be really brief. i'll start with a story. right after 9/11, roughly two wee weeks after 9/11, i was a freshman student of law. i was not someone who wanted to hide my muslim identity in the direct aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. on the campus at ucla where islamophobia was quite strong and zionism was also quite pervasive on that campus. i share that story because it segues into what became a really transformativ e time in my life. she coined this term intersecti intersectionality and wrote

marginalizing pieces that came to form what intersectionality means and how it unfolds. oddly enough, i came to learn about islamophobia, anti-semitism, white supremacy through black racialism. these sections we're in right now have to be tethered in the country's white racialism and the other form of blackness being the antithesis of whiteness. whiteness was potentially fluid, whiteness also vacillates. whiteness is being decimated the way it's being framed on the

ground. one of the books i read was "when jews were not white folks." the idea that jewish identity in the late 19th century and early 20th century effectively excluded practicing jews and conspicuous jews coming from the american couldn't tent ntinent wives. even though they could pass as white, the more they legitimized their identity, the less white they became. what we saw with anti-semitism in that area has escalated today and we see what became of square hill months ago. what took place in pittsburgh, we juxtapose them for what took place in new zealand for exactly the same thing. the same drivers, the same emotions, the same idealogy, the same inspiration of the shooter in pittsburgh are identical to

what motivated the shooter in christchurch in new zealand. why is that? does it matter the victims in pittsburgh were jewish or does it matter that the victims in new zealand were muslims? for us it does because we embrace the idea of religious pluralism and individuals should have the right to freely exercise their faith as they see fit. for the shooters it didn't because they viewed jews in pittsburgh and muslims in new zealand as pa rriahs who definitely were not white, as a quality that is the united states and new zealand based on their religious identity. i'm working on a piece right now called "faith and whiteness" that looks to compensate how religion thinks about race. but in this growing tide of white supremacy, they see

religious identity being to the right of racial identity as not being qualified as whites but as a class of people that can be assimilated into broader society. those are the parallels, and clearly there are distinct tropes, things like violence, things like savagery, great piece by lettie volt, a professor, who sort of the mines these tropes from the imagination. and different tropes in the jewish identity, tropes distinct in nature. it's key to understand that religious identity is very vocal and very directed in terms of who could classify as white and who could classify as citizens. >> so far we've talked about

intersections and talked about religious tolerance and the intersections with race. i also want to introduce another term that those of us in critical ethnics and race studies use. it's rational. it's the way one's gender, race or identity works together to either categorize one as -- let's talk about immigration -- a good immigrant or a bad immigrant. it's also about how specific classifications of people or how certain groups are related in that spectrum of good and bad to each other. we can't talk about the rise of

persistence in both of these terms of islamophobia and anti-semitism without also understanding the persistence of xenophobia and racism. we talk a lot about this trope of displacement, a trope of foreignness. and also one thing we haven't talked about is a trope of foreign conspiracy. now, let's not forget that both catholics and jews in the american colonies, come colonies barred them outright, they had unequal access to citizenship, they were prone to expulsion. and let's not forget that the anti-catholic movement in the 19th century was predicated on this idea of a foreign papal conspiracy, that catholic immigrants were allegedly part of an invasion that was organized by foreign catholic monarchs and the pope in rome to take over the united states.

this trope that connects religion as a thre-- non-protes religion as a threat and with foreignness and with some sort of foreign invasion or conspiracy is one that cuts across both anti-catholicism, anti-semitism and islamophobia. we talked a little bit about tropes, but can we bring in that global dimension, both historically and in terms of contemporary, if possible? >> i could speak about the intensification of islamophobia in the united states. actually, we have a specific time when the intensification occurred. it was largely around the obama campaign. if you remember, obama was being accused of being a closet

muslim, that he was part of the brotherhood movement conspiracy. again, if you think about the conspiracy that the brotherhood would have conspired to bring a kenyan in here, find a white woman, impregnate her, have a child in hawaii and then comes back in here to work in the inner city in chicago, to get elected into the senate, to get -- to get all americans to vote for him to win the presidency. let's say if they have that conspiracy, i really want to talk to them and see if they can take our homelessness program and see if they have a conspiracy to address it. but i think american society at the time wanted to use the n-word on obama.

but they felt the oxygen in the air was prohibitive so they felt comfortable using the m word as a substitute for the n word. and that's where you get the birth of the birther movement, tea party and xenophobia and it extended to the 2016 election. the deployment of free sources in the islamophobic spending is actually around the election of obama. they deployed the documentary obsession which was funded by the clarion fund, and just a few weeks before the election, the 2008 election, it was distributed -- 28 million copies of the bvd was in your sunday newspaper at a cost of $17

million. i know you and me don't have $17 million. we can actually barely afford our coffee. it was somebody who had a very strategic interest to target that many resources using the mcword m m word as the n word. they wanted to disrupt any possibility of us having a larger discussion of the failure of our economic program, the failure of our political leadership, and therefore, islamophobia becomes a good distraction. so instead of thinking why you lost your home or 12 million americans lost their homes, thousands of stores close, you begin to think the reason this is taking place is there is a muslim under your bed. so it becomes the substitute for us to have a serious discussion of why we have a great recession

that took place and how did we get into that point. i think those are the things we need to relate to the racist structure, the economic structures and why somebody like robert mercer who actually funds the islamophobia ads, creates or funds the cambridge analytica, funds the breitbart. why would someone of that stature post their resources? my sense is you always have to follow the dollar and follow the interest attached to it. but we have been able to be susceptible to these what i consider to be massive advertisement campaigns that we begin to understand and think, is this islamophobia? you bought a vw. rather than thinking vw cheated the testing on the vw, you almost think it's the engine, and therefore you begin to run to the mass to cheat people,

take a slap on the skmaand do i again. i think we need to understand what is being deployed on a daily basis. [ applause ] >> hatem, did you want to say something about the global aspect and this idea of not just displacement of white bodies in the united states but, you know, muslim immigration as part of the foreign conspiracy? i saw you nodding a lot, so i didn't know if that was in relation to something. >> i'm glad to answer that question, but the first question really sat with me. i just taught this case in constitutional law of the interment case. you talk about tropes and a

trope holds the power to other intersectional groups. there is a juxtaposition between japanese americans during that era and catholic americans during that era, right? your physical complexion enables you to effectively take cover that other individuals without the ability to pass as white cannot take cover. so if we compare what happened to catholics, and obviously there was this prevailing conspiracy that the catholic church was looking to take over the united states, it never reached the deps of vileness that it reached with japanese americans during world war ii. the fact that this court case, the way in which japanese americans looked, distinct from white americans, allowed the state to mobilize the most inhue

man. that's interment of 100,000 japanese in the -- when we can have people biased physical markers, it enables the state to enact and extend even morp gregarious form of policing rather than that class of color that has typical whiteness. that's what's happening to people across the globe. if you look at europe or france frirngs, i just wrote this piece that said 50 to 75%. it's.

the population of muslim and friends is 68 percent. so the fact that the prison population is significant the bigger than the actual population of muslims on the ground, just. which i think if you were subcommittee me to compare it, i would think it's busily. now they're in non-white societies, and we could talk about dhin, where you have reportedly 1.8. that is a country where we sdroent swhit si. let's use figurine type two things that em nature from that

that are really if they're in distinct host contests in different countries. they focus in india is dramatically different than it looks here in the united states where it is tethered and anchored in white supremacy. right? the second thing is tropes are different. sometimes tropes are imagined. oftentimes they're tied to physical expression and race. in my opinion, the al gorithm that is most destructive for a group, it enables the state to act in a most destructive way. >> as well as gender. >> gender as well. >> i want to push on the concept of race a little bit more because i think it's so important historically to understand how categories of race have changed over time, right?

so one of the things about the anti-catholic movement is catholics were considered different and inferior to angelo saxton protestants. one of the things that was different was they were never denied the power to vote, which gets us back to democracy and how we can fight against the powers of hate and violence. that's one of the reasons why i would argue -- one of the most important reasons why the irish became white even though they were not not white. because it created the first anti-immigrant political party. when we talk about politics and zen oe phobia. their slogan was americans for americans. they pioneered the political

movement for anti-immigrant politicians and anti-immigrant policies. they had a million members in the 1850s. hugely important. we could not have trump without the know nothings. you couldn't have japanese and american compensation without both these presidents both political, legal and cultural that have allowed. how is it we thought of as eyeish and. eerp, the european. how do we continue to sort of morph those occasional categories, how have those changes? how is it that migrants first

served to be bans is now the minority. what does that mean and how do we use another trrks robe, the good immigrant as a source of distraction and a -- i want to now maybe turn the remember. it has been restreeld now that you can't stumd. i remember an article, a headline after pittsburgh. it was a quote from, i think, one of the members of the synagogue, and it basically said, we thought anti-semitism was dead. now we know better. one of the things i've seen in the past few years is a, i

think, a resurgence of interracial coalitions. there have been lots of decades past with civil rights movements where social justice struggles have brought people together, people who had not worked together before. this is not necessarily something new, but it does seem much more magnified and hopefully lays a foundation for a broader coalition than we've seen before. i wanted to turn the conversation to what you all have seen on the ground and whether you see the same developments as somehow

cautiously opoptimistic, or wha should we keep in mind as we turn our attention to challenging these positions of oppression. >> i can speak to that a little bit. i'll start off. so community organizing basically says the way to solve these things is about relationships, it's about how we make connections across seeming differences and how we use those connections to create positive social change that benefits the most directly impacted communities but also everyone because we all see ourselves as very interconnected. so it's really not just about having, like, this big understanding but really understanding how these things operate on a systemic level and how they are ongoing, like you said, since the inquisition and understanding our histories and understanding how there is a very intentional tide to divide us, and it's actually -- if you want to think about, i want to be the most left person, i want to be the most progressive, the

most radical person, one of the most radical things you can do is come together and learn about other people and not just in superficial ways but in real ways where you have real relationships with people and you're working on common things together. i would also throw in that having a sense of hope, which can feel really impossible and it can sound kind of fluffy and how do we even grab onto that given this magnitude of all these things going on just knowing we have these cycles of history and we have demonstrable moments in history where people have made things better. so using that to kind of keep going is a big, important thing. on the ground i would say people are seeing bigger stakes. i would just say in minneapolis around the organizing we're doing, for example, around immigration and the criminal justice system in those intersection rksz i feel that's

stuff people vrking -- working on it. we've learned about it, we have conversations about it, but people are actually seeing how it's playing out in our actual communal lives, so that's putting a lot of fire under people to change things for the better. >> lauren, just because so much of our audience is local, can you give a specific example, project, group that we might want to know more about? >> sure. there is a campaign that jewish community action is involved in with over 30-plus community organizations from labor, from different faith groups, from immigrant groups, from criminal justice groups who have come together to work on issues around i.c.e. and how i.c.e. is in cooperation.

we're working at how the sheriff no longer works with i.c.e., so as soon as people come in for a traffic violation, you can take thoec thoechlly. there are some projectives for listening, and this is a way for undocumented communities to have access to identification that makes life a lot more fluid for people who don't have to worry about that. you may take for granted that you need an id when life isn't easy. those are a couple examples. >> i could comment on the issue. i think we have to be very careful of not jumping from where the crisis is to having

interfaith or interfaith dialogue, assuming that the heavy lifting of dealing with the crisis itself is not being done. so i'm a person that actually works on interfaith work for justice. if you want to have a dialogue of your idea of god and my idea of god, take a theology class. for me to actually take three hours of my day for us to read two or three texts of religious significan significance, for me that's a class in theology or interreligious dialogue. but if you're actually trying to change the society for social justice, there has to be interfaith work for justice, and we need to deal with the contradictions that exist in our own communities.

i know for myself as an arab palestinian, there are immigration issues. they want to deal with racism, there are anti-black racism in the community. there are activities that take place in some parts of the immigrant community. for example, i work around oakland, and on every corner there is a liquor store. unfortunately, some of those liquor stores are owned by arabs and islam immigrants. to me that's a contradiction. there has to be some heavy lifting to deal with it. i cannot speak about muslim prisoners without realizing we have a prisoner injustice system where if you're black, your track to jail is a lot faster than yale because we can't all of a sudden, because we're

dealing with islamophobia, that we begin to be social rights advocates but can't deal with our convictions. we can't deal with islamophobia and anti-semitism without confronting the question of palestine and israel. we cannot deal with islamophobia without asking the question, why is a segment of the pro-israel organizations. putting a bet on the right wing of the united states and think that stalking islamophobia is the way to protect america. they're equal opportunity, they hit both. they think this is a consideration, or they think

perhaps islamophobia is every i anti-semite and he supports israel for all of the wrong considerations. that contradiction has to be resolved and has to be addressed. otherwise, we're again saying let's hold hands while the world is not including us in the conceptualization of the world. those are contradictions that have to be addressed in a systematic way. >> it is a great question. it is a practical, how do we respond to all of this? because otherwise just spending a day talking about islamophobia and we get cynical very quickly and we go home very depressed. i will start by saying i spent a year at the state department trying to advise on islamophobia

and i have engaged other audiences and the department of homeland security and the fbi and it is really frustrating work. i tell you what i learned. the change will not come from above, though the policy does need to change. i'm not saying let's disengage from politics but that change will come from below. it will be from grass roots movements. i think the most historic changes in american history are from social changes, and come from below and a bus boycott in montgomery, alabama, that hit people where it hurts who benefitted from jim crow in terms of the economic side and spread and got more organized. of course, there has been, since the 1960s, a very successful counter civil rights movement that has existed that has led to what michelle alexander calls, a new jim crow and it is not a linear process to be sure. but i think the most significant change comes from the low. i definitely agree. relationship building is key. we do have studies on this, if you know someone of a different religion than your own, you're

much less likely to be prejudiced toward that community. if i know someone, have a personal relationship with jewish, i'm less likely to be anti-semitic. there are caveats to those studies and theories and a lot of it has to do with me being less anti-semitic translates into significant political action, how do you effect political change, when individuals are changing their opinions about the communities but the policies are not changing. so it has to be plugged into, channeled into political movements. as someone who has traveled around the united states and abroad even on this topic, the most successful instances i've seen of pushing back against islam phobe yeah and very effectively in a political sense have come from coalitions that includes muslims as significant partners that have been arn not for a few years, but for usually for decades. and have really established deep roots in the community and have been doing this work long term. few audiences want me to talk about the real solution, the

real solution is long term right? we are trying to do triage all the time as we have been after new zealand but you if you do not have a long term strategy, we're in trouble. and that involves relationship building, and coalition building and translating that into effective political action. with muslims, it is even more important. i'm reminded that the reference to anti-catholic history and what is different is how catholics were racialized was different. and the number of catholics. by the 1930s, an awful lot of catholics in the u.s., those who were fearing there were large numbers of catholics, why they were afraid we can quibble but there were large numbers and catholics could eventually build effective political movements. built institutions. social institutions. educational institutions. hospitals. that really ingrained them into a lot of different community, including the twin cities, rit? you have a lot of catholic institutions in this region. muslims on the other hand make up about one, just over one,

between one and two percent of the population, depending what poll you look at, but are a much smaller community. and don't have those same kinds of institutions over time that catholics have been able to build. that might change to be sure. but the numbers are certainly not there. so therefore the coalition building is all the more significant which is why we talk so much about allies and frustration with many of us who are allies who are not doing the coalition building ourselves. i still think that it is all of our responsibilities to combat islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and racism, but i think the primary moral responsibility falls on people like me. muslims when they fight islamophobia are trying to survive. jews trying to fight anti-semitism are trying to survive. it falls on people with my background to actually start to do more lifting. i don't think we're doing our part in the lifting at all. i don't think we're taking seriously the fact that the primary moral burden falls on us as islamophobia is emanating

from us and that's what needs to change and in instances where i've seen that happen in local communities across the country, and i've seen great work and translating that into a national movement will be significant if we change these policies and elections do matter. even though that doesn't mean voting for the democratic party means you get rid of islamophobia. i promise you plenty of islamophobia in the democratic party. election does matter. this region of all regions knows that because of the history you made here and history can be repeated in other places, i think we might start to see significant change in this country. >> i would just like to add a few more comments, and that is, it is also dependent on communities like mine, communities who have experienced past injustices, and know what it is like to be excluded and banned and separated from families, to be able to see ourselves, in communities that are suffering the same as well. and so do you want to, i do want

to call your attention to the back of your program, you will see the list of sponsors. one of the leading civil rights organizations nationally is the japanese-american citizens league. they're the one with the crest with the, i guess it is an eagle, and especially the ways in which they've partnered with care minnesota, in recent years, to call out islamophobia and all forms of injustice and bigotry in a really massive educational campaign. i do have to say, however, i just finished writing a history of xenophobia in the united states from the colonial era to the present and i do not end on a hopeful note. i have to say. by the end of writing that book, i kind of just wanted to crawl in a dark space and cry. is so i do see some hopeful change but this is, it goes far beyond 2020, it goes far beyond the united states. we're going to have a fantastic

session later this afternoon, on global islamophobia. this is not a problem that is going away, with record numbers of people being forced from their home, 60 million, you know, recorded by the u.n. last year, and more countries moving to the far right, and nationalists, and isolationist policies. this is just the tip of the iceberg. i hate to say it. and so the kinds of work that ya'll are doing, in your various institutions, and with the projects that help educate the rest of us, as well as the work on the ground is the first step. so thank you so much. i promised more time for questions. we have a little less than 20 minutes. and i'm sure this are people who want to share experiences and offer insights on. i'm going to open up the floor

i don't know how this works do i run around with the microphone. do you have a microphone? okay great. so raise your hand please if you have a question that you would like to ask the panel. >> hi, i just had a quick question. so i wanted to find out what are some ways that muslims, i'm a muslim myself, and i would want to know what are some ways that we perpetuate islamophobic ideas, even consciously, or subconsciously, intentionally, unintentionally, what are some examples in our own leaders in our communities have done so and how do we identify that? >> well, let's say the following. there are bad muslims, good muslims, in between muslims, and then there's me. i am of the opinion that no matter what a muslim does, it should not be a rationalization for blaming the group.

that's at the basis of racism and for muslims again, it is to think that we have to go through a 12-step program therapy to try to make ourselves perfect so that the racists would not hit us in the face. so i think what we need is to get rid of the thought that muslim actions result in the islamophobia and racism toward muslims. the mare fact is the following. white supremacy, which in the past few years has been the primary perpetrator of violence, we don't actually have discrimination structurally toward white people, which would be legitimately, if that paradigm is held, would be the response to it. but we are living in a global white supremacy, systemic, and even when violence is committed from white supremacists, we don't attribute or attach to it

the same type of consequences. part of also what i recommend is deaggregating violence and cve from islamophobia. this is a discussion we had at the carter center, where the whole discussion began that in order to address islamophobia, we have to address cve, and embrace counter violence extremism. and for me, that, what you call wedding of these two, is an error in thought, because again, just using the concept of black on black violence, due address the racism of blacks by asking them you med to resolve black on black and most is violence, but we don't approach the problem from that vantage point. so we have to again insist on a methodology that is sound and universal and can be the test of time. lastly, i would say the following. and this is a piece i wrote,

humanizing the human is a dehumanizing act. i don't want anybody to humanize me. i'm already human to begin with. so engaging in a discourse to try to humanize the human begins with a point of dehumanizing because you're asking them to actually come into a point where they have to assert that they're a human, and that discourse again is a very, very problematic, because it assuming, as a point of departure, that is a sub-hawn category in there. this doesn't mean that you don't have to relate to people, as people. and with the contradiction. you do. but the methodology of say hag we will engage in that approach for me, it leads to a much more complex problem in the long run. >> any other questions? >> hello? hi. i'm from south africa. most african families are huge,

and on my father's side alone i think i have 103 first cousins, i would rather fight with all of them. the reason i'm saying that is you said something about marrying two ideas together. these two ideas are pretty horrible. but if we married them together like that, what's the worst that could happen to either muslim leaders or the muslim community? i'm not muslim. so that phrase seems to be, it seems to roll off the tongue for a lot of people, muslim terrorist, and now white supremacist seems to be rolling off a lot of people's tongues. i am pretty average. i hear what you guys are saying. what's the worst that could happen if muslim leaders, you said they shouldn't do that, what's the worst that could happen, if muslim leaders condemned muslim terrorists, and in the same sentence, married

muslim terrorists with white supremacy terrorists? and i'm talking about in speeches that are given, a lot of people talk about muslim terrorists this, muslim terrorists that, what what happens if you combine muslim terrorists like white supremacy terrorists do x, y, z, what is the worst could happen to muslim community, to muslim leaders if they married those two horrible ideas together? because one group, i think it is hard for, i feel it would be hard for white americans who are, for give mi words, i feel like it would be hard for white americans who are not -- what's wrong with marrying the two

ideas? muslim terrorist. white supremacist terrorism. condemn both of it and have muslim leaders say it a whole lot. i'm not quite sure, especially people who wouldn't like muslims, how would they fight against that? if it was muslim terrorism, it is messed up. white supremacist terrorism is messed up. so there is no way to defend one and not, does that make sense? >> let me try to understand and maybe respond to this. if you think about terrorism, as a concept, it has no religious identity, nor a racial identity, it crosses the border. meaning everything group has individuals that commit terrorist acts. but it seems that we exception allize the muslim category. so when a muslim commits a terrorist act, the attribute that is most focused on is the

muslim-ness,s no t muslim-ness not the terrorist part. when a white person again commits an act, the act becomes the focus, and then we try to find what is the stimulus, or often, the stimulus we look, whether he has a psychological problem, and so on. we don't ask the priest of his church to come and discuss in them and engage, we actually, for the muslim subject, we begin to go seven generations back, where he attended or passed by a mosque, even though that they most likely would not have been a mosque, nor recognize the mosque if they actually crossed it. the data shows that the more religious you are, the more civically engaged. i did a whole area of muslim study with 110 surveys and so on, and -- 1100 surveys and so on, actually the more you are attached to the mosque, the more you're civically engage, the more you volunteer and the more you're joining but due see this framing. the only freeming that wants to be operable is against the

muslim terrorist. why? because there is a whole structure that actually responds to this. so we need to speak today of the counter violent extremism industrial complex. we need to speak of the war on terror as a financial enterprise, economic enterprise, that lasts at least since the iraq war, close to $6 trillion have been used in relation tos to the war on terror, where the united states have deployment in nin different countries post-9/11. those dynamics begin to silenced when you get the muslim attribute in there, because it actually begins to shut our analytical way of how we need to understand. what i said we don't need to marry is the following. is counter can violent extremism being wedded to addressing and solving islamophobia.

structurally, these are the two. what are the stim la? what are the causalities to bring somebody to create a terrorist act, whether they're muslim or otherwise? what is the ideological basis? what are possible ingredients? and here, one of the realizations that took place, from the dominant society, where muslims are, that begin to ostracize them and exclude them from society. so those structurally, theoretically, these are two different phenomenons. those individuals that insist on marrying them basically are trying to give legitimacy to the whole subject. telling you that we're not going to address islamophobia unless we drive counter violence extremism and the onto way to counter violent extremism is for muslims accepting to secretize themselves. that is the logical outcome in this sense that we need to argue

and insist both while separates methodologies to addressing each and enough to actually make one contingent on the other. it doesn't mean that they don't have what you call elements that used to be mobilized. that is a different issue of mobilizing certain elements versus the structure of what's there. >> i just want to say really briefly, i think the greatest privilege attached to whiteness is individualality. so when the terrorist in new zealand commits a terror attack, they're not going to australia to ask other white men to apologize for the acts. when dylann roof, in south carolina, they're not asking other white men and ask them what they feel about terrorism. but in black and brown, there is a collective and collateral group that the entire group is responsible for the acts of one vigil and one bad actor.

that that is a cornerstone of white supremacy, that presumption of individualality is attached to the white side, and when we look at lone wolves, they're psychological, they're always deviate aberrational ak tors and on the muslim side, there is something wrong with the collective, there is something wrong with the entire body that these individuals are treated as em nations of an entire block, and with whites, it is always individuals who are individualized. >> i will just quickly say, because i've written an entire book about why she should not ask muslims to condemn terrorism, it is racist question. and what gets labeled as terrorism? it has become a racialized term. and it doesn't generally refer to people like me. the media has been trying to hard with this new zealand word

to use the "t" word and it doesn't roll off the tongue and if it was muslim, it wouldn't be so hard and the word terrorism is not an objective meaning, it it is a racialized term and applies to some and not particularly others an not meep. and in that context, when muslims get singled out, why aren't muslims condemning terrorism, and why don't they do more, and this is a question that asked since 9/11 and major journalists like tom freedman and most political operatives across the political spectrum, democrats an republicans in the u.s. it is a ubiquitous question. it is a racist question. it is a racist question. and i will tell you this, because i can tell who confirmed this for me, mike pompeo, secretary of state and his senate confirmation, when he was called out for, after the boston marathon bombings, complaining

that muslim leader aren't doing enough to speak out against terrorism, which is a lie, it was misinformation, it wasn't misinformation, it was a lie and when he was called on that to address that in the senate confirmation hearing he tried to qualify it a little bit but in the follow-up question was, well, how, what would it take for muslims to do enough to condemn terrorism, in a way that is satisfying to people like me, and he was honest and said i'm not sure there is enough. i don't think muslims could condemn, muslims could condemn terrorism until they're blue in the face, it doesn't matter, you will still be subject to collective guilt. there is no answer you can give. there is no dance you can do that is going to persuade many prominent politicians and journalists asking that question, that muslims aren't somehow complicit, or harboring some latent violent terrorist sympathies. you're going to continue to be objects of suspicion. so we need to start calling out and people like me particularly

need to start calling out the racism behind the question to begin including when respectful journalists like cnn or "the new york times" like tom freedman ask such ridiculous questions, or the answer whether muslims are condemning terrorism is a five second google search away. you do not have to be an expert and google search engines to know how to find the answer to that. but the very question itself, even with the answer, is prejudice. and it is not something that gets asked of me. i have yet to be asked to condemn christchurch, people just assume i do. i don't have to be asked to condemn south carolina, and people just assume that i do. and it is just be a horn. and you know what the word for that is. racism. >> thank you for coming today. i've enjoyed listening to each of your perspectives. my name is john la rets, the executive sergeant of the major

crimes division for the saint paul police department. one of my duties is collecting bias and hate crime statistics. and also being the final arbiter for saint paul before we submit our numbers to, eventually to the fbi. we had 15 hate crimes last year. in to 18. 15 too many. but it was a 25% decrease from the year before. i don't know what that means. does that mean that hate crimes are down anecdotally, what you hear around the country, know, but obviously, i don't know if it is a matter, of it not being reported, if people are worried about working with the police department, what i would just like to reaffirm is just our commitment to all the communities in saint paul, and i wonder if you could enlighten us on what you can do in your roles as leaders, to assist the police

department, to call out these things, to investigate these types of incidents, and i'll sit down and listen. >> the data sets shows it is still very problematic. because not every -- >> your mike mic. >> i've been sencensored. i'm used to that lf already. >> the statistics and data on hate crime is, as a set, is not there. what gets reported is only a small number of what takes place on a daily basis. we notice that not only in relation to hate crime, but again, i worked on campus, on the whole issue of rape, sexual harassment, and we knew that

only a very small number of cases gets reported, and only smaller than those get actually escalated to an actual investigation. so there's a challenge in there of educating our community. so just this past year, we actually developed an app, it is the islamophobia reporting app, and we're trying to get it to the community members so that they would report, it has different types of incidents that could be reported. and not every incident gets to be actionable, because some incidents are not. like for example, somebody saying go back home, it is not actionable, but it is a form of harassment that your body and space does not feel safe, so we need to document those. for those cases that require follow-up, we send those that require follow-up to the police as well as the civil rights organizations. in order for us to have a set, a

data set that could actually give a picture of what is taking place. so we're hoping, actually on a monthly basis, to send out, to policy makers as well as the community, those cases that are occurring that are being reported, and we're trying to distribute this in the community. the second level development of the app, we're trying to actually aggregate a twitter feed into it, in order to see where the twitter feed in relation to the islamophobic rhetoric and social media, especially twitter, do we have in there a zone where maybe there is a hate group that is operating or a civil society actor, a politician, that is using islamophobic discourse, and thus increasing the level of hate crimes and hate incidents in the community. so that is the next level of the development. because i think data is very important. because if you don't have data, you can't impact the people who are on the front line. and also, you can't impact policy. so data is very critical. and this is both for the community and others.

interestingly, i do work in france, i have a regular conference, like the sixth year, you can collect data on racial disparities in there, and there is no data, then there is no problem. so again, this is part of the structural, which is a pernicious structure relative to what is experienced in france relative to islamophobia, you don't have the data that actually specifically can look at the problem with a complete set to understand what is taking place. so the positive here, that we do have a data set. it might be incomplete. and we need to complete it. >> i think ya'll might be hungry for lunch. so if you can help me in thanking our panelists sore for

great conversation [ applause ] later this afternoon, it's a discussion on hate crimes, and a rise in white supremacist attacks in the u.s. hosted by the lawyers committee for civil rights under law, our live coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. eastern over on c-span, online at c-span.org, or listen live on the free c-span radio app. and tonight, it's american history tv, in prime time. we'll focus on the three mile island nuclear accident, which took place 40 years ago. the partial meltdown in 1979 near harrisburg, pennsylvania, is considered the most serious nuclear power accident in u.s. history. we look back at the incident, with a cbs news documentary from the period, fallout from three mile island.

that's followed by an american history tv, and washington journal co-production, with guest samuel walker, author of "three mile island, a nuclear crisis and historical perspective" and eric epstein, chair of "three mild island alert" who talked about his experiences at the time and how the community is marking the 40th anniversary. watch that tonight, beginning at 8:00 p.m. here on c-span 3 american history tv. and on book tv in prime time, it's discussions on political memoirs. we will begin with ken star and his book "contempt," a memoir of the clinton investigations. senator dug jones, on "bending toward justice," george papadopoulos, on "deep state target "kwrks william burns on the back channel and robert brown's, you can't go wrongdoing write. it starts tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, on c-span 2. looking ahead to next week, attorney general william barr

testifies on the mueller report. his first appearance is wednesday, before the senate judiciary committee, at 10:00 a.m. eastern. then on thursday, he will speak to the house judiciary committee at a time to be determined. we will have live coverage of both hearings on c-span 3. you can also watch online at c-span.org or listen live on the free c-span radio app. saturday night, president trump is holding a campaign rally, in green bay, wisconsin. skipping the annual white house correspondents dinner. tuesday, he instructed his administration to boycott the dinner. watch live coverage at president's rally, saturday, at 8:00 eastern. on c-span. and following the rally, watch live coverage at 9:30 eastern of the white house correspondents dipper with featured speaker, author and historian, ron churnow. next, kevin delaney, the