if there is any work that has tackle that question it is that piece. i can't articulate what he says but i highly recommend reading that piece. >> he is with us today? >> come to the other panel. a really great piece. >> i think we need to finish our session because that session starts at 1030 and there is a break now. thank you to our panelists. >> welcome to this first panel, this first breakout session on white supremacy anti-semitism. i am a professor of history and

asian american studies at the university of minnesota. i also direct when i am not on leave the immigration history nature center and i just want to say this conference is phenomenal. it doesn't exist in many other places and it brings together amazing scholars and experts nationally and internationally, pioneers in ways we which understand with consequences and the roots of islamophobia but also in a really acceptable and community engaged environment. i just want to express my gratitude to the organizers for putting on this third iteration of this conference. today we are going to spend more time thinking about the intersections of hate. i think we got a good beginning of some of that conversation in

the first section. the take away i got from that earlier session is the obvious point that islamophobia does not exist in a vacuum. of all of the historical notes that we've been here before and this is an evolution of earlier forms of [ indiscernible - low volume ] private acts of hate and violence obviously resonated with me. i just wanted to elaborate on that a little more. i think it was that said this is racism. this is a form of racism. there are many different definitions of islamophobia and i think part of the conversation is it is it irrational? yes but it is expressed rationally and it is legitimized and normalized, it is very national rational and i

think the one we think about islamophobia as a system of hate, as an ideology and as a form of discrimination. i think it moves us a little bit further in how we can better understand its intersections and impact. another key point here is white supremacy and white nationalism undergirding all of these systems of oppression in the united states and much of the world has been of white supremacy. the first others in the united states were native americans and african-americans and the way 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 whether they were savages or violence, fit to be

citizens, fit to become americans? i would like us to engage in this discussion about interceptions today and think about that historical foundation as well. some of our panelists you've already been introduced to before but they are humble and since i have their full biographies i will take the liberty of telling you a little bit more about them. on your far right associate professor in iowa, a former advisor on islamophobia at the u.s. state department in washington dc and author of two books one of them out there for sale. presumed guilty why we shouldn't ask muslims [ indiscernible - low volume ].

next to is who you mentioned if you did a google during the break his article that we will hear more about it and get the exact citation. he founded the islamophobia documentation project for research and gender efficacy berkeley. this is my go to site. when i teach on islamophobia i go directly to this site for not only it's amazing reports that have been produced but also a really accessible and theoretically grounded definition of what islamophobia is and its frameworks. he is also the is mommy of -- islamophobia research study it is the only peer-reviewed academic journal on the subject

and he is founder and professor of islamic theology, the first accredited muslim liberal arts college in the united states. next to the professor is and has worked at the jewish community as a community organizer around immigration and worker justice issues and is located in st. paul and currently serves as lead trainer for the institute and other educational initiatives making social justice issues and action. closest to me is a law professor at the university of arkansas school of law an affiliate faculty at uc berkeley. he is best known right now for his two projects, one is this

amazing wake of terrorist attac in new zealand. if you go to twitter and look under the hashtag you will see the amazing work he has done in showcasing and redirecting our attention, the world's attention to the victims and not the terrorists. this is an amazing panel and we are so fortunate to have these scholars with us. my plan is to open up the discussions for about 10-50 minutes of commentary on these intersections and then my goal is to leave more time for questions and answers at the end of these formal comments so

that we can start having a conversation with many of you who i think have a lot of things to say. who would love to go first in our panel of thinkers? >> [ indiscernible - low volume ] >> lauren please start. >> everyone can hear me? good morning. it is really good to be in this room with everyone, i am excited about learning about this and what we can do about it. a lot of people have been doing this lifelong work and i will share some perspectives from jewish community action and my own personal information. we have been working on different social justice issues in the twin cities community over time for about 20 years. we have been around as an organization and looked at things from white privilege and

looking at how that impacts people. what is the role for white people to step into? since the last presidential election we've been shifting and realizing like doctorate lee mentioned this is much more systemic then we may have realized before and we have changed our approach. they stem from a reality of colonial inheritance or colonial continuation and seeing how the combination of white nationalism and christian hegemony have chris positioned the rhetoric and is a systemic way of looking at different groups of people and dividing them for people who share interests. we are really interested in looking at these ways that white nationals were trying to

divide us and separate us and projecting that an understanding that is an intentional behavior in order to stop people who naturally should be in alliance with each other. some of these are local and nationwide issues. >> first let me thank for organizing cair for organizing this and for this important discussion. thank you for welcoming me here. it is really a privilege and hopefully, evelyn is a person in the center for race and gender who said we need to do work on islamophobia so she opened the door for us to create the project and a

program . is a japanese background and also think of the japanese community having went through and recognizing immediately the need to address the problem of islamophobia. these are connections that take place in a real sense of people's experiences being extended to the -- period. i teach a full course on islamophobia during and other asian american studies and the question is when do we start the discussion about islamophobia? it's not about the turn of the 20th century, --. the construction of what we think of being white and christian or the construction of the concept of at a time was achieved by trying to otherwise large groups present in europe the muslim and jewish community.

you could not construct the european worldview at that time without actually coming into -- and expulsion of muslims and putting in place a whole systematic inquisition that targeted religious when you think of is mama phobia and racism it is to govern -- islamophobia and racism it is to govern . there was a whole structure for these positions. muslims and jews could it dress in their normal religious garb. they could not engage in any type of practice that would be religiously counterproductive to bathing or cleansing. the kosher was also restricted so that is why much of the southern spanish cuisine was

laced with pork and a way to demonstrate publicly you are no longer upholding the requirement for food for consumption, churches and synagogues and mosques were converted to churches and those were forcefully converted to christianity and muslims were finally expelled. the inquisition lasted almost 400 years including in this also about 100,000 women that were also put into the inquisition because they were charged with being sorcerers and so on. they did not uphold the religious orthodox. islamophobia emerges from that moment then we get into the new world. the first exclusion act in the new world was directed at muslims from western africa in

16 skews me 1526 directed at muslims from west africa as slaves who lived [ indiscernible - low volume ]. that is where you begin the discussion about where these ideas that every once in a while they get to percolate and the continuation of trying to create what we call purity of race. we speak about the theology and how theology gets rolled into the discussion and we had a whole debate in the new world about whether native americans didn't or didn't have a soul and end up with a genocide of native population. then you take it to the arrival of the african-american slaves who arrived as cargo and we still have to deal with what that means still today you hear people say black lives matter and people jump in and say everyone lives matter yes a

bunch of lives were not brought over as cargo and they still don't matter today. when you say all lives matter you are wagering the african- americans continue to suffer and then you have to go to the chinese exclusionary act period then you have to go into how the irish were -- were brought as a way of contenting african- american empowerment at the height of lynching, then you go to the jewish population and the exclusion of the jewish population and birds of jewish organization organizations to challenge anti-semitism. the labor movement, the women's movement , the japanese internment, civil rights movement then we speak of islamophobia as rather than try to exceptional is muslims by trying to discuss islam and all of a sudden we are talking

about islam and so on. you completely lose the sense that americans know normalization. it will be easy to understand what is taking place rather than beginning the conversation -- again you lose completely the american history -- >> europe has a problem living with the other because they have not demonstrated the capacity to live with the other. i think that we need to begin the conversation. >> good morning again. i will preface my comments. i wasn't intending to do but the topic makes sense.

the book i wrote last year presumed guilty why we shouldn't ask might be the most important part that islamophobia in many ways is distraction and the way we talk about muslims and terrorism is a distraction. the united states and europe white christians, white american violence and i don't know if we talk too much time talking about violence but what we struggle to talk about and make policies is right-wing terrorism and i'm remembering in commemorating a long history targeting these communities. we know how to remember 9/11 and we know what monolith that is a never forget is just not a module i encounter when it

comes to the genocide of the indigenous populations. where is the 9/11 memorial museum for that? remember what violence we forget is driving that and intersected with anxiety about white identity and white supremacy. that is my preface. a few things briefly, first i am glad we have this panel on this topic, the intersections of anti-semitism and white supremacy, it is important we talk more about this. we are starting to see more public comments at a new zealand as long as we can sustain it which is what i worry about. at the least to see a manifesto is peppered with comments and he starts with anxiety about berkowitz in europe and the goes into white genocide and fear of white genocide and fear of the loss of white identity in europe and the west.

muslims and africans coming to replace us right? for those of us who study islamophobia it isn't a big surprise that it would intertwine with that kind of ideology. it is not particularly unique whatever that manifesto is it's not original. is the same kinds of anxiety we've been hearing about for a long time. they all hold very similar views, these guys views were not outlined views. what he did is different but the views themselves the world is very similar. seeing that intersection of work is important. the other thing that i think could help us conceptualize this topic is it is the latest in a string of attacks for quite some time in which angry white men in nations have targeted racial and minority neighborhoods often in houses of worship out of fear of loss

of life and identity or the threat to white americanism or whatnot. big oak creek wisconsin, charleston south carolina, pittsburgh pennsylvania, quibec city canada and now christchurch what do they share in common? angry white men targeting religious minorities that they deem some type of threat to them. there are certainly differences but there is commonality we should pay attention to as well and make sense of all of this. when it comes to anti-semitism and islamophobia i don't think it is talked about nearly enough and yet there are different histories at work and we need to pay attention to that but there is some intersection in both europe and the united states i believe. i believe anti-semitism on both sides of the atlantic have gone to the same string of white supremacy historically. what does it mean to be

american? jews were not classified as white but that is telling you something about how trenches you were categorized and rationalize themselves. you could be german and jewish and the national identity was being identified judaism. that rolled that anti-semitism has played in terms of constructing whites to national identity is much longer than the past couple of desk eight decades and we need to pay attention to that. that is what i've seen a lot of the rhetoric i encounter in europe and even in the united states. serious debates in britain and germany like can you be muslim in germany? can you be muslim american? the representative could it be because she was at the job or

because she was following something called right? that is a stereotype if you are in this relations religious category you can't be and that is one of the points between islamophobia and anti-semitism that we need to pay a lot more attention to that we have. finally we need to pay careful attention to how many political operatives pit jews and muslims against each other for larger insidious purposes and dare i say peerless stick projects. that has been happening projects . >> i try to say this as often as i can islamophobia is not the solution to anti-semitism and it is not the solution to islamophobia but you will be hard-pressed that a lot of public figures will say that and articulate that very clearly. these two communities are pitted against each other and this is deliberate, it is orchestrated, it is insidious and we must resist it.

>> i will be really brief. i will tell a story. right after 9/11 i was a first- year law student at the ucla school of law. i was one of very few i with they conspicuous and unapologetic and i was not someone that he had my muse muslim arab identity in the direct aftermath of the terror attacks on the campus of ucla where islamophobia was quite strong and cspan3 -- zionism was also quite pervasive. what came to be a transformative experience in my life i had a chance to take a class called political race theory from a woman professor named kimberly crenshaw. she wrote pieces mapping the

margins and pieces that came before the of what it means --. ironically enough i came to learn about islamophobia, anti- semitism from a black female professor who taught me about those things through the specific length of fighting black racism. i say that to say many things. that means intersections we are talking about have to be tethered to this country's history of black racism and the of blackness as being the emphasis of white identity which the stand and and synonym for citizenship. one of the first things the professor taught us in that class was that oneness was not monolithic, whiteness isn't perpetually fluent and whiteness only --. what i want to address now is whiteness is narrowing, it is becoming far more narrow were in definition and is being

possibly framed on the ground. one of the first books i read was a book by called when cspan3 -- jews were not white folks. when jewish identity in the late 19th century and early 20th century effectively excluded practicing jews you were coming from the continent as being bona fide whites even though many jews did not express their religious identity could pass as white. the more they freely exercise their religious identity the less white they became. what we saw with anti-semitism at that era is escalating today and we see it vividly with what took place in squirrel hill at the pittsburgh synagogue many months ago in the visuals of what took place in pittsburgh when in new zealand we are exactly the same. the same drivers, the same motivation, the same ideology, the same inspiration of a shooter in pittsburgh were

identical to what motivated the shooter at christchurch in new zealand. why is that? does it matter that the victims in pittsburgh were jewish? does it matter if the victims in new zealand were muslim? i don't think it does because we embrace the idea of religious pluralism and individuals should have the right to exercise their faith as they see fit. but the shooters didn't. the shooters didn't because they view jews and muslims as individuals that were definitely not white and a class of individuals that could not be assimilated into the body politic that is the united states and new zealand based on their religious identity. i'm working on a piece now called faith and oneness which looks at complicated how religion informs how we think about race. at this juncture this growing

side of white supremacy sees religious identity as being focal to which excludes muslims and jews from the body not only as being qualified as white but as a class of people that can be assimilated into broader society. those are the parallels and clearly there are distinct stereotypes things like violence and savagery. a great piece called the citizen terrorists was sort of -- with imagination. different troops are just as damaging but distinctive in nature and it's key to know that religious identity is very driving with regard to you cannot qualify as white or as a

citizens. >> you talked about intersections and talked about religious intolerance in the intersections with race. i also want to introduce another term that those of us who have been in race studies often use and it is relational. in terms of the ways in which one's religious identity, gender and race all work together to either categorize one as, let's talk about immigration, a good immigrant or bad immigrant it is also about how specific classifications of people are related in that spectrum of good and bad to another. i think we can't talk about the rise of islam a phobia --

islamophobia or persistence in both of these terms islamophobia and anti-semitism without also understanding the persistence of islamophobia and racism. we talk a lot about displacement and also one thing we haven't talked about is foreign conspiracy. let's not forget that both catholics and jews and the american colonies barred them out right because they had unequal access to citizenship. they were prone to expulsion and let's not forget the anti- catholic movement in the 19th century was predicated on the idea of a foreign people conspiracy hot catholic immigrants were allegedly part of an invasion that was

organized by foreign catholic monarchs and the pope of rome to take over the united states. this connects religion so non- protestant religion as a threat with some sort of foreign invasion or conspiracy. it is one that cuts across anti- catholicism, anti-semitism and islamophobia. i wonder , we talked a little bit, can we bring back that historically in terms of if possible? >> i could speak about in cases of islamophobia in the united states actually a specific time where it occurs it is actually around the obama campaign. if you remember obama was being accused of being a closet

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

for obama but they still felt the oxygen in the air was inhibitive so they felt comfortable using the n word as a substitute for the n word. that is where you get the birth movement, the tea party and islamophobia then it succeeds in the midterms 2010 election. the most expensive single deployment of resources in the funding is around the election of obama. they deployed the documentary of session which was funded by the clarion fund and just a few weeks before the election the 2008 election was distributed 28 million copies of the dvd was distributed in your sunday newspaper at a cost of $17

million. i know you and me don't have $17 million, we can barely afford our coffee which means somebody that had a very strategic interest to deploy that amount of resources targeting obama using the n word.