to the people and that they dismiss the petty politics and come together and protect the american people and do their job. high school students from the senate youth program talk about their experience spending a week in washington. >> you may be a different party and have different views, we are all here because we want to make a better world for ourselves and generations after us. >> right now our young people are very inspiring, and we are passionate about our ideals and seeing all the delegates this week, i have confidence in us that we could and come together to reach a consensus that is educated and crosses party lines. isone thing i can say especially as i look around me at richer leaders and so many fellow members of this rising generation is we are all so involved and we care so much. so if one incredible thing has

come from all of this, we are all awake. announcer 1: sunday night 8:00 eastern onto a day -- on humid day -- q and a. announcer 2: a panel of scholars and authors focused on the roots, methods and impact of spreading hate. the council on american islamic relations hosted the event last month. [applause] >> thank you. president,governor, also forgot to mention a story. i used to work here at metro state university. [applause] and i loved every minute that i was here. tois a difficult decision switch to caa are minnesota --

cair minnesota. there will always be one light on, the upper floor here in this building. it was always jimmy. i tried to be there so many times. president jimmy, i think metro state is so lucky to have you for your leadership and for having us here. we will bring our first panelists. i want to be clear to you. we have been struggling, and not makem splc could it. there were challenges at our organization so she sends her apologies and hopefully will be with us in future events. we are unfortunately male dominant in the first panel. we apologize for that. we have been trying to fill this first panel all this first week and a half, even until last night. we really have amazing speakers,

people who are really cutting edge leaders in particularly on this topic and you will benefit. but the entire rest of the program you will see it is representation of our community. with that i will bring our moderator from the metro state university, matt filner, the associate professor at the political science department, and he will guide us through the next session. [applause] thanks, everyone, for being here. i apologize as a professor, i think about these events in a process oriole way -- professori ol way. the it is an extraordinary event and opportunity and you don't have to write any papers. i wanted to set a few ground rules.

this will be a moderated discussion. i will be posing questions to the panelists. in the first answer i ask them to introduce themselves and their organization. -- already met jay lonnie jaylani. i think it is important to start with this panel on the islamophobia industry. we need to i think never forget islamophobia is not natural, not inevitable, it is manufactured. it can be changed. tohout further ado, i want pose to the panel your thoughts on islamophobia industry. you are first on the list, do you want to start? if i could ask you to join me in a round of applause for

jaylani and the cair minnesota team. [applause] is a the united states diverse space. i think it was really 50 countries. somesota has been doing amazing work even as it sits at the front lines of some of the worst in the country. i've commend you -- i commend you for forming such infrastructure to make an event like this possible. i will say my name is abbas b arzegar. i am the director of advocacy at cair national.- we provide -- explore ways for long-term solutions and frameworks for understanding the challenge of islamophobia and what we might call the islamophobia industry or network. it is important to understand the nature of the beast we are

wrestling here. if you would indulge me in a metaphor, i think about islamophobia as a kind of climate problem. if you think about our climate challenge, pollution and climate change, you realize we are in a lot of trouble. we have an acute crisis like flint, michigan or the combination of environmental racism, climate change and corporate greed and government negligence, produce a cute problems. -- produce acture problems -- acute problems and islamophobia. in our office we receive complaints. my office tracks and monitors civil rights abuses and acts of discrimination. if we look at the origin of the

source, like climate change or pollution, we see bad actors. acid rain comes back down. you have a complex problem on your hands. even if you shut down the factories, if we were to implement all of the best metrics and stuff to reverse this, we would still be dealing with the oil spill that happened decades ago. engage this kind of problem? it is possible to overcome it, but realize challenging islamophobia doesn't come by way bad actors on media or politicians here or there. we have to understand the infrastructures that are at play. what are those? what are things that contribute to the long-term public space?

in our office we track the islamophobia network, people that are very powerful with political connections, that are iny organized and deliberate the way they are manipulating our institutions around the world. you might know some of them as fox news commentators, you might hear them giving speeches. you might see some of their actions. where is it they are getting funding from? where are they getting power from or grassroots connections? next week we are releasing a report that will go for their -- go further than most reports in expending the funding networks behind islamophobia. care --ast we have done in the past we have done monitoring the strength of these organizations by looking at their financial power and looking at their connections.

connections to politicians and whatnot. this year we made a simple declaration and said let us find out who is funding and who is receiving funding. let's draw that map out and chart what the money flow looks like so we can go from donor-based holdaway to media appearance or position -- all the way to media appearance or position in the white house. ideologically bad actors that 70% to 80% somehow connected to defense industries associated with aggressive policies.litics and these funding organizations, sheldon adelson, anita roosevelt. they may not be average names but they are powerful, powerful actors that align themselves with a far right conservative agenda. they use tax laws and

and charitable institutions in the u.s. that are the heart mark of our state -- the hallmark of our civil society. they use those mechanisms to fund hate speech, conspiracy theories and lend themselves to violent actions and thought and sort of insight that type of -- incite that type of thinking and they hide under a 501(c)(3). the same tax benefits that a , sheldon receives adelson, a right-wing tycoon who is funding hate speech and hate actors themselves, are benefiting in the same way a food bank does. philanthropic institutions have now been so caught up in all of this they have become victims to the islamophobia network. so put those people behind. they were founders of american

charity. nina rosen volt is the granddaughter of one of the founders of sears. funded, -- it is a disgrace. forget about the ideological actors. we find mainstream institutions have been caught up in this. fidelity, schwab have institutions that are charitable vehicles. those institutions are being exploited by these big donors and funding millions of dollars into the islamophobia network. how do we challenge this? i can get into that. i will stop there. think about challenges we face and we will get into the details. thank you. matt: we will want to respond to those comments. i will ask the panel to continue to discussing islamophobia industry before we get into the response. [speaking simultaneously] >> salaam aleikum.

islamophobia network is specifically from a legal lens, you mentioned that commercial network. i tried to theorize how the law in spiriting much of the -- i will provide you with a general framework and frame of concepts that enable us to think about islam a -- islamophobia. it is private in nature. i mean it is unleashed by private actors, meaning individuals, hatemongers like the terrorist in new zealand, not acting on behalf of the state directly. these are individuals who are driven to engage in violence, bigotry based on the presumption, the idea that

muslim is somehow tied to terrorism, tied to ideas this element cannot be assimilated. also there are private networks, organizations, pundits, it acting in a private capacity. that is the first thing i frame in my research. the second is state-sponsored or structural islamophobia. thinking of races of being institutional, it is the frame we need to adopt to understand islamophobia. when we talk about state-sponsored islamophobia, i am talking about laws, things like the patriot act which were enacted after 9/11, the muslim ban, first an executive order signed by the president which eventually became a law held by the supreme court.

things like state actions, state action that is it manifested in actual law or executive action. items like rhetoric from the president qualify as state-sponsored islamophobia. ideas like provisions being cast by the house of representatives which restrict omar from wearing thatjob, that is -- hijab, is structural. it is not only unleashed and enacted by the right. we see this as a form of bigotry from the right, but when we see -- the state sponsored left regularly engages in this as well. classic example in minneapolis, the twin cities, radical islam association -- radical islam policing. it was established by a liberal democratic administration, the

obama administration. state sponsors are critical to understand that in my opinion -- i might be biased as a law professor, but it is a catalyst islamophobia is a dialectic. there is a synergy between the state engaging in this kind of action, it is endorsing the negative sentiment held by private individuals, and during asks forcrisis it greater violence. there is a dynamic between what the state does and what private actors do. you can see that vividly in the manifesto of the man from new zealand, the travel ban, the headscarf ban in france, which is critical because it helps us hold the state culpable for the

deviant actions of private islamophobes. it enables us to have a more fruitful conversation. jeff, your thoughts on the islamophobia industry. name is todd greene. i am south of the minnesota border. this is kind of my backyard. thank you to kera and all of the all ofk you to cair and the sponsors for this event. it is wonderful to see the people here. i am a religious historian. people usually start to fall asleep. >> [laughter] todd: it is the angle i take. my current area of research. one of my things is islamophobia is not something that is new, or certainly prejudice against

muslims, discriminating, not even post-9/11. longer history to this. i will walk you through various sessions longer history to this. , there are a lot of troops and stereotypes that have been employed against other minorities and racial minorities throughout its -- the u.s. and its history. this is a rebranding of an old prejudice against others who have been deemed outsiders, don't quite fit in or are perceived as not sitting in or belonging to us. we have to think about who us is. the islamophobia industry, one of the things i have thought about is all of us could tell stories of entanglements with members of the islamophobia industry. it is very personal for some and -- unless good comes out

of that. i will say this, my particular area of interest is the tactics they use. people on this panel are better equipped in terms of the legal aspect or the funding, the impact locally here, but i am interested in the tactics they have been using, the arguments they use and to what extent these have been succeeding or not. tactics in terms of the types of arguments used in this industry that i have been tracking the past decade and seeing how they change and where they are putting their energy and what impact it has had on political discourse in the united states. one that has been around for a while is the violin jihad, that muslims are required -- the

violent jihad, that muslims are required to kill and are killed themselves if they don't submit. that is nothing new in terms of -- it is not particular to the islamophobia industry. islamicrences to terrorism and fascism from the bush administration, those were trying to draw on stereotypes. on his one that has been out -- that is one that has been out there for a while. i have tracked the notion of civilization jihad, a favorite of frank gatsby, the center of security -- he regularly harps on this notion of the muslim brotherhood. says they have infiltrated the government at the highest levels including the white house and department of justice and state department. what is happening is you have

seemingly nice muslims who have decided to play along with the united states and constitution and infiltrate the nation. once they are in great positions theower, we will have violent islamic state presumably they are trying to implement and do it in a stealth way instead of overly violence. center withind the ted cruz and others to label the muslim brotherhood a terrorist organization and any group they can tie to the muslim brotherhood, [indiscernible] civil liberty groups and political groups and other activists who are trying to shape policy and this course -- and discourse when it comes to bigotry and racism. the third tactic is this notion of creeping sharia. you are familiar with that that muslims are trying to impose some sort of horrific islamic

law on the rest of us. we need to be afraid of sharia, it is supposed to conjure up fear, no nuance in terms of this question -- this conversation. it is gaining traction in the last several years. the islamophobia industry's efforts to do so have succeeded to a large degree. even after new zealand i did a majority of interviews where people said -- people talked about sharia after new zealand. that is the effect, the impact. they promote it, and sooner or later it sticks in their heads. now i find myself regularly trying to field questions about that even though the news event is different. last year, the republican national committee and the trump reelection website had a questionnaire on both of their

websites. one of them was about to you fear the spread of sharia. we can anticipate in the upcoming election cycle that will be deployed. it could be deployed with great effect. we need to keep that in mind in terms of countering the strategy. the final tactic i will mention now and move the conversation is to kia. no one was talking about this but the idea that muslims are required by islam to deceive the rest of us in terms of their overall political efforts to impose islam on the rest of the country. we saw this gaining traction. ben carson was notable for complaining that muslims are required by islam to deceive us in order to achieve their larger, more insidious ends. this is a topping part that comes out of the islamophobia industry. -- talking point that comes out of the islamophobia industry.

you can see this by presidential candidates. people in positions of power, i can think of all sorts of troops used in the last -- tropes used in the last election cycle with muslim bands that in many ways are -- bans that are in many ways coming right out of this industry. they must become powerful in a short time and it of great concern. we are devoting this discipline -- the disciplinary section to the industry. matt: minnesota perspective? there should be two mics. jaylani: for minnesota i would say we recently produced a report on the network in we have a large number of social justice groups and reports online.

i would say in addition to the conversation, what we noticed in minnesota and particularly is we nice hate to hear, passive aggressive style. there are three things we look for. number one is the militia groups that have focus on the muslim community. there is a 3% militia that have focus on the muslim community not particularly and we found out from the bonding -- bombing in bloomington they were part of these groups that are much more militarized and have that type of focus. they are the most dangerous of the groups. then you have the second group, mom and pop shops, very small, demographically older, and these are the groups that stem from religious-based groups or places w's. veterans, dfw -- vf

in minnesota we see that activity happening in the central region of the state and also the northern region of the state. we also see these groups becoming much, much more aggressive but mostly well organized and working together. so an anti-muslim speaker will go to six towns and in those, there are groups rallying for people. five or six people, they get them together. the mom and pop shop are really the biggest ones that are impacting. that theypolicies have been pushing in st. cloud, our neighboring wisconsin,

groupst we see is these then put a lot of information online. they are now attacking obviously my organization and many others. that i put that report mentioned, of the groups able to sign on and be part of the report, we are all attacked online. names of organizations were put online. what we are seeing is some form of increased hostility. to engage these people, they would show up and we would try to talk or have a conversation and most recently we had a conversation at the historical society about the somali culture of all things. there is a group that came and i have seen this group multiple times. for the first time they started to tactically stop me from leaving the building to a certain extent. still left, one was

getting up to personally threatened me and say he will come after me and make it look like it is an accident. concerned about what is the relationship between the militia groups that have that militarized -- and these groups that come to events like even here today, who try to pass information out. becausestry is growing of dark money. it is growing because of people who are extremely wealthy, who are giving funding to these organizations, who it will be difficult for us to find out who these people are. while there are in the conservative right you see a lot of them, we also see a great deal on the progressive left as well. the issue goes back to what todd mentioned a minute ago about security and fear. that is where the in -- the idea of islamophobia -- people slip

into that. a littlearting to see change and that is some of the hope we can talk of. industry, weudy think of it as having a vertical todition from the very top the grassroots. we think of industry as being horizontal. can you talk about how the is bothobia industry vertical, reaching from the donors to the grassroots or vice versa and also horizontal, groups across states, institutions? abbas? maybe you would like to start us? think it is an interesting way to think about it. the industry if you will

thatitely has top donors are feeling it. you can think about them. i imagine they do sit around and talk about how they will advance a certain agenda or are aware of what they are doing because they are deliberate and effective. when you look at the activities they are engaged in, it seems they are moving in a concrete sort of tandem way where they are accenting and helping others. reallythe ways this works out at the vertical and horizontal level is a fellow named david. all of these organizations sound the same, like americans for a better america. and it is really interesting. i usually get acronyms turned around but this is a man who focuses exclusively on what he the strategy and

to bring bogus bases to court and advanced bogus legislation. if you look at the funding capacity it comes from the major actors which use -- dark money institutions. this is very important to recognize. i will stop here and explain what this looks like. in thes an institution tax and charity world called a donor advised fund. a donor advised fund. outside of the conversation of islamophobia, many are concerned about the rise of this institution in disrupting the american tradition of philanthropy. what it does, i want to donate to care, but i don't want anyone to know i donated to care so i am donate to a donor advised fund which could be something as

good-natured as the california community foundation or fidelity or schwab. i have my bank with agility so might as well use that institution. i tell them where i want to donate to. they are donating to tens of thousands. they donate straight to frank gaffney. i get my tax break and my receipt from fidelity or schwab. see heother side they only gets the money from fidelity or schwab. it breaks the translation -- transparency of american -- we want to be patrons of our public sphere. we want to take responsibility, now you have these commercial conglomerates doing that. the funding goes into that space, but someone like this man advances funding in partnership with gaffney across the united states and approach state

legislatures in places that are easy to win, and they pass absolutely junk resolutions, either constant -- concrete or resolutions that are actually just false. they are lies. a southern state recently passed a resolution against us, against cair. it is incorrect. we can document why. it is not half-truths. the same thing in congress, a resolution attacking in american -- an american muslim humanitarian organization. it is false. it is wrong. what is amazing is thinking about how this works vertically and horizontally is the resolution sites journalists for journalists-- cites for its sources that are paid for the network or they are burning -- bringing out the same

lines every single week. there is a man for daniel pipe, he is on the same line over and over again. when i see the resolution introduced against this muslim institution, i see language that is in it, i know who wrote it. coordination.e it is extremely sophisticated. think about what it takes to put something like that together and the opportunity costs to fight something like that together. as it is, we do have to spend the time to recognize tactics and the way they operate. matt: seems like some of those resolutions are addressing the shariatodd described, and simulation, and we will see that in state legislatures across the country. todd. todd: i don't know if i have much to add. that was a great explanation.

i was thinking of the vertical reach. traveling around the country and speaking to different publics on islamophobia, the tropes i mentioned earlier i have seen gaining more and more traction. not uncommon for someone to start invoking language that could come right out of spencer. i also found they don't know that. they don't know the source. they can't trace the genealogy of these ideas. in so been reproduced many complex ways. frankly we haven't mentioned this yet but it is very savvy with social media, far more than most of us are encountering and very good at spreading their message in that way and have a good -- platforms that spread their narratives far and wide, much more than i used to take seriously. i take it very seriously. i have seen in terms of the

reach of this industry and places and populations who are repeating these tropes, maybe they read it on the internet, but the language itself is coming out of a frank gaffney or robert spencer. that vertical reach top to bottom is quite pervasive. that is why i have become alarmed. matt: talk about the horizontal legal changes, whether at the state level or local level where you're seeing changes in law from the gaffney perspective. >> to kind of launch the statements, there is one take away i want folks to walk away with. don't think about islamophobia as exclusively irrational. physically rational from private actors but when it is state, corporations and industry, it is irrational -- pm private actors their objective is a specific portrayal of islam and muslims to achieve and obtain certain

objectives, political, legal or economic. that is rational. it is the definition of rationalism. i don't like the term islamophobia industry. monolithic and limiting. i like the framing of the network because it allows us to think about how the state actually impacts, what corporations are doing, what the media is doing. it is more interconnected vanity is one sort of homogenous actor. horizontally, we can think about how big donors are funding pundits, think tanks to conjure up specific narratives and produce scholarships that are wrong about muslims. you saw waso analogous to eugenics.

specific groups are inferior, some groups are subordinate and can't be assimilated. that body is doing the same thing, muslims not here, they can't be conformed with american society. that enables politicians, especially within the state power. we can look at even before the rise of trump, the tea party, they were really effective with spearheading this chevy auto movement. there were something like 200 bills across the country being chevy asat looked at being the criminal deviant with american law. and i teach first amended law, there is no need for such a law because the first amendment establishment clause restricts

any religious body -- it is idiotic and absurd, political because it would've isis -- mobilizes voters to vote for right-wing politicians and entrench their influence. that is another law on the books, which i teach, arkansas, the state of arkansas is looking to criminalize and outlaw cair, even though cair doesn't have a chapter within arkansas, which is crazy. like looking to ban, i don't know, the nra in a state where it doesn't exist. it is an effective political tool because what it does is the politician wielding that bill can raise it when he is running for office next time and say, i looked to criminalize muslims from the state. vote for me. it is a horizontal change in which the private actors and

donors fund the pundits, researchers who then provide politicians with intellectual or anti-intellectual ammunition to pass bills that go ahead and entrench their presence in government. matt: can you talk about how you see imports into minnesota with ideas, like gaffney? jaylani: one of the interesting things is minnesota -- minnesota is not really -- trying to get the right words out there and minnesota is a good state. >> [laughter] jaylani: let's say that. it is unique. it has wonderful people here. however -- >> [laughter] jaylani: i think the muslim community in minnesota has become a target for all the islamophobia network. in fact there was a blogger,

harassedwho came and our mosque a couple of weeks ago pier 1 of those bloggers -- weeks ago. one of those bloggers made a fake twitter account and then made a threat himself from the twitter account and raise money online -- raised money online. all the islamophobia networks are using this community as a scapegoat and as an example to launch their efforts elsewhere. it is a success in minnesota that they are not fighting. the success of the muslim community, the success that we have the first congressman, keith ellison and now ilhan omar. it is becoming a problem. all of the talking points have no go zones. i fear that because the folks that attacked our mosque in bloomington came from illinois.

the question we keep asking ourselves is how did they target this specific mosque? going back toe the mom and pop shops type of hate groups, we don't know what they are doing but they do. there is a group called friends of smith park here in most of you don't know what it is because it sounds like a nice group to join. friends of smith park. the reality is smith park is adjacent to the islamic center. it is a group which is two people or less, and they have oferally created an image that building and community. they continually document this online. the networkback, actually pick it up and it became a huge headline. -- thatwhy we believe

is the only logical for us to think about, because of these articles from friends of smith park that connected to this larger network, when they decided to target a mosque, they passed a couple hundred mosque on their way to the mosque. that is one of the things i minnesota, outside, there are challenges obviously and st. cloud is an area that is struggling. there is tremendous partnership happening with efforts from the unite club, social justice groups, a lot of good things in st. cloud i don't want you to not understand, but st. cloud is still a difficult place. one of the things we really need in this is why we do these conferences is we need the actual folks in st. cloud, the big stakeholders, the catholic church, the other groups that have prominent roles to take serious leadership through the

problem is as soon as something happens, these major stakeholders are backing up. politicians are afraid to step forward and push this back. the reality is most people are making decisions with limited basic information. but at the same time i believe projectse groups themselves to be powerful because we allow that. matt: i want to go back to the theme abbas raised of pollution and the way in which we are all affected and polluted by islamophobia and how little information people know. when you think about climate change, we each are maybe naive about the ways we contribute to climate change, what role we play.

can you talk about what people may be unwillingly contribute to the network? actor, thea bad worst actions are problematic, but how are people may be contributing to the network? one thing that i hope all of you can do, the kind of space that you live in that is toxic is social media. allies,eep finding is advocates have fear of seeing something. the silence is killing us. the reality is usually islamophobic have very -- islamophobes have very opinionated, laced questions with a out. our allies are trying to answer

intelligently, decipher what it means, how to balance, the right approach. how many of you have done this, then delete, delete? then you are like, i will go home. that is what we all do. we will change that. i will give you the answer. if you don't have the time to figure out something smart, just say something. let's fill it with positive, hopeful,", something. powerful., something nobody reads articles, they go directly to the comments. subject,do a comments someone will come after you. you will get emotionally tied to this comment and fight for it. it happens all the time. my biggest thing is if we can get majority people, when they see racism and bigotry, call it

out, then walk away. don't carry it with you because then you will get emotionally connected and won't do it again. you have shown the person what it looks like to oppose hate on social media. localany channel 4, any story about the muslim immunity, even the new zealand press conference, you can see people literally going off. a lot of times people don't know what is appropriate. i would say the silence is the biggest problem and something every single person can do something about. matt: thank you. todd: very well said. i would like to pick up on that because i am not muslim. i seek to be an ally. the audiences i tried to reach our my people. why is that? islamophobia doesn't emanate muslims, any more than

anti-semitism comes from jews. the majority of the u.s. is responsible, but there is silence. we remember dr. king's words, if you are silent, you have taken a side. but is not a legitimate side to take. you can't take sides in islamophobia. that is a difficult thing to do in america now. 9, i thought about this question. why are things getting worse? by almost every metric islamophobia is getting worse. who do we talk to and who do we try to encourage to speak out? a friend of mine, a muslim activist and scholar, wrote about this, where she said christians, white christians included, need to speak with other regions. we need to be talking to each

other about islamophobia great to talk to muslims. i love talking to muslims. they get it pretty quickly. >> [laughter] todd: but people of my background don't. particularly the point, and this is harder to make, what is islamophobia? is it ignorance? there are lots of organizations that do a great job including in the twin cities like the islamic resource group trying to educate the public on islam, its rituals, teachings and traditions, etc. this is important. we want to suggest we can't only do 101 talks because islamophobia is not ignorance -- it is racism. it is antiracism work. that is what makes it difficult to call attention to this because you are asking them, trying to ask them and myself, what are we doing that is complicit in this work that

effective?ophobia so so recognizing the everyday practices, goading patterns, everything, that contribute to a political order. i would say in the u.s., imperialism is connected to this. it sustains islamophobia and this form of racism. imember one big take away want us to have is islamophobia is not just about not knowing stuff about islam. you can know a lot of stuff and still be a bigot. the name of such a person is robert spencer. , he knowshe koran information, he is able to take from different pieces of islam and wield a picture of this forced light. knowing information doesn't -- it is racism, and it emanates

from the majority population which needs to be addressed. people need to speak more to these populations and public and raise the bar higher when it comes to how we address islamophobia which will help in how we push back. the bar cannot get any lower. i fear too many of us even who are allies haven't raised the bar enough with other non-muslims, particularly white christian americans who struggle to come to terms with their history of racism, white supremacy, white violence, white christian violence, one of my talking points, because of what the islamophobia industry has done, to distract us. the function, the serious -- islamophobia is a master at distraction and we need to stop being distracted and start thing attention to the other stuff we are not looking at that we should be. matt: thank you. [applause]

i'm really>> i am really glad i brought up the phrase that has been unset until he said it, white supremacy. of whitebia is a tenet supremacy. once we understand as an extension of white supremacy, we see it is far, far more entrenched and extended then it is a novel phenomenon. a muslimhere was bandit stood from 1990 to 1944 that restricted muslims are becoming naturalized citizens. that was this narrative islam was not a bona fide religion but a political ideology that was entirely anti-federal to american values. there was orientalism -- who knows what orientalism is? it is this master discourse that

effectively seized these -- perpetuation of anti-muslim tropes today. the third most important, it is critical to understand, and todd brought up another point that knowledge about his -- aout islam can breed distraction greater then islamophobia. administration use knowledge phobicher state islamic ventures. they used the knowledge to put specific sects to advance their valence. especially when we are talking about more advanced and more intelligent fashions of the

islamaphobia network. critical to think about islamaphobia as a white supremacist logic, because it helps us understand. part of it is to help minimize brown faces and non-christian believers. especially during this moment of considerable demographic shift. this country is predicted to be majority/minority in 2043 which is intensifying quite paranoia. -- white paranoia. the main reason that the administration has been so effective at popularizing the idea of the mexico wall is because the white majority area country,rity of the islamophobia helps deliver that promise and greater objective. >> thank you. i was struck by thinking about white supremacy over american history, and you mentioned that

cair -- that there is a lawsuit to keep cair out of arkansas. is aaacp versus alabama case where alabama actually ruled out the naacp. the supreme court actually ruled for the naacp. it is the same issue repeated. >> absolutely. that one of the n ises that we fail i to not allow the debate of the islam a phobic -- islamaphobic networks, we cannot allow them to dominated debates. a lot of the silence you hear coming from our site is not out of fear of a backlash. unequipped ande even flat-footed to deal with the complex issues out there. we know that something is racist, we hear it is racist,

but we cannot fight on their terms because the way they framed it. for example, we know the phrase "black on black violence" is a racist framework. that is a way of obvious responsibility. but if someone falls into the trap of talking about black on black violence instead of historical disenfranchisement, if we allow the frame to go forward, we lose in the battle. in the same way when we talk ihad, islamaphobia or j they are often more knowledgeable than people in our own community, and even the muslim community to be able to debate those things on those terms. i do believe in addition to mobilizing our solidarity and our positive affection, and being willing to stand up, we do have to equip ourselves to be

able to engage these debates in a more sophisticated way which is why we have to make better use of our scholars and professors to really absorb that knowledge, and do not be afraid to jump into understanding the complexities of the world out there. it is linked to imperialism, white supremacy, it is complex, but we have to create the bandwidth to educate ourselves so we can fight back. [applause] >> thank you. minutes toouple of entertain some audience questions. is there someone that has a question that would like to ask the panel? ask you in the interest of time to keep the question brief. >> thank you. i am a community organizer and advocate. how you talks that the media, i think one of the driving forces of islamaphobia about the case of

100 million daily go through airport, can you elaborate, thank you. >> we will take one more questions and then we will have the panel talk about it. question in the back. hi, in minnesota, refugee is often synonymous with muslim and i'm wondering how that ties into everything? >> thank you. we have a question about the media and the question about refugee in terms of a proxy term. >> i do not know if any of you story, there was 100 million dollars being defrauded and it started immediately a witchhunt and a bunch of meetings. backtracked, and we

had multiple conversations with them. and factually, all of those things were incorrect. that story and all similar stories reappear on social media all the time. that is one of the strategies of this network is to project that this community is violent so anything that is close to that will be rejected. -- projected. as far as the mention around minnesota when it comes to the muslims and immigrants, that is one of the ways to disguise anti-muslim legislation. in minnesota, one of the parties was running on this, we are going to stop immigrants from coming to minnesota. that platform was really about muslims. they were not talking about other immigrants. in rural minnesota, the --versation about immigrants

there were articles every single day written about this. this is something that many people do not know. in minnesota, we are around 40 or 50 op-eds against the muslim community that appear every year and then one positive op-ed. most people who hear this essay, what i do not see them. they are happening in rural town papers where they are getting pumped out. , if you dose op-ed's a word search, you will find the same exact op-ed was published in florida somewhere else. is not theirt words, they just reprinted and reshuffled the same talking points. the language in minnesota, and also somali may mean muslim two. someone will say, are used to for someone

wearing that he job -- wearing a hijab. >> i can say some thing about the refugee issue. the refugee is synonymous with muslim and sometimes disparaging. ist i've been confused about why that media space is so dominated by the right. worke refugee resettlement that happens across the country, you find some of the most powerful stories of american civil society coming together. resettlementgee and the hosting of people that are coming from other parts of this country where we see the best of america. we really see churches, secular groups, civil society groups, children -- we see people coming together to uplift, contribute, and do amazing work. i do not understand why we don't have greater media capacity around the storytelling that should go there. age, i have today's

been encouraging organizations and read -- resettlement agencies to outfit themselves as better storytelling in those regards. i would encourage those in that work to consider a little bit of investment in that way. >> and pitching those stories to the media. having professionals are working with you. >> absolutely, there are great stories. local media, that is perfect. >> the use of proxies by the media is actually a lesson that has been learned from the law. the reason the media uses proxies like refugees effectively serve for muslim is it qualifies as spatially neutral. by use of proxies and legislation and executive orders, it enables the state

actor and the maker of the law to defectively avoid the highest form of scrutiny from the court. the media is emulating with the law has been doing for a long time to appear tolerant, nonracist, non-bigoted, and steer away from the highest forms of public scrutiny. it is another highlight in the way in which there is this interesting dialectic between private actors and the media. things on the refugees with the muslim ban coming to mind, and i cannot shake the conviction that the muslim ban was not just about refugees and immigrants from outside of our borders. it is about muslims within our borders. immigration policy and domestic policy towards marginalized groups are almost always connected. that was an intended political

victory targeting many people who are sitting in this room. and that is a scary thought that when you are applying -- plotting the muslim ban, you are plotting real consequent is a broad, and you're pushing back against policy that is meant to demonize muslims and muslim americans. >> especially when it is paired with the effort to delegitimize citizenship. >> and who is that? the classic, long-standing historical battle. in terms of media, i am trying to say something positive. [laughter] ofave grown very cynical mainstream media and maybe i am not the best person to inspire you on this. at least we should be very careful because the mainstream media is basically corporate medium. -- media. corporate media interests and state interests are very much intertwined. i was once criticized for giving an interview to a state media outlet in turkey, but if i give

an interview to cnn and the new york times, i also feel like i'm giving an interview to state media as well. i could mention, iraq war and how many media outlets jump over that word very quickly. i have grown suspicious of how we can change that was most critical media studies confirming the same thing with the way that mainstream media frames islam in terms of violence and terrorism is incredibly disproportionate. with aared to people muslim background. it is hard to push back on mainstream media narratives. local media i have more optimism for. we can build relationships with the journalists that you have access to can make a difference over the long run. it takes time to invest in that. -- i am of -- yeah, i

skeptical about the media. we have to push back. i do not see the media as the primary source of islamaphobia. it is a mechanism. i am not losing sleep over it at night. unwittingly, folks like that can serve as a mouthpiece for islamaphobia because of the deeper rooted interest at corporate media has in terms of the u.s. and its own foreign mastic policies and priorities. that is what we do start calling -- the mastic policies and priorities. that is what we need to start calling attention to. >> i think we have time for one more question. anybody in the middle? >> hello. i am a palestinian-american. you have not spoken to the role of zionism or evangelical

institutions and upholding islamophobia. what are the roles? can broaden that question, what is the role of specifically religious institutions, religious organizations, other religions and contributing to the industry -- in contributing to the industry? it is a complex story so we do not have time to fully, but maybe a couple of comments. >> there are people here that do better work on this. i can speak particularly to evangelical christians who are invested in certain policy when it comes to israel and then for certain policies that are against palestinians that feed the islamaphobia industry and the broader narratives of islamaphobia, that we should continue to pay attention to. again, there are exceptions

of evangelical christians absolutely, but in a broader sense, this is important. all of you will remember a controversy involving representative omar, when she criticized aipac, you do not have to know much to know that evangelical christians are very much invested in aipac. this is not a jewish organization. there are plenty of jews that are critical of aipac, but in the media and the larger political narrative, all of that and herd with jews comments were reflected in the worst possible light. calling attention to that piece of this larger puzzle, i think it is quite significant to addressing islamaphobia including the islamaphobia that grew the controversy over represented omar's comments.

>> thank you. [applause] >> i think one thing that we should just know is that islamophobia can be found in any group. would say almost every group has islamophobes. even last year upon conference, i had the deal -- even last year's conference, i had to deal with someone who attended for seeing that pamela geller aphobes an islam versus someone else even though their platforms are the same things. jewishu pull the community in america, they know more about islamaphobia than most people. the first quote i get in my office are from the jewish

community. at our press conferences last week, we had almost 1/3 of the people who showed up were jewish americans who stood with the muslim community. under some coming form of prejudice, muslims themselves says 60%, but the jewish community said 66%. the only way to explain that is that to know with the jewish community dealing with anti-semitism, they understand that the issue is not an anomaly. to quantify and understand the threat from white nationalism which is a great introduction to the next panel after this. i think some of us that really need to understand that islamaphobia can be found in all communities and we have to be ready. >> did you want to answer? [applause] >> specifically zionism, that is

not necessarily a religious project. and often the most prominent and effective are in fact secular. we should not conflate religiosity with zionism. [applause] want everybodyy to go to google and look up an article written by a writer who deconstructs the connection between zionism and islamophobia stateside. if there is any work that tackles that question, it is that piece. i cannot articulate what he says in that piece, but i highly recommend reading that. he is with us today. >> come to the other panel. [laughter] >> a really great piece. >> i think we need to finish our

session. the next session starts at 10:30 and there is a break now. thank you to our panelists. [applause] >> tonight on c-span, columbia university forum on immigration policy including dr. irwin, a pediatrics professor who met with immigrant parents separated from children. here is a preview. at an ice facility for women and men in al paso -- el paso. i spoke to 42 women. almost all of them are mothers, and none of them had seen their children in weeks. they had no idea when they would see them, where they were, they were limited to short phone calls sometimes with older children and sometimes with their spouses. i said to them, i have them on recording -- secretly recorded

-- you are not want to tell on me? said, will any of you not come to america if you knew that the consequence was going to be separation of children? every single one of them said that they would still would come. and i asked if their neighbors and friends would still come , andng that you are here every one of them said no, nobody we know would not have been deterred these crazy policies. there we have this horrible situation of a cruel policy that does not even work as the president and stephen miller and jeff sessions wanted to. >> you can watch this entire columbia university forum on immigration policy and how to protect immigrant children at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span work, and the c-span radio app -- c-span.org, and the

c-span radio app. ♪ journal"'s "washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up sunday morning, the christian science monitor's guest and one other guest discussed the fallout of the released miller appropriate and -- released miller report. -- released mueller report. this is live at 7:00 eastern on sunday morning. join the discussion. ♪ "newsmakers", president and ceo of america's health insurance plans offers insight into health -- medicare for all and how the affordable care act could be improved. this week, the supreme court

heard oral argument in the case .f iancu versus brunetti brunetti is the founder of a streetwear brand whose trademark application has been denied. this oral argument is an hour. chief justice roberts: we'll hear argument first this morning in case 18-302, iancu versus brunetti. mr. stewart: thank you, mr. chief justice, and may it please the court. the lanham act's ban on federal registration of scandalous trademarks is not a restriction on speech but a valid condition on participation in a federal program. on its face, and as applied here, the provision is -- is viewpoint-neutral. the scandalous marks provision is one of many content-based criteria for federal trademark registration, and consideration of a mark's content is essential. justice sotomayor: could you please tell me how you're defi "