no monolithic media. broadcasting has given way to narrowcasting. youtube stars are a thing but c-span's big idea is more relevant today than ever. no government money supports c-span. nonpartisan coverage of washington is covered as a service for your cable or satellite provider. c-span is your unfiltered view of government so you can make up your own mind. >> the council on american islamic relations hosted a conference on islam a phobia state university in st. paul, minnesota. authors and community activists discuss the history of islamophobia and white supremacy. welcome to this first breakout section on the intersections of islamophobia, anti-semitism and white

supremacy. my name is eric only, a professor -- many was erika lee, professor at the university of minnesota. when i am not on leave i direct the immigration history research center. this conference is phenomenal. it does not exist in many other places in that it brings together amazing scholars and experts nationally and internationally. pioneers in the ways in which we understand the consequences, the roots of islamophobia, but also in a really accessible and community engaged environment. i just want to express my foritude to the organizers putting on this third iteration of this conference. today we're going to spend more time taking about the

intersections of hate. i think we got a good beginning of some of that conversation in the first primary section. one of the takeaways that i got from that earlier session is the obvious point that islamophobia does not exist in a vacuum. all the historical notes that we've been here before, another iteration or an evolution of earlier forms of state sanctions as well as private acts of hate and violence. i wanted to elaborate on that a little more. i figured was professor todd greene who said this is racism. this is a form of racism. many different definitions of islamophobia and i think part of the conversation is is it rational, yes.

express rationally and made legitimated, justified, normalized in very sanctioned ways. i think the more that we think about islamophobia as a system and as aas an ideology form of discrimination, it moves us a little further in how we can better understand its intersections and impact. another key point is white .upremacy and white nationalism undergirding all of the systems of oppression in the united states and much of the world has been a system of white supremacy . 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 whether they were savages or violent, 50 be citizens, fit to become americans. i would like us as we engage in this discussion about intersections today, i would like us to think about that historical foundation as well. analyst, you already been introduced to. they were much too humble. since i have their full biographies i'm going to take the liberty of telling you a little bit more about them. on your far right, professor todd greene. on islamophobia at the u.s. state department in washington, d.c. and author of two books. i think we have at least one of them for sale. two books on islamophobia, the -- and presumed

guilty, why we should not ask muslims to condemn terrorism. hatem bazian. dr. founded the islam of phobia research -- at uc berkeley. when i my go to site teach about islamophobia in my classes at the university of minnesota i go directly to this amazingt only for its research reports that have been produced but also a really accessible and theoretically grounded definition of what islamophobia is and its frameworks. worked be islamophobia studies journal, another go to resource of mine

in the study of islamophobia. the only peer-reviewed academic journal on the subject and he's founder and professor of islamic law and theology -- the first accredited muslim liberal arts college in the united states. is laurene professor alum of university of minnesota. a community organizer around immigration and worker justice issues. is located in st. paul. she currently serves as lead trainer for the fennec institute , linking social justice and action. professor -- as law professor at the university of arkansas. affiliated faculty at uc berkeley. he focuses on constitutional law.

he is best known right now for two projects. one is his amazing book american islamophobia, understanding the roots and rise of fear. in my opinion, one of the most important sources of information, insight, and compassion, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in new zealand . if you go to twitter and look under the #50 lives, you will see the amazing work the doctor has done in showcasing and redirecting our attention, the world's attention, to the victims and not the terrorist. .his is an amazing panel we are fortunate to have these scholars and experts and activists. my plan is to open up the discussion for about tend a 15 minutes, or as long as you want, of commentaries. these intersections.

my goal is to leave more time for questions and answers at the so of these formal comments that we can start having a i am newer to the spectrum, but i will share perspectives from jewish community connection and my own personal information. onn we have been working different social justice issue in the twin cities community

overtime for about 20 years we have been around as an organization and we kind of always looked at things from this 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? things have been shifting and morezing that this is much systemic and then we maybe realized before and we kind of changed our approach. looking at anti-semitism and alamophobia stemming from reality of colonial inheritance and colonial continuation and seeing how a combination of white nationalism and christian hegemony have positioned this systemichetoric, this way of looking at different groups of people and making them

others and dividing them from people who share interests. we are interested in looking at the ways white nationalism is separate divide us and us and rejecting that an understanding that is an intentional behavior in order to stop people who naturally should be in alliance with each other coming together and resolving some of these nationwide and worldwide issues. first, let me thank cair for organizing this conference and bringing us here for such an important discussion. thank you for welcoming me here. professor lee is a graduate from uc berkeley and the professor that supervised her thesis is the person in the center of race and genter -- gender that said we need to do work on

islamophobia. also to think of the connection of the japanese community having to go -- going through internment and recognizing the need to address the problem of islamophobia. these are connections that take place in the real sense of experiences being extended to the contemporary period.

two large groups that were present in europe, the muslim and jewish community. you cannot construct the european worldview at the time without actually coming into a realization and the expulsion of muslims and jews and putting in place a whole systematic inquisition that targeted really is a -- religious identity. to actually govern and control the bodies and space of muslims and jews in italy and europe and there was a structure for the inquisition. muslims and jews could not dress in normal religious garb. they could not engage in any type of practice that would be religiously inclined related to

culture and bathing. culture and -- much of the spanish cuisine was laced with pork to demonstrate publicly you are no longer upholding the requirements for food for consumption, synagogues and mosques were converted to churches. those converted to christianity 9.re finally expelled in 160 the inquisition lasted almost 400 years including in this, also, about 100,000 women that were also brought into the inquisition because they were charged of being sorcerers and so on and did not uphold the religious orthodoxy. islamophobia emerges from that moment and we get into the new world. the first exclusionary act was

directed at muslims from western 26, the first exclusionary measure directed at muslims from west africa as well east.ves who lived in the that is where you did -- you begin the discussion about where these ideas get to percolate and a decision about trying to create purity of race. we speak about the theology and how it gets rolled into the discussion and we had a whole debate in the new world about whether native air -- native americans did or did not have a soul. then you take it to the arrival of the african-american slaves who arrived not as a human being, but as cargo and we have to deal with what that means and the debate about black lives

matter and everybody jumps and says every life matters. a whole bunch of lives still don't matter even today. matter, you lives are constructing a wager or african-americans continued to suffer in the contemporary period and you have to go to the chinese exclusionary act period and how the irish were not white and posed a civil war. they were brought as a way to contest african-american empowerment and then the jewish population and the exclusion of the jewish population and the birth of jewish organizations to challenge anti-semitism, passing through the labor movement, woman movement, japanese internment, and then we speak of islamophobia and the normative power -- pattern rather than islam and alluss

of a sudden, we are fighting 7out islam and chapter 5 or and so on and you completely lose the sense that america's norm is authorization if the exception is work toward the exclusion and those are the moments. once you put islamophobia in the normative estate -- historical trajectory, it is easier to understand what took place. [applause] morning, again.

i will preface my comments -- i wasn't intending to do a shameless book log, but -- book plug, but the topic makes sense. book ends up is islamophobia is a distraction and the way we talk about muslims and violence and terrorism as a distraction. i don't lose any sleep that we spent too much time talking .bout muslims and violence we struggle to enact policy --inst violent white wing right-wing terrorism. commemorating knowing a long history of violence that targets racial and religious minorities.

9/11 -- the 9/11 memorial museum for that? forget.lence we anxiety about white identity, white supremacy. that is my preface. a few things briefly just to get it going. first, i am glad we have this topic.n this particular it is important we talk more about this. we are starting to see more public comments in new zealand and that is good as far as we can sustain it. at the very least, you see a perpetrator whose manifesto is peppered with comments and starts with birthrates. it goes into white genocide and fear of the loss of white

identity in europe and here are muslims and immigrants coming to replace us. for those who study islamophobia, that is not a big surprise that it was intertwined with that ideology. he is not particularly unique. same kind of anxieties we have been hearing for a long uttered bys been prominent political figures in many ways, including donald trump, but not just him. marine le pen in france -- they all hold similar views. these were not outlying views. what he did in terms of acting upon them is different, but the worldviews are very similar. seeing that intersection at work is important. the other thing about that attack that i think can help us conceptualize is that it is the latest in a string of attacks for some time in which angry white men and so-called western

nations have targeted racial and religious minority communities often in houses of worship out whiter of some loss and identity. some kind of threat to what it means to be canadian, european, american, or white. there are differences in those attacks, but commonality we should pay attention to as well making sense of all of this. when it comes to anti-semitism and islamophobia, i don't think this is talked about enough and there are different histories at work and we need to pay attention to that, but there is some intersection in europe and the united states. i believe anti-semitism on both

atlanticthe olympic -- -- what does it mean to be american? jews were described for a lot of history as not white. that is telling you something about how jews were categorized, racialized and that american identity and jewish identity were not seen as synonymous in the same way we see extreme nationalism in germany. you could not be german and jewish. german national identity was observed over judaism. that role that anti-semitism has played in terms of constructing white national identity is much longer than the past couple of decades and we need to pay attention to that. that is what i see in a lot of the anti-muslim rhetoric i encounter in europe and the united states, serious debates in britain and germany over can be muslim in -- and german,

muslim and american, muslim and french? represented of omar actually could not be muslim american because she wore a hijab. that trope, that stereotype about, if you are in this racial religious minority category, you cannot be one of us. that is one of the points between anti-semitism and islamophobia i think we need to pay a lot more attention to then we have and finally, i will say on that point, we need to pay careful attention to how political operate of's -- and otherspit jews against each other. that has been happening recently in america. [applause] i try to say this as often as i can, islamophobia is not the answer to and cite him it is him anti-semitism.

these two communities are pitted against each other. this is delivered. this is orchestrated. we must resist it. [applause] >> i will be really brief. i will start with a story. one of the few conspicuous and unapologetic muslims -- i was not somebody who wanted to hide my muslim arab identity in the direct aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. on the campus of ucla where islamophobia was strong and zionism was pervasive, i share that story because it segues into what came to be a really transformative experience in my life. i had a chance to take a class called critical race theory from tkibuliprofessor named

crenshaw who coined the term doersectionality -- marginalizing pieces that came to form the canon of what -- i came to learn about islamophobia, orientalism from a black female professor who taught me those things through the lens of fighting anti-black racism. i say that to say many things these intersections we are , talking about right now have to be tethered and tied to this country's history of anti-black racism and otherization of blackness as being the antithesis of white identity, which is a stand in and synonym for citizenship. one of the first things professor crenshaw taught us in that class was that whiteness was not monolithic. whiteness was not fixed. whiteness was perpetually fluid. whiteness always vacillates. what i want to address is

whiteness is narrowing. it is becoming far more narrow in definition, discursively. and popular -- popularly, the way it is framed on the ground. one of the first books i read in that class was a book by kieran brodkin called "when jews were not white folks." this idea that jewish identity in the late 19th and early 20th century effectively excluded practicing jews coming from the european continent as being bona fide whites, even though many jews who did not express their religious identity in vivid, conspicuous terms could pass as white. the more they freely expressed -- exercised their religious identity, the less white they became. what we saw with anti-semitism at that era is escalating today, we see vividly what took place in squirrel hill at the pittsburgh synagogue, many months ago, individuals of what took place at pittsburgh is weak juxtapose them with what took place in new zealand, exactly

the same thing. in the same drivers, motivation, ideology, same inspiration of the shooter in pittsburgh were identical to what motivated the shooter in christchurch in new zealand. why is that? does it matter that the victims in pittsburgh were jewish and the victims in new zealand were muslims? we us, it does because embrace the idea of religious pluralism and individuals should have the right to freely exercise their faith as they see fit, but for the shooters, it did not. they viewedecause jews in pittsburgh and they viewed muslims in new zealand as pariahs, as individuals that were definitely not white, in 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 called "faith in whiteness" which looks to complicate how religion informs how we think about race.

at this very juncture, this growing sign of white supremacy, these -- see religious identity as being a focal to racial identity, which excludes jews and muslims from this body not only as being qualified as white, but as a class of people that can be assimilated at all into broader society. those are the parallels. clearly there are distinct tropes and distinct stereotypes attached to muslim idea the -- things like violence savagery, civilizational menace , that stem from orientalism. -- the citizen, the terrorist tropes and these different tropes attached to religious identity. it is key to understand religious identity is very focal and driving with regard to what

qualifies -- qualifies as citizens. [applause] so far, we have talked about intersections and talked about religious intolerance and the intersections with race. i also want to introduce another term that those of us in critical ethnics and race studies use, it is relational. it's not just intersections in ones of the ways in which religious identity, gender, race 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 or how certain groups are related in that spectrum of good and bad to

each other. we cannot talk about the rise of islamophobia or the persistence -- persistence in both of these terms, islamophobia and anti-semitism without also understanding the persistence of xenophobia and racism. we talked a lot about this trope of displacement, a trope of foreignness and also, one thing we have not talked about is a trope of foreign conspiracy. let's not forget that both catholics and jews and the american colonies, some colonies barred them out right. they had unequal access to citizenship, they were prone to forgeton, and let's not that the anti-catholic movement in the 19th century was predicated on the idea of a foreign papal conspiracy, that

catholic immigrants were part of foreignion organized by catholic monarchs and the pope in rome to take over the united states. this trope that connects religion, non-protestant religion, as a threat with foreignness and some sort of conspiracyasion or is one that cuts across anti-catholicism, anti-semitism, and islamophobia. we talked a little about tropes. it can bring on that global dimension historically and in terms of contemporary if possible. >> i could speak about the intensification of islamophobia in the united states. we could have a specific time

where it occurred, actually 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 and, if you think about the conspiracy the brotherhood would bring a canyonto woman, to find a white and pregnant her, and have a child in hawaii that then comes back to work in the inner-city in chicago to get elected into to dupe all americans to vote for him to win the presidency. if they had that conspiracy, i really want to talk to them and see if they could take our homelessness program and see if they could actually have a conspiracy that would address it.

it functions. i think the american society at the time that stoked islamophobia wanted to use the n-word on obama. they felt the oxygen in the air was prohibitive, so they felt confident using the m word as a substitute and that's where you get the birth of the birther movement, tea party, and they stoke for islamophobia and it exceeds in the midterm to thousand 10 election, the most expensive single deployment of resources in the islamist public -- islam a phobic funding is 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 dvd distributed in your sunday newspaper at a cost of $17 million. havew you and me do not $17 million, we can barely actually afford our coffee. this means somebody that had a interest toic deploy that amount of resources mrgeting obama using the word. as a result of the economic collapse, a whole host of economic political interest wanted to disrupt any possibility of having a larger discussion about the failure of our economic programs, the failure of political leadership and therefore goes into islam if -- islamophobia becomes a good distraction. instead of thinking why 12 million americans lost their home and thousands of stores close, you think the reason this

is taking place is because there is a muslim under your bed. monsters inc. becomes the subject to have a serious discussion of why we have a recession that took place and how did we get to that point? those are the things we need to relate to the racist structure, economic structure and why somebody like robert mercer, who actually funds the islamic , breitbart, why would somebody of that stature, want -- you always have to follow the dollar and the interest attached to it. we have been able to be susceptible to these, what i consider to be massive advertisement campaigns that we begin to understand and think this is islamophobia. you bought avw. rather than thinking they

cheated testing on the emissions, you think it is a muslim in -- rather than getting the ceo standing to say why did you illegally cheat on the test? i think what we need is to be very smart in how we understand these dynamics and what is being deployed on a daily basis. [applause] i saw you nodding a lot, so i did not know if that was in relation to something. really satt question with me. i had a chance to teach this

case, which you might know as the internment case. we talk about tropes and tropes that are mobilize a bull -- mobilizable to affect other folks. juxtaposition between japanese-americans and catholic americans, a way in which your phenotype enables you to effectively take cover from otherization. towe compare what happened catholics and there was this prevailing conspiracy that the catholic church was looking to take over the united states, it never reached the depths of vileness it reached with japanese-americans during world war ii and that is part and parcel because of phenotype. , theat supreme court case way in which japanese-americans

looked distinct from white americans allowed the state to mobilize the most inhuman sort of vile intervention of 120,000 japanese-americans and japanese residents during that time which gives us insight into what is happening now globally and domestically in the united states. when we can other a people based on physical markers whether phenotypic or religious expression, the hijab being an example, it enables the state to an act and extend even more egregious and nefarious forms of policing than it does a class of people that have that cover of at least phenotypic whiteness. that is what is happening with muslims across the globe. if you look at what is happening in europe, in france, for instance, i wrote this piece prisonow 60% to 70% of

inmates in france are muslims. 60% to 70%. france actually banned -- it is illegal to have racial statistics, right? but studies have shown that the population of muslims in france is 6% to 8%. the fact that the prison population is significantly bigger than the actual population of muslims on the ground just demonstrates kind of the depth of islamophobia in france. if you were to ask me to compare it, i think it is worse in france than in the united states. even aside from western countries it is interesting to , see how muslim identity is authorized in nonwhite societies. you can talk about china, the internment of muslims in china. where you have reportedly 1.8 muslims being placed in internment camps. that is a country where we don't have white supremacy but haan supremacy. that government is effectively using phenotypes, ethnicity, and religion as a way to incarcerate e, police, and

incarcerate the community. it is critical to understand that islamophobia looks different entities deployed differently in distinct host contacts and countries. -- dramatically different than it looks in the united states where it is tethered and anchored in white supremacy. tropes are imagined, sometimes they are tied to religion, but oftentimes they are tied to physical expression and race. the algorithm that is most destructive is when they are religiously different, culturally different, and it allows the state to organize in a distractive way. >> as well as gender. i want to push on the concept of race a little bit more because i think it is so important historically to understand how

categories of race have changed over time, right? one of the things about the anti-catholic movement is irish catholics were thought of as racially and biologically different and inferior to anglo-saxon protestants. one of the huge differences is 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 .iolence one of the reasons why i argue one of the most important reasons why irish eventually became white even though they were never not not white is because they had the political power to vote xina phobic politicians out of office. the anti-catholic movement was so strong it created the first anti-immigrant political party. when we talk about politics and xenophobia, the know nothing party or the american party,

there slogan was americans were americans. they pioneered the politicization of xenophobia, getting voters to the polls to vote for an anti-immigrant politician and anti-immigrant policies. they had one million members in the 1850's, hugely important. we could not have trump without the know nothings. that have allowed xenophobia to become an american tradition. this idea of race, how is it in the 19th century we thought of as irish somehow not white. jews, southern italians, eastern europeans were also considered somehow less than white. asians for sure were not white as well as with african-americans at native americans. how do we continue to morph

those racial categories, how do those change? how is it that chinese immigrants, who were the first to be banned, singled out as a group are now the model minority? dot does that mean and how we use another trope, the good immigrant versus the bad immigrant as a source of distraction, a source of division? now maybe turn the conversation a little bit more towards what do we do about it? thats been revealed now you cannot study these in a vacuum. i remember an article, a , itline after pittsburgh was a quote from think one of the members of the synagogue and basically said we thought

anti-semitism was dead and now we know better. one of the things that seems in the past few years -- i have seen in the past few years is, i think, a resurgence of interfaith coalitions, interracial coalitions. there have been many times over the past several centuries and certainly several decades since the civil right movement when social justice struggles 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 leads the foundation toward a broader and enduring coalition than what we had seen before. i wanted to turn the conversation to what you all have seen on the ground and

whether you see the same somehowents as cautiously optimistic as what should we be keeping in mind as we think about turning our attention to challenging these systems of oppression? >> i can speak to that a little bit. basicallyorganizing says the way to solve these things is about relationships, 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 everyone because we all see ourselves as interconnected, it's not really just about having this understanding, but understanding how things operate on a systemic level and how they are ongoing like you said since the inquisition and

understanding our histories and how there is a very intentional type to divide us and if you want to think -- i want to be the most left person, the most radical person, one of the most radical things you can do is come together and learn about other people, not just in superficial ways, real ways where you have relationships with people and i would throw in having a sense of hope, which can feel impossible and it can sound fluffy, how do we even grab onto that given the magnitude of all these things going on just knowing that we have these cycles of history and that we have these demonstratably moments in history where people have made things better. using data keep going is a big, important thing. on the ground i would say people are seeing bigger stakes. in minneapolis, the organizing

around immigration and the criminal justice system and those intersections, i feel like there is a lot of stuff people have been working on for decades that is finally coming together because people see how much higher the stakes are. we have studied about this intersectionality and learned about it and heard about it and we have conversations about it. people are seeing how it is playing out in our individual and communal lives. that is putting a lot of fire under people to change things for the better. >> so much of our audience is local, again you give a spit -- can you give a specific project, group that mean -- we might want to know more about? >> there is a community with over 30 plus community organizations from labor, different faith groups, immigrant groups from criminal justice groups who have come together to work on issues inund i.c.e. and how ice is

cooperation and conjunction with the county. we are working on a campaign to separate out so that the sheriff no longer cooperates with i.c.e. and no longer says have an office in our jail so as soon as people come in, you can take them wherever -- whatever you do with people. we have people making a lot of progress around that. there are some politicians and electives listening around that. similarly, the group has been working for a long time on getting drivers licenses for all . this is a way for undocumented communities to have access to aentification that makes life lot more fluid for people who do not have to worry about that. you may take for granted all these examples of when you need an id. when you don't not have it, life is not easy. that is a couple of examples.

>> if i could complicate the issue a little bit, i think we of not be very careful jumping from where the crisis is to having interfaith or interfaith dialogue. assume the heavy lifting of dealing with the crisis itself is not being done. i am a person that actually works on interfaith work for justice. if you want to have a dialogue about your idea of god and my idea of god, take a theology class. seriously, for me to actually take three hours of my day for us to read two or three texts of religious significance, that is a class in theology or interreligious dialogue. if you are 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 community. i hope for myself as a palestinian muslim, there are contradictions in my community around racial issues. on the one hand, they want to deal with racism. there is anti-black racism in the community. there are some economic activities that take place in some parts of the immigrant community. i work in oakland where in every corner, there is a liquor store and some of those are owned by arab and muslim immigrants. for me, that is a contradiction. you cannot fight islamophobia without dealing with the contradictions that exist and therefore there has to be heavy lifting to deal with it. i cannot speak about muslim prisoners without recognizing we have a prison industrial contacts where if you are black,

your track to jail is much faster than to yale. that has to be addressed because we cannot all of a sudden because we are dealing with islamophobia and we begin super human rights activists without dealing with contradictions. i'm going to complicated a little bit further. islamophobial with and anti-semitism without confronting the question of palestine and israel. we cannot deal with islamophobia without asking the question why is it a segment of the pro-israel jewish community and the major jewish organizations? i think, erroneously so, aligning with the right wing in the united states and thinking stoking islamophobia and white supremacy is a way to protect israel. if you read history, the relationship of white supremacy to jewish and muslims are equal

opportunity, they hate both. or they think possibly islamophobia can bring jesus quicker, that has to be understood and we need to communities. own behind every islamophobia is an anti-semite. contradictions have to be addressed, otherwise the world is not including us in the .onceptualization in the world [applause] it is a great question. how do we respond to all of this?

spending a day talking about islamophobia would get old very quickly. i spent a year at the state department trying to advise on islamophobia and i engaged other government offices. it is really frustrating work. i learned the change will not come from above though the policies do need to change. i am not saying let's engage in politics, but that change will come from below, grassroots movements. the most significant social changes have come from below, a bus boycott in monk armory, alabama, that hit people where -- ands and pen a fitted benefited from jim crow and then spread and got more organized. there has been a very successful counter civil rights movement that has led to what michelle alexander calls new jim crow. it is not a linear process, to

be sure. the most significant change comes from below. relationship building is key. we have studies. if you know someone of a different religion, you are much less likely to be prejudiced toward that community. if i have a personal relationship with someone who is jewish, i am less likely to be anti-semitic. there are caveats to that and that has to do with whether me being less anti-semitic translates into political action . how do you affect individual change when individuals are changing their opinions, but policies are not changing? has traveledho around the united states and abroad on this issue, the most successful instance since i have seen a pushing back against islamophobia in a political sense have come from coalitions that include muslims as significant partners and have been around not for a few years, but decades and have really

established deep roots in the community and been doing this work long-term. few audience want me to talk about the real solution is long-term. we are trying to do triage all the time. if you do not have a long-term strategy, we are in trouble. that involves relationship building, coalition building, and translating into political action. with muslims, it is even more important. there are some differences. how catholics are racialized is different, was different. also, the number of catholics. by the 1930's, there was not a lot of catholics in the united states. why they were afraid, we can quibble with, but there were not arjun #catholics could eventually build effective political movements. hospitals,itutions, that really ingrained them into

a lot of different communities. you have a lot of catholic institutions in this region. overms make up about just -- between 1% and 2%, but much smaller community and don't have those same kinds of institutions over time catholics have been able to build. the numbers are certainly not there. coalition building is all that more significant. allies not doing the coalition building ourselves. i think it is all of our responsibilities to combat islamophobia. i think the primary moral responsibility falls on people like me. muslims, when they fight islamophobia, are trying to survive. it falls on people with my background to start to do more of the lifting.

i don't think we are doing our part and taking seriously the fact the primary moral burden falls on us. that is what needs to change. i have seen that happen in local communities across the country. i have seen some great work translating that into a national movement. elections do matter. that doesn't mean voting for the democratic party means you get rid of islamophobia. there is plenty of islamophobia in the democratic party, but elections matter. this region of all regions knows that because of the history you have made for -- made here. i think we might start see significant change in this country. >> i would like to add a few more comments and that is it is also dependent on communities like mine, communities have andrienced past injustices

know what it is like to be included and banned and separated from families to be able to see ourselves in communities that are suffering the same as well. 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 is the japanese-americans citizens league, the one with the crest with -- i guess it is an eagle. especially the ways in which they partnered with cair minnesota to call out islamophobia and all forms of injustice and bigotry in a really massive educational campaign. i do have to say, 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. by the end, i kind of wanted to crawl into a dark space and cry. some hopeful change,

but this goes far beyond 2020, it goes far beyond the united states. we are going to have a fantastic session later this afternoon on a global islamophobia, this is not a problem going away with record numbers of people being forced from their homes, 60 million being recorded by the u.n. last year and more countries moving toward the far right, nationalist and isolationist policies. this is just the tip of the iceberg. the kinds of work that you all are doing and 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 am sure there are

people that want to share experiences and offer insight. i am going to open the floor. do i run around with the microphone? raise your hand, please, if you have a question you would like to ask the panel. i just had a quick question. i wanted to find out what are some ways -- i am a muslim myself and i want to know what are some ways we perpetually -- perpetuate islamic ideas either consciously or subconsciously, what are some examples in our own leaders and how to identify -- how do we identify that and work on it? following, bade muslims, good muslims, and between muslims, and then me.

i am of the opinion that no matter what a muslim does, it should not be a rationalization for blaming the group. .hat is the basis of racism for muslims, again, is to think we have to go through a 12 step program therapy to make ourselves perfect so racists will not hit us in the face. i think what we need is to get rid of this aspect that muslim actions result in the islamophobia and racism. the mere fact is white supremacy , which, in the past few years has been the primary perpetrator of violence, we don't actually have discrimination structurally for white people, -- global white in a

supremacy systemic and therefore, even when violence is committed from white supremacists, we don't attribute or attached to it the same type of consequences. part of what i recommend is the aggregating -- the aggregating a discussionhis is 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. --t is what you call aligning these two is an error in approach. you do not address racism in black spy telling blacks they need to resolve black on black violence. on ane to, again, insist

ideology that is sound and universally -- universal and in be the -- and can be the test of time. humanizing the human is a dehumanizing act. i don't want anyone to humanize me. i am human to begin with. engaging in a discourse and --ing to humanize a human you are asking them to come to a point where they have to assert they are human and that discourse is very problematic because it assumes at the point of departure that it is a subhuman category. this doesn't mean you have to relate to people as people and with a contradiction, you do. saying we are going to engage in that approach, for me, at least, is a much more complex problem in the long run. >> any other questions?

>> hello? i am from africa. most african families are huge. on my father's side, i think i have 103 first cousins. i would rather fight with all of them. the reason i am saying that is you said something about marrying two ideas together, these two ideas are pretty horrible, but if you marry them together, what is the worst that can happen to muslim leaders or the muslim committee -- community? i am not muslim. phraseterrorist, that seems to roll off the tongue for a lot of people. now white supremacist seems to be rolling off the tongues. what is the worst that could happen if muslim leaders -- you

say they should not do that? what is the worst that would happen if muslim leaders condemned modern terrorists and white same, married supremacist tara to -- muslimsts with terrorists. what is the worst thing that could happen to the muslim community or muslim leaders if they married those horrible ideas together? group, i feel like it is hard for -- i feel like it would be hard for white who are -- forgive my words. i feel like it would be hard for who are not --

what is wrong with marrying the two ideas? muslim terrorist, white supremacist terrorist, condemned both of them. i am not sure -- how would they fight against that? onee is no way to defend and not -- does that make sense? >> let me try to understand and .aybe respond to this if you think about terrorism as a concept, it has no religious identity, no racial identity, it crosses the border. meaning, every group has individuals that commit terrorist acts. it seems we exceptional lies the .uslim category

when a muslim commits a terrorist act, the attribute that is most focused on is the terrorist, not the part. when a white person commits an act, the act becomes the focus and then we try to find what is the stimulus? is he hasstimulus psychological problems, we don't ask the priest of his church to come and discuss, condemn, and engage, we ask -- for the muslim subject, we go seven generations back where he attended or walked by a mosque. the data shows the more religious you are, the more civic lien engaged. ly engaged.- civic

the more you volunteer and the more you donate. you don't see this framing is the the only framing muslim terrorist because there is a whole structure that response to this. 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 $6 trillionose to have been used in relation to the war on terror, right? where the united states has deployment in nine different countries post 9/11. those dynamics begin to be silenced when you get the muslim attribute in there because it begins to shock the way we need

to understand. what i said we do not need to marry is the following, countering violent extremism being wedded to addressing islamophobia. they are two different. we need to understand what are the causalities that bring somebody to commit a terrorist act whether they are muslim or otherwise? what are the racial his asians that took place from the dominant society were muslims are that exclude them from society? structurally, theoretically, these are two different phenomenon. the individuals who insist on marrying them hard basically theng to give legitimacy to demonization of the islamic subject. we will not address islamophobia unless we address counter

violence and the only way to address that is by muslims secretizing themselves. that's the logical outcome that we need to argue and insist that separates methodologies to address each and not make one contingent on the other. the doesn't mean they don't have what you call elements that get mobilized, that's a different issue versus the structural. i want to say briefly that the greatest privilege attached to whiteness is individuality. the terrorists in new zealand commits a terrorist act, they are not going to australia and asking other white men to apologize for those acts. when they walk or the church interest, south carolina, they are not serving white young men in that area and asking them how they feel about terrorism. when you talk about black and thereand asian identity,

is the responsibility of collective guilt that the entire group is responsible for the act of one individual. much theery cornerstone of white supremacy that the privilege and presumption of individuality is always attached to bad actors on the white side. we see the praising in the media , we call terrorists lone wolf's, they are sick, there are always deviant actors but on the muslim side, there's something wrong with the entire body that these individuals are treated as emanations of an entire monolithic block. it so is individuals with whites. [laughter] [applause] >> i will quickly say because i wrote a book about terrorism, it's a racist question. particularly in the current

context. we should ask what gets labeled as terrorism customer it's become a racialized term. it doesn't generally refer to people like me in the media is trying. and it does not role naturally off the tongue these days to look at a guy and call him a terrorist. terrorism doesn't have any objective meeting, it's a racialized term and applies to particular communities and not other people. in that context, when missiles get singled out -- when muslims get singled out, where is the moderate? the question has been asked since 9/11 in intense sorts of ways by major journalists. toprominent political operas operatives across the spectrum. it's a racist question. this and mike pompeo

confirm this for me. and his senate confirmation, when he was called out after the boston marathon bombings, complaining that muslim leaders and not doing enough to speak out against terrorism which is a lie. it was a lie. towas called upon that address that and his confirmation hearing and he tried to qualify the little bit but on the follow-up question was -- what would it take for muslims to do enough in a way that's satisfying to people like me and he was honest and said i'm not sure there is enough. muslims cank condemn terrorism but it doesn't matter and more. you will still be subject to collective guilt. there is no answer you can give, no dance you can do that will persuade many prominent politicians and journalists asking that question. that muslims aren't somehow

complicit or harboring some latent, violent terrorist sympathies. you will continue to be objects of suspicion. we need to start calling out the racism behind the question to begin with including one respectable journalist at cnn and when they asked such ridiculous questions. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> health and human services aza will bermann joinedr by the head of medicare and medicaid services and the family physician. immediateo the chairman of the board of the american medical association. on behalf of ama, i want to welcome all of you and thank you for joining us for this discussion about advancing payment in the delivery of primary care and for patients with complex chronic diseases.

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