Sojourners is a national Christian organization committed to faith in action for social justice. We seek to inspire hope and build a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world. With a 40-year history, Sojourners is a nonpartisan leader that convenes, builds alliances among, and mobilizes people of faith, focusing on racial and social justice, life and peace, and environmental stewardship. Working through Sojourners magazine, Sojourners’ website sojo.net, public speaking events, media outreach, educational resources, books, advocacy, and trainings, Sojourners is an internationally influential voice at the intersection of faith, politics, and culture.

In addition to being the CEO of Sojourners, Wallis is a bestselling author, public theologian, speaker, and international commentator on ethics and public life. He recently served on the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and currently serves as the chair of the Global Agenda Council on Faith for the World Economic Forum.

A testament to Wallis’ commitment to standing with American Muslims is the advertisement campaign recently launched by Sejourners, which reads “Love Your Muslim Neighbors”, in response to the negative auti-Muslim subway ads.

Major Morris is a fourth generation Salvationist. Through the Salvation Army network, he received a call one day informing him of Muslim Lakhani’s interest in helping the organization’s local chapter. That same day, the two met at Lakhani’s home and before the day was over, Lakhani sealed his commitment to supporting the program that feeds the hungry in DC.

In the video, Lakhani explains that as a follower of Islam, sedekah is a pillar of his beliefs, just like Tzedakah in Judaism refers to charity. Similarly, Major Morris talks about how the Christian scriptures have taught him the importance of helping the hungry. Although they adhere to different religions, both Lakhani and Major Morris have found common ground by working from the shared values in their respective faiths to help those in need. More than that, Major Morris adds, the partnership between the two men has led them to connect “at a real heart level” and build a life-long friendship.

This got me to thinking: if someone who’s as controversial as an openly lesbian comedian could land a spot on a mainstream program like Saturday Night Live, when will the time come for the first Muslim to be cast on SNL? The only performer who comes close to that at this time is Nasim Pedrad, who is Iranian-American. While she seems to have embraced her background and even drawn from it for her characters  (prior to SNL Pedrad had a one-woman show called “Me, Myself and Iran” and on SNL she has played Christiane Amanpour and Azam Farahi), it is very difficult to find the answer to whether she is Muslim or not. Would it hurt her popularity if she was Muslim and open about it? Possibly. But that seems very unfair when you consider how open Jewish cast members such as Seth Meyers and Andy Samberg are about their religious and cultural background. I won’t complain about it being okay to be both openly Jewish and popular; after all, I’m Jewish myself, but the double standard does bother me. I firmly believe that everyone, regardless of their profession or role in society, should be able to feel proud about where they come from and what they believe in.

Speaking of popular Jewish comedians, Jon Stewart is coincidentally one of the only big names in the industry writing for an openly Muslim comedian, Aasif Mandvi. My favorite thing about the pairing is that just as Stewart doesn’t hide the ways in which his upbringing has shaped his worldview (we all know he grew up in a progressive, New York Jewish household), neither does Mandvi. Of course, in Mandvi’s case, the fact that he’s Indian and not Middle Eastern (as most would think), is not usually brought up, but his religious background often gets highlighted, so much so that Stewart usually refers to him as the Daily Show’s “Senior Muslim Correspondent”. Obviously the title is more for  a comic effect than actually attributing any real expertise to Mandvi on everything Islam-related, but the mere vocal acknowledgment that Mandvi is in fact a Muslim, is in my opinion quite unprecedented and as such, definitely a step in the right direction.

That said, it’s important to remember that while The Daily Show has made room for a Muslim comedian without making him hide his religious beliefs, it is still a program that mostly attracts the left wing leaning American public. Aasif Mandvi’s religious identity has not been very controversial because the people who watch the show tend to be progressive liberals. That is why I think that if Saturday Night Live, a program with a rich history and a huge following that cuts through most demographics, added to its cast an openly Muslim comedian, that would make a really significant impact. If they didn’t care about possible backlash when hiring Kate McKinnon from homophobic viewers, they should also not pay attention to Islamophobic audiences and worry about how they may respond to a Muslim performer. Take your pick, SNL, there are many talented Muslim-American comedians out there (refer to our previous posts) . You just need to make the move.

Image source: Usatoday.com

After yesterday’s post about the infuriating behavior of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools—they refused membership to Iman Academy, a Muslim school in the state, and made headlines by refusing to reschedule a game with a Jewish Orthodox school (the game fell on the Sabbath)—I’ve been thinking a lot about religious holy days and public education. Christmas has always been a school holiday, while other non-Christian holidays like Hanukkah or the two Muslim holidays of Eid, have not. I think this is an important issue to discuss. If we are giving kids days off for Christmas, don’t we have an obligation to respect all other religious days? If we don’t respect other religious days, should we start having school on Christmas?

I’m not sure how I feel about this debate. On the one hand, I believe everyone should have the right to celebrate the holidays of his or her faith. On the other hand, if we let kids out of school for every religious holiday there is, we wouldn’t have much school. I don’t think there is an appropriate line here: it’s not acceptable to give days off for some holidays and not others. The decision is inevitably arbitrary, based on the decider’s personal opinion. It opens the door to all kinds of potential problems.

If we start doling out days off, people will be offended. There will always be someone observing a holiday that isn’t included on this list. That’s not fair, inclusive, or respectful. If we start judging a holiday’s merits based on how many children observe it, how conveniently it falls on the school’s calendar, and how important it is to the religion as a whole (as if you can really quantify this anyway), we start evaluating something we have no right or ability to evaluate. Is a religious day any less important because fewer people observe it? How many people do you need to reach critical mass? And what about people who are non-religious? Do their special days matter too?

Image source: Lacordaire.net

I think the only real solution is to make days off secular. If none of them are affiliated with religion, no religion is snubbed. We can allow children to miss class for religious days their families observe. We can put mechanisms in place to help these children keep up with their work. We can educate children about different holidays and what they mean to different people. But as soon as we start linking school policy to religion, we start leaving people out.

Image source: Imanacademy.org

I was an athlete all through school. I played soccer and basketball for all four years of high school and all four years of college. We played a lot of parochial schools in our league. They would pray before games and again afterwards. We also played Orthodox Jewish schools and had to plan our games around Jewish holidays. I don’t ever remember there being any conflict about the fact that we were playing religiously oriented teams so I was rather surprised to read about the recent controversy in Texas.

Image source: Imanacademy.org

Iman Academy, an Islamic school in Texas with 500 students, was hoping to join the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS), an organization that manages competition among hundreds of schools in the state. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that a traditionally Christian organization was less than thrilled at Iman Academy’s interest in membership. But I can’t see how athletic association between schools has anything whatsoever to do with religion.

TAPPS has a history of religious intolerance. Recently the school refused to reschedule a game against an Orthodox Jewish team. The game fell on the Sabbath. Negative publicity and legal pressure shamed TAPPS into acquiescing but their stance on non-Christian religious observance is clear: non-Christian holidays simply aren’t as important as Christian holidays and don’t need to be respected.

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Apparently TAPPS didn’t learn much from the misstep. After Iman Academy requested membership, TAPPS sent a questionnaire filled with strange religious and political questions that have nothing whatsoever to do with sports. Questions like: “How does your school address certain Christian concepts? (i.e. celebrating Christmas); and “Historically, there is nothing in the Koran that fully embraces Christianity or Judaism in the way a Christian and/or a Jew understands his religion. Why, then, are you interested in joining an association whose basic beliefs your religion condemns?”

First, why in the world does it matter what Iman Academy thinks of Christmas? They’re not asking to come to your Christmas Eve dinner, they’re asking to play sports. Second, is it really necessary for someone to embrace your religion for you to play them in basketball? Apparently, to TAPPS, it is. To their credit, Iman Academy responded to the questionnaire. They were promptly denied membership. They aren’t challenging the ruling—it would likely be futile if they did. TAPPS is a private organization that doesn’t seem open to changing its policies any time soon. Fortunately, Iman Academy is managing to schedule games on their own. They don’t need TAPPS to play ball. The thing that bothers me the most about this story is the effect it’s having on the kids. Are they feeling anxious about playing against their Christian neighbors? Well, if they weren’t before, they probably are now.

Image source: Fairvaluesforamerica.com

If I were asked to identify one entity that I felt, if changed, would dramatically improve the image and lives of Muslims in America, it would be Fox News. This is thoroughly unsurprising. Fox has a longstanding reputation for vitriol. Even Fox’s fans recognize the polarization—for Fox vs. against—that splits our popular culture like a knife through butter. But they may not recognize the fabricated stories, the lack of fact checking, or the rampant opinion masquerading as real news. And can we really blame them? Every program on the network is designed to entertain, to shock, to terrorize, and to rally, and each of those things is compelling.

Image source: Article.wn.com

While I may despise many of the things people say, I am a fierce proponent of free speech. I believe it is one of the things that makes America the right place for me to live. I often fantasize about moving to France, but then I read about how Sarkozy wants to criminalize denial of the Armenian genocide and I remember: free speech should never be subjective. Most of the time I see the world through shades of gray. Nothing is ever truly polarized. Everything is a continuum. But when it comes to free speech, I believe everyone, no matter what they say or where they say it, should have the freedom to speak. Partly this conviction comes from a deep fear of being silenced. I am not good at keeping my mouth shut, especially when I’m told what not to say. I believe the human mind should not be restrained. Words may hurt but the listener always has the option of not listening.

Image source: Hyscience.com

My conviction is heartily tested by the pundits on Fox News. I am glad that we live in a place where people with such offensive opinions can voice them. I am not glad, however, that we don’t do more to put them in context. Part of me wishes we could use dirty politics to cut their funding or hackers to scramble their signal. But that’s not American, and it’s illegal.

Image source: Mediaite.com

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if everyone truly believed what they heard on Fox. They would live in a bunker. They would constantly fear the threat of a gang of zombie Muslim extremists in their back yard. They would stockpile guns. They would become the terrorists they fear. I don’t pretend to know what can be done about Fox News. Perhaps the more we rant and rave about it the more people will listen. I’m not sure that’s true—sometimes the more you rant and rave the more people stop listening—but I see no alternative. If Fox can use free speech to shape the hearts and minds of Americans, then so can I.

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Dean Obeidallah is a comedian with a mission. He wants to show Americans that Arabs can laugh. In an interview for CNN, he talks about the strangeness of the stoic Arab in popular culture—serious, dangerous, and up to no good—who laughs maniacally and only at misfortune. He wants to change that cultural meme by cracking everyone up. Obeidallah accomplishes this by doing what all comics do: making merciless fun of his own people.

A while back I wrote about a hilarious Onion video clip in which an Onion reporter pokes fun at a very serious matter: our intense suspicion and persecution of regular Muslim people. Obeidallah does the same thing, only his comedy is even more piercing, perhaps because he is talking about his own culture. While Obeidallah does tend to shy away from the obvious tropes—9-11, terrorism, plane travel, Mosques at ground zero—sometimes he can’t help himself. Those tropes are rich veins for comedy. In an interview on The View, he exclaimed: “dress white, make your flight.”

In a strange way, he is normalizing Muslim and Arab Americans by providing stereotypes for popular culture that inspire comedy rather than fear. For example, Obeidallah makes fun of his culture for its love of smoking tobacco with a bit about smoking on the treadmill. He makes fun of how Arab people love to talk in the movie theater. While these are obviously generalizations, they are very similar to other stereotypical topics favored by comedians. For decades comics have been riffing on the black-people-don’t-tip stereotype, or the stereotype that white people can’t dance. Introducing some Arab truisms into the comic’s toolbox means more comics will feel comfortable including Arabs in their acts.

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Comedy has always served as a venue for exploring prejudice and for making sense out of hatred. The political cartoons of the 17^th century, the slapstick of vaudeville, and the fake news of John Stewart all serve to illustrate ourselves to ourselves. The more people like Obeidallah get us laughing at the ridiculousness of our policies and our prejudice the more they get us thinking about our failings.

Forward-thinking comedians setting trends for the future:

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Sometimes, ironically, the people who are the funniest are the people in the worst situations. Arabs and Muslims in America have been the subject of so much controversy, so much slander, there hasn’t been a whole lot of laughing. But all that suffering has an upside: it’s great material for stand-up. Obeidallah’s latest tour, The Muslims are Coming, features a host of Muslim comedians in a troupe-like comedy show. They may appearing in a city near you!

Image source: Newsrealblog.com

After the All American Muslim/Lowe’s fiasco I’m a little overwhelmed with television. I’ve read about a hundred blog posts about why reality television is the right forum for exploring islamophobia, and about a hundred posts about why it’s all wrong for the job. To summarize: reality television’s ubiquity makes it accessible, but it also cheapens human experience and sensationalizes real issues. Reality television isn’t real, it’s edited and produced. The image we see of a “normal” Muslim family is a product of our appetite for entertainment. This means, while it may do some good, it may also be exploitative and misleading.

I’m about as sick as a person can be of this particular controversy but it did make me start to think about how entertainment can be used for promoting healthy dialogue. Whilst researching that idea I came across a year-old quote from Katie Couric on the topic. Somehow I missed this insulting gem the first time around. Couric: “Maybe we need a Muslim version of The Cosby Show. I know that sounds crazy but The Cosby Show did so much to change the attitudes about African Americans in this country, and I think sometimes people are afraid of what they don’t understand.”

The fancy Huxtable family home:

Image source: Molecularshyness.wordpress.com

I’ve always felt slightly insulted by the cultural street cred the Cosby show enjoys. Yes, it’s great to have approachable public figures like Bill Cosby or Oprah Winfrey that create a positive public image for a minority, but when that image is manufactured it reflects a stereotype of safety. The Cosby Show is about a professional, black family. They’re rich, upper class, highly educated and decidedly bland. It’s no surprise that people felt like they could relate to the Huxtables—they were engineered to appeal to a general audience. The show stripped away African American culture leaving a digestible, starchy snack food of a show that made people feel good about their open mindedness.

I’m not sure a sitcom like that about a Muslim family would do anything but insult real Muslim families. Removing the controversial aspects of a culture may be great for promoting a safe public image but does it really serve the greater cause? I don’t want to cater to people’s prejudice by providing them with a simplistic and fake representation of reality.

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Maybe I’m asking for too much. I just think the deep controversy over extremism, the history, the media firestorm, the pervasive prejudice, are all important parts of the Muslim American story. Maybe a show like All in the Family would be better—a show that makes fun of all the cultural baggage with a character we can love to hate. That’s something I’d watch.

Image source: Rpgp.berkeley.edu

I am not a religious person. When I was a child, my parents encouraged me to attend religious events, to find my own way. I went to a Catholic church for a while, then to a synagogue, then to a mosque. I read the Bible, the Quran, the Popol Vuh, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Torah. In the end, I couldn’t decide which story made the most sense. Why should I believe in Jesus over Zeus? I realized that, for me, evidence-obsessed as I am, the thing that made the most sense was no story at all. Sometimes I wish I had a shared story with a group of people, so we could all feel connected. For me, the lure of religion (and please forgive me if this is sacrilegious) is more about people, friends and neighbors, than it is about God. Though I do feel connected to other non-religious people, it’s informal and we don’t have a place of worship.

Atheists get a bad rep sometimes. People think we’re anti-religion and that’s usually not the case. I deeply respect people who have found a religion that speaks to them, that feels true. I think we are all trying to make sense of a maddeningly dynamic and changeable world and religion is often a wonderful way to do that. It also offers such a strong sense of community and common purpose, something many non-religious people struggle to find.

An Atheist billboard promoting the separation of church and state:

Image source: Commonsenseatheism.com

Being non-religious has also given me an unaffiliated view of the role religion plays in our culture. For example, I find it deeply hypocritical that every single one of our presidents has been a Christian. The separation of church and state is a myth. Christianity and, more specifically, believing in the Christian God, almost seems like a prerequisite to being an American. The presidents stand up there and talk about God and I feel disenfranchised—a president should not be assuming his entire population shares his religious beliefs. It’s insulting and, worse, frightening. If we are all truly free to believe what we choose, why is our government openly choosing to endorse a specific belief structure?

Image source: Democracy-in-America.com

In this context, Islamophobia seems based just as much on an ideological fear of a different religion as it is based on any act of terrorism. We have an African-American president. Gay marriage is legal in some states. Yet, if we listen to people like Rick Santorum or Rick Womick, a group unified by a common religion is still a “danger” to our way of life. Yes, ideology is different from sexual orientation or race, but it is no less deserving of our respect.

Image source: Carltonjordan.com

Before 9-11 the word Muslim meant Muhammed Ali, Kareem Abdul Jabbar or Malcolm X. To an American teenager, these associations were formative. Muslims were pop culture icons. They were idolized alongside the rest of our political figures, sports stars, and Hollywood actors. But then 9-11 happened and everything changed. I think this is a tragic but deeply interesting example of how our media, our politicians, and our prejudices can transform our cultural perceptions, shaping the prejudice of an entire generation.

Image source: Sportressofblogitude.com

We all know that 9-11 was a terrible violent act. But the maelstrom that happened in its aftermath was almost as violent and terrible, and I’m not even talking about the phantom WMD-led wild goose chase war. Watching the news in the weeks and months after the event was like taking a course in how to plant fear, water it, give it sun, and make it grow strong. Everyone felt vulnerable after the attacks. Suddenly, no matter what part of the country we lived in, how wealthy we were, or how safe we’d felt before, we were all victims. I remember feeling like my family could be in danger. It was the first time in my life I’d ever felt like that.

It’s telling that I’d never felt that fear before. America has been an extremely peaceful place to live for a very long time. We’ve forgotten how it feels to be in danger in our own homes. When we felt that danger for the first time in many years, we reacted poorly, and there was nobody—not the media, not the president, not the academics—there to hold our hands, to speak a calming word, to remind us of our privilege and our safety.

Image source: Theatlantic.com

So, systematically, we re-defined what it meant to be a Muslim in America. My mom is a professor and three of her Muslim students dropped out of school in the weeks after the attacks. They were the targets of the other students’ fear. Today, Muslim people in the U.S. live in fear of islamophobia every day. Today, when the word Muslim hits our popular consciousness, we don’t think of those people like Malcolm X who made our country what it is today. We think of terrorist plots and Guantanamo Bay and war. I’m sure this is not the legacy the victims of 9-11 would have hoped for. We have a responsibility to make our kids listen: we need to teach them about the great Muslim people in our nation’s history. The next generation decides our future. Let’s make it a future we can be proud of.