The Stream : Preaching against poverty

Transcript Details

Event Name: The Stream : Preaching against poverty
Description: Original transcript Youtube.com, then edited
Transcription Date:Transcription Modified Date: 4/30/2019 1:10:07 PM
Transcript Version: 2


Transcript Text

ims are

afraid of is their governments and

that's what they're they're afraid or

American bombs dropping on their head or

drone strikes those are the things that

Muslims are afraid of they're not afraid

of their next-door neighbor you actually

have a great leader of our online

community from below I'm just going to

quickly read this Muslims in North

America are split along ethnicity

parties and home countries they are not

one block like jus so that goes to

exactly what you were saying is I agree

we're not monolithic you know and I

think also they're not the Jews aren't

one block either I think that's a gross

generalization generalization the Jewish

community has people from Eduardo Kohan

Noam Chomsky to you know po turrets and

these right-wing people you know the

Weekly Standard so you get a whole

spectrum in the Jewish community and you

know they're very liberal Jews their

Marxist Jews there are you know Zionist

Jews yeah i think is important to

introduce into this conversation that

the language of us and them this

language isn't going to advance the

human project at this point it's time to

redirect the language and think that

we're all in this together and and to

it's time for our society here in the

West it's time for us to do some

introspection it's indeed terrible that

400 4,000 or 5,000 American soldiers

light lost their lives in Iraq but it's

even more terrible that over

Iraqis have lost their lives due to the

same okay so that also also we've got

we've got ten suicides a day of American

soldier actually a it's 1818 yeah 18 a

day I mean we're using cyl intersections

here between the Islamic message in the

Christian message in the Jewish meshes

where does this all converge to to

actually change this is the human mess

it's a human message right I'll call

that bet yeah I know but the religious

look first of all you know you you've

lived long enough to know that most

people just want to be left alone you

know people don't like to have their

toes stepped on you know I once stepped

on somebody's toes imam zaid was with me

I almost got my head cut off you know

because you know people don't like to to

be a you know dist as they say in this

culture and and when you go around

denigrating people we have laws almost

every European nation has hate laws you

know first freedom speech like look look

up the the the Irish law of 1989 of hate

speech you know you have we signed on to

the United Nations we have a covenant of

political and civil rights article 20 of

that covenant says that you cannot

insight to hatred of of race nationality

or religion and a lot of what's

happening now is this is incitement to

hatred that there are people that really

have a lot invested in creating a lot of

hatred Stephen King wrote an interesting

novel called needful things you know

about this character that goes into a

town and opens a little store and

everybody wants to buy they go and they

find what exactly what they want but he

makes them do a little thing and by the

end of it the whole town is just

fighting each other and he packs up and

leaves you and that's the devil's role

whether you believe in Devils you know

these kind of spiritual beings or just

human demons it's a demonic role to

split people I have no reason to take

offense from you unless you give me

reason and and I think most people are

like that but you have people out there

that have you know just they have

agendas there are people that make money

off war there are people that make money

off weapons these are real people out

there and we should be forewarned about

them and do everything we can and we

should be presenting an alternative

Bailey agreeing with you I want to

quickly bring them in on society because

it just makes sense we have a tweet here

from war fail Oakland he says you both

keep bringing up patients us from the

third world have been dealing with

oppression occupation colonization for

200 years I also quickly want to go to

Google hangout listen we're not talking

about just gonna hang out really quickly

I'm so sorry hint oh sorry go ahead and

finish sticker I'm so sorry sir no

saying the word patients came up once or

twice in this conversation we're talking

about how we can begin to look at these

problems differently how can we

introduce new parameters to frame right

discussions are ongoing on responding

instead of reacting and I mean that's

that's a different approach and also

framing these issues in terms of human

problems so we can take remove the

ground from under the demagogues who

capitalize on these divisions rather

their religious ratio or otherwise that

we we're in this together and these

extremists on both sides and it's a part

of the problem you know they're

extremists in this country you know that

are articulating these visions you can

there's an interesting book that just

came out about the the Muslim tide and

what he argues in that book is a

guardian writer but what he argues in

there is that you know this guy brevik

in in in Finland when he went out went

berserk which is I think a Scandinavian

word when he went berserk and killed 69

people wounded 150 if you actually read

his screed which is a 1583 pages it's

all about Muslims taking over Europe

this thing that but yeah or calls

eurabia and and they've proven and

there's a TED talk that proved that

Muslim demographics are dropping

radically Iran has lower birth rates

than many European countries right now

so there's this whole myth of the

Muslims are coming the Muslims are

coming be scared be afraid that used to

be the Red Menace you know my mom grew

up with the Red Menace alright that used

to be the the you know the Communists

were coming why do we need these

boogeymen when we're dealing with real

problems we have global warming we're

being told that that the ice is

melting on the on the plant we've got

fish are disappearing from the oceans

they say that in 20 years at current

fishing rates we won't have tuna fish

you just mentioned obesity problems

we've got one out of four people in this

country is dying of cancer right one out

of three women are going to get cancer

in their lifetime why aren't we

addressing all of this human energy to

the real problems of human beings and

not all these artificially created

problems because many of these problems

are really artificially created I'm

actually going to quickly go to Google

hangout we have hens from Chicago you

have a question for us about young

Muslims him can you hear me yes I can

hear you so I take them to the Imams

thank you for your really lively

discussion I actually agree with you

that it's important for the Muslim

community to take back the narrative but

my question is more around some of the

work that American Muslims specifically

are already doing many young American

Muslims are already working in the inner

city I'm from Chicago so I know a lot of

the work that myself and my friends are

doing working in the city trying to

prevent violence I'm trying to get some

healthy food in the inner city and

addressing like the food desert

situation and I want to maybe get an

answer from both of you do you think

that this kind of work that a lot of

American Muslims are doing even though

it's not really documented in a in a

narrative sort of way do you think

that's a of the maturation of the Muslim

society here in the US and then what are

some of your thoughts in terms of

actually sharing these stories with our

neighbors thank you well we know like

Iman the inner city project Rama Rama

Mississippi and others that are doing

also you have violence prevention that's

going on former gang members that became

Muslim to do these things I think one of

the major errors of the immigrant

community was not to recognize the

importance of the African American

Muslim community in these inner cities

so a lot of the inner-city Muslims were

neglected so you have this a lot of

wealth from doctors and engineers and

they fail to recognize that actually

these people aren't immigrants there

they're a large Muslim community that

have been here for decades and in fact

you can trace it back over 100 years for

some of them

so you know these have been strategic

errors and and ethical errors in my

estimation but I think there are a lot

of positive things happening and

certainly Chicago is one of the main

hubs for a lot of some of the most

positive Muslim activity in the United

States so hats off and I think that that

this is a very important sign of

maturation that you do have the

wealthier suburban more immigrant based

communities working with inner-city

initiatives such as in Chicago amen and

other efforts we job recently had an

Oakland California humanitarian day to

provide school supplies and other goods

to inner-city children and most of those

supplies were purchased by members of

the suburban community so you see these

efforts of Muslims crossing lines that

have formerly kept them apart you see

those lines being transcended and you

see a car leasing of collective action

so I think it's a sign of maturity and

it speaks for itself we don't need

orchestrated media campaign to lend an

artificial sense of just we're doing

some let's grow organically build a

better mousetrap in the whole world

including the media will beat a path to

your door I actually want to quickly go

over to our google hangout we have a

sama you have a question to us about

zaytuna college salma I think we lost

Google and all of their you are great

can you hear me yea Somali come to you

to imam zaid and touche from the end

everybody else here I just had a quick

question about zaytuna college I know

it's not really on topic but um since

you guys are still on accredited

institution and no really educational

governing body really in the world kind

of recognizes the college of degrees

that it Awards how do you guys plan on

maintaining say to the College in terms

of financially from in its image without

the world to make sure that keeps

getting students and tap trees its

revenue to increase its like just it's

like extending well i mean first of all

we are we are our degree is recognized

by a few different universities that

will accept for instance we just signed

a

of understanding with jami al fatiha in

istanbul in turkey that the prime

minister's son was actually the host

that evening of the event and they will

take our students in their masters and

PhD programs when they graduate we also

have understanding its in its developing

but we have an understanding and our

student from a pilot program was

accepted into the Graduate theological

union which has a joint program with UC

Berkeley so we are students can go to

accredited graduate schools in terms of

the sustainability jake onson so sorry

we have about 30 seconds left in the

program for you to just more

philosophically than talking about the

nuts and bolts of the school wrap wrap

this up for us right wrap up this

discussion you know I think it's good

that you guys are facilitating

alternative voices I think al Jazeera

despite the fact that you know some of

the aspects of it are troubling in their

imitation of Western media I think it's

it's important to have alternative

voices and I certainly think that giving

opportunities for people like ourselves

we're often completely marginalized in

in other media outlets I mean I've done

pre-interviews where they just say okay

we don't want to talk to you you know so

I you know I want to thank you for

allowing this this opportunity support

our college please and imam zaid you can

close it out this is how we are out of

time with imam zaid and shake council

you so thank you so much for being with

us we do want to take one more minute

that i gave over to a new shay with a

few story leads were following

the University of California is awarding

close to 1 million dollars to students

and alumni for police violence during a

campus protest you may recall this image

of university police pepper spraying

peaceful demonstrators who are

protesting tuition hikes that's public

money paying the cost of brutality

tweets Parker Higgins our next leads

from reddit where forum users attempt to

embarrass a woman took an unexpected

turn a user posted this photo of a Sikh

woman with the caption I'm not sure what

to conclude from this but user ball

Preet Kaur who identified herself as a

girl from the picture responded I'm not

embarrassed or even humiliated by the

attention that this picture is getting

because it's Who I am yes I'm a baptized

seek woman with facial hair Sikhs do not

reject the body that has been given to

us her response prompted an apology from

the original poster he wrote after

apologizing and talking with ball Preet

I've seen how stupid this post was in

the first place it isn't funny at all

our last lead is a new website that

tracks homophobic language in real time

on twitter canadian university officials

created no homophobes calm as a social

mirror to show prevalence of casual

homophobia and society the site tracks

mentions of four different derogatory

phrases over time lastly a little red

line on Iran's nuclear program drawn by

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu is sparking online comments

speaking at the UN Netanyahu took a red

marker to a bomb diagram to show that he

thinks Iran is close to having a nuclear

capability netizens were quick to react

and Netanyahu's name skyrocketed to

20,000 mentions on twitter many of the

tweets were tongue-in-cheek sorry can't

tell you what the red line is av Meyer

tweets I can just tell you it's about an

inch and a half from the fuse on the

cartoon bomb others thought Netanyahu's

approach was effective Omri says every

single article is going to be about

Netanyahu drawing a red line on Iran

bomb message managed no you can find

links to all those leads on Twitter so

make sure to follow us at aj scream Lisa

alright that's all the time we have

thanks so much for joining us for this

extended version of this dream now on

monday us child obesity rates have

tripled over the last 30 years will this

generation of Americans be the first to

live shorter

lives than their parents tweet us your

questions and your comments or go to our

website and send us your video comments

until Monday we'll see you online

you