0:00:00.376,0:00:01.728
"Has the crowd dispersed now?"

0:00:01.728,0:00:03.705
"No, its still out there, but unarmed.

0:00:03.705,0:00:05.418
Just chanting. You know, standard

0:00:05.418,0:00:07.278
'Death to America' stuff."

0:00:13.271,0:00:15.244
From True Lies to American Sniper,

0:00:15.244,0:00:16.299
From 24 to

0:00:16.299,0:00:17.708
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare,

0:00:17.708,0:00:19.323
western media is full of images of

0:00:19.323,0:00:21.136
evil brown people who need to be wiped

0:00:21.136,0:00:23.458
from the earth by noble righteous white men,

0:00:23.458,0:00:26.194
heroically fighting for freedom and justice.

0:00:26.194,0:00:28.226
And sure, it's so commonplace by this point

0:00:28.226,0:00:29.515
that maybe you don't even bat an eye at

0:00:29.515,0:00:31.369
old-fashioned American Islamophobia

0:00:31.369,0:00:32.722
in our media.

0:00:34.377,0:00:36.422
"[laughter]

0:00:36.762,0:00:39.754
[characters speaking in Arabic]

0:00:57.784,0:01:03.991
[protestors chanting in Arabic]

0:01:07.191,0:01:08.364
"This is a hijack!"

0:01:08.364,0:01:10.915
[passengers screaming]

0:01:12.665,0:01:14.479
"Sit down! Sit down!"

0:01:16.489,0:01:19.303
"Nobody move! Nobody!"

0:01:19.303,0:01:19.856
"All right!"

0:01:27.796,0:01:30.621
"Engage hostile targets as they appear!"

0:01:30.621,0:01:32.137
"Waste the motherfuckers!"

0:01:32.438,0:01:35.880
"You have killed our women and our children.

0:01:35.880,0:01:38.050
"Bombed our cities from afar...

0:01:38.050,0:01:39.806
"like cowards...and you dare

0:01:39.806,0:01:41.866
"to call us 'terrorists"?!"

0:01:41.866,0:01:43.463
"Here, my desert blossom.

0:01:43.463,0:01:45.132
"Keep the change!

0:01:45.132,0:01:49.023
"Have you ever considered joining a harem?"

0:01:49.523,0:01:51.382
"Oh my God. They found me.

0:01:51.382,0:01:53.012
"I don't know how, but they found me."

0:01:57.272,0:01:58.481
"Nooooooo!"

0:01:58.481,0:02:00.845
What?! Back to the Future!!

0:02:00.845,0:02:02.732
Even that beloved comedy classic

0:02:02.732,0:02:04.783
takes a moment to toss in a few scary brown men

0:02:04.783,0:02:07.514
to menace and terrorize our white heroes.

0:02:07.514,0:02:09.441
Unfortunately, we can't hop in

0:02:09.441,0:02:10.449
Doc Brown's DeLorean

0:02:10.449,0:02:12.642
and undo all the harmful representations of

0:02:12.642,0:02:14.768
Muslims, Arabs, and Middle Easterners

0:02:14.768,0:02:16.359
that have haunted our stories since,

0:02:16.359,0:02:18.667
well, basically since the Crusades.

0:02:18.667,0:02:20.509
But we can make sure that history

0:02:20.509,0:02:22.955
doesn't keep repeating itself.

0:02:25.027,0:02:27.844
Ok, ok. Maybe that's not entirely fair.

0:02:27.844,0:02:29.928
In some ways, things have changed.

0:02:29.928,0:02:30.860
Once upon a time,

0:02:30.860,0:02:31.996
non-white actors could hardly

0:02:31.996,0:02:33.866
get any work in Hollywood at all.

0:02:33.866,0:02:34.980
These days, shows like

0:02:34.980,0:02:36.149
Homeland and movies like

0:02:36.149,0:02:37.954
Executive Decision are providing some brown

0:02:37.954,0:02:40.502
actors with ample opportunity to portray

0:02:40.502,0:02:42.583
scary terrorists who get gunned down

0:02:42.583,0:02:43.980
while screaming something absurd like

0:02:43.980,0:02:45.614
"Death to America!"

0:02:45.614,0:02:47.039
It doesn't even matter if you're not actually

0:02:47.039,0:02:48.332
of Middle Eastern descent.

0:02:48.332,0:02:50.588
If you're vaguely brown, you can stick around

0:02:50.588,0:02:53.253
(to play bad guys).

0:03:04.981,0:03:07.962
"Oh, are you an artist, Mr. Thurkettle?"

0:03:07.962,0:03:10.136
"No, uh, sir. I work for a little company

0:03:10.136,0:03:12.932
"called Texan Oil."

0:03:12.932,0:03:17.848
"Well, there is no oil here, Mr Thurkettle."

0:03:17.848,0:03:18.902
"Just sand."

0:03:20.272,0:03:22.214
Now sure, not every Middle Eastern character

0:03:22.214,0:03:23.484
in films is a villain.

0:03:23.484,0:03:25.724
In the 1921 box-office smash,

0:03:25.724,0:03:26.685
The Sheik,

0:03:26.685,0:03:28.903
the dashing hero gets the girl in the end.

0:03:28.903,0:03:30.944
But the Arab world of the film is presented as

0:03:30.944,0:03:32.487
exotic and dangerous,

0:03:32.487,0:03:33.592
and the sheik himself,

0:03:33.592,0:03:35.736
the one, good, heroic Arab,

0:03:35.736,0:03:38.451
is played by Italian-American heartthrob

0:03:38.451,0:03:40.088
Rudolph Valentino.

0:03:40.088,0:03:41.692
You see, since he's not really Arab,

0:03:41.692,0:03:44.919
he's allowed to get the girl in the end.

0:03:45.520,0:03:47.106
If you think this kind of racist coding

0:03:47.106,0:03:48.324
to signify the difference between

0:03:48.324,0:03:50.001
"good" Arabs and "bad" Arabs went away with the

0:03:50.001,0:03:52.635
advent of talkies, think again.

0:03:52.635,0:03:54.748
Have you ever noticed how in Disney's Aladdin,

0:03:54.748,0:03:55.866
the good guy might as well be

0:03:55.866,0:03:57.863
a tanned American surfer dude,

0:03:57.863,0:04:01.272
but the bad guys look and sound a little more...

0:04:01.272,0:04:03.766
uh, Arab?

0:04:04.915,0:04:07.048
"You are late."

0:04:07.048,0:04:10.019
"A thousand apologies, oh patient one."

0:04:10.019,0:04:11.282
"You have it then?"

0:04:11.282,0:04:12.962
"I had to slit a few throats,

0:04:12.962,0:04:14.746
but I got it."

0:04:14.833,0:04:16.725
While Hollywood has historically given

0:04:16.725,0:04:19.023
"good" Arab roles to non-Arab actors,

0:04:19.023,0:04:21.242
it has also given not-so-good Arab

0:04:21.242,0:04:23.576
and South Asian roles to white actors, too --

0:04:23.576,0:04:25.446
denying brown people work and decent

0:04:25.446,0:04:27.982
on-screen representation in one fell swoop.

0:04:27.982,0:04:31.245
It's basically the world's worst Catch-22.

0:04:31.245,0:04:33.054
For example, take Mr. Habib,

0:04:33.054,0:04:34.912
the scheming Middle Eastern villain in

0:04:34.912,0:04:36.470
Father of the Bride 2,

0:04:36.470,0:04:38.059
who's played by Eugene Levy.

0:04:38.059,0:04:40.566
"The Habibs would like to buy the house, George."

0:04:40.566,0:04:42.111
"It's exactly what they've been looking for!"

0:04:42.111,0:04:43.367
"We've lived here for 18 years."

0:04:43.367,0:04:44.446
"I don't know if we can get everything--"

0:04:44.446,0:04:46.458
[gibberish]

0:04:47.848,0:04:49.250
Those aren't even real words

0:04:49.250,0:04:50.887
he's saying to his wife!

0:04:50.887,0:04:54.261
It's just vaguely Middle-Eastern sounding gibberish

0:04:54.261,0:04:55.446
And the written equivalent of this is

0:04:55.446,0:04:57.134
very common as well.

0:04:57.134,0:04:58.345
Video games and tv shows

0:04:58.345,0:05:00.030
constantly just toss up some squiggly text

0:05:00.030,0:05:03.549
and try to pass it off as actual Arabic.

0:05:03.549,0:05:05.391
Well, this one is Arabic,

0:05:05.391,0:05:06.364
but it sure doesn't say what the

0:05:06.364,0:05:08.999
producers of Homeland wanted it to!

0:05:08.999,0:05:10.322
As insidious as it is to flatten

0:05:10.322,0:05:12.214
entire cultures and populations into

0:05:12.214,0:05:14.099
The Land of Squiggly Writing,

0:05:14.099,0:05:16.105
there's nothing so pervasive and damaging

0:05:16.105,0:05:18.591
as Hollywood's tendency to constantly portray

0:05:18.591,0:05:19.981
vaguely-Middle Eastern people

0:05:19.981,0:05:21.741
as generic terrorists.

0:05:21.741,0:05:23.687
It's so common that, on-screen,

0:05:23.687,0:05:25.788
brown skin has practically become synonymous

0:05:25.788,0:05:27.617
with bad guys who have little or no

0:05:27.617,0:05:28.732
character development beyond

0:05:28.732,0:05:32.745
hating America and freedom fries.

0:05:36.451,0:05:39.361
[screaming]

0:05:41.771,0:05:43.836
"Allahu Akbar!"

0:05:45.670,0:05:46.603
Ah! Thanks, Jack Bauer!

0:05:46.603,0:05:48.108
What would we do without you?

0:05:48.988,0:05:50.495
One of the biggest problems with this

0:05:50.495,0:05:52.565
is that it erases the actual lives and cultures

0:05:52.565,0:05:54.302
of Middle Eastern people and leads

0:05:54.302,0:05:56.024
many Western viewers to lump all of them

0:05:56.024,0:05:57.561
into the same group.

0:05:57.561,0:05:59.415
So let's start by clarifying a few terms

0:05:59.415,0:06:01.008
whose meaning has been obscured by

0:06:01.008,0:06:02.864
media that paints the entire Middle East

0:06:02.864,0:06:05.763
with the same broad, shallow, ignorant brush.

0:06:05.763,0:06:07.456
First of all, we've done a lot of research,

0:06:07.456,0:06:09.008
on this, and as it turns out

0:06:09.008,0:06:11.276
words actually have meanings.

0:06:11.276,0:06:12.482
Weird, right?

0:06:12.482,0:06:14.479
You can't just lump Arabs and Muslims together

0:06:14.479,0:06:16.538
because they're not the same thing!

0:06:16.538,0:06:18.500
Arabs are a specific ethnic group,

0:06:18.500,0:06:20.281
united by culture and language,

0:06:20.281,0:06:21.864
and who primarily originate from

0:06:21.864,0:06:23.312
Middle Eastern countries.

0:06:23.312,0:06:27.169
Arab is not, repeat not, a racial category.

0:06:27.169,0:06:28.016
Got it?

0:06:28.016,0:06:29.781
You can be white, black, brown

0:06:29.781,0:06:31.152
and still be Arab.

0:06:31.152,0:06:33.386
But not all people from the Middle East are Arab,

0:06:33.386,0:06:34.608
and vice versa.

0:06:34.608,0:06:37.528
Like, say, ethnic Persians in Iran.

0:06:37.528,0:06:39.467
A "Muslim" is someone who practices Islam,

0:06:39.467,0:06:42.296
a religion with over 1.7 billion members

0:06:42.296,0:06:43.662
spanning a vast number of ethnic

0:06:43.662,0:06:45.524
and cultural identities.

0:06:45.524,0:06:47.708
The Muslim world actually comprises a multitude

0:06:47.708,0:06:50.086
of groups that folks often forget, including

0:06:50.086,0:06:52.576
Iranians, South Asians, North Africans,

0:06:52.576,0:06:54.844
Indonesians, black Americans...

0:06:54.844,0:06:57.162
Islam is not confined to the Middle East,

0:06:57.162,0:06:58.240
to olive-skinned people,

0:06:58.240,0:07:00.666
or just people who speak Arabic.

0:07:00.666,0:07:02.621
But despite the fact that Islam is a religion,

0:07:02.621,0:07:03.385
not a race,

0:07:03.385,0:07:04.785
it's vital for us to understand that

0:07:04.785,0:07:07.534
Islamophobia is racism.

0:07:07.534,0:07:08.731
If you've been paying attention thus far,

0:07:08.731,0:07:09.874
you might be asking yourself,

0:07:09.874,0:07:11.364
if Islam isn't a race,

0:07:11.364,0:07:13.744
then how can Islamophobia be racism?

0:07:13.744,0:07:15.439
The answer lies in another "ism,"

0:07:15.439,0:07:16.700
one many Westerners aren't

0:07:16.700,0:07:20.010
particularly familar with: that's Orientalism.

0:07:20.010,0:07:22.267
In short, the term "Orientalism" refers to how,

0:07:22.267,0:07:23.527
for hundreds of years,

0:07:23.527,0:07:25.460
Western artistic and academic history

0:07:25.460,0:07:27.580
has perpetuated an ignorant and prejudiced

0:07:27.580,0:07:29.186
view of "the East."

0:07:29.186,0:07:31.153
A view rooted in the idea of Western culture as

0:07:31.153,0:07:33.274
inherently more advanced and enlightened,

0:07:33.274,0:07:35.646
and Eastern culture as more inherently more ignorant,

0:07:35.646,0:07:37.435
irrational, primitive, and often,

0:07:37.435,0:07:38.916
highly-sexualized.

0:07:38.916,0:07:40.784
Again, Muslims come from many different races,

0:07:40.784,0:07:43.183
and span a myriad of cultural identities.

0:07:43.183,0:07:44.690
In fact, the former president

0:07:44.690,0:07:46.471
of the Islamic Society of North America

0:07:46.471,0:07:48.646
is a white woman, Dr. Ingrid Mattson;

0:07:48.646,0:07:50.212
but let's be real:

0:07:50.212,0:07:51.237
nobody who spreads the hate of Islam

0:07:51.237,0:07:53.241
is talking about white ladies.

0:07:53.241,0:07:54.887
Western media has contributed to a level

0:07:54.887,0:07:56.719
of ignorance so great, that for many

0:07:56.719,0:07:57.749
people, it has resulted in

0:07:57.749,0:07:59.744
equating Islam with scary brown people,

0:07:59.744,0:08:01.845
particularly scary brown men

0:08:01.845,0:08:03.180
from the Middle East.

0:08:03.180,0:08:04.248
It's been so effective,

0:08:04.248,0:08:06.020
that most of you probably didn't even know

0:08:06.020,0:08:08.757
that this man isn't Muslim -- he's Sikh!

0:08:16.547,0:08:17.850
It isn't just film and television that

0:08:17.850,0:08:19.867
perpetuates this kind of ignorance.

0:08:19.867,0:08:21.349
Here's comedian Kumail Nanjiani

0:08:21.349,0:08:23.263
on how video games often don't put in the

0:08:23.263,0:08:26.052
absolute bare minimum of effort or research

0:08:26.052,0:08:27.747
when representing the Middle East --

0:08:27.747,0:08:29.663
or South Asia for that matter--

0:08:29.663,0:08:30.720
which is not the same thing as

0:08:30.720,0:08:32.225
the Middle East!

0:08:32.225,0:08:33.939
"Ok, so the language we speak in Pakistan

0:08:33.939,0:08:34.625
"is Urdu.

0:08:34.625,0:08:36.208
"That's the name of the language we speak: Urdu.

0:08:36.208,0:08:38.385
"But all the street signs in Karachi in

0:08:38.385,0:08:41.116
"Call of Duty are in Arabic...

0:08:41.116,0:08:44.707
"yeah, it's a completely different language.

0:08:44.707,0:08:47.277
"And I know it does not seem like a big deal,

0:08:47.277,0:08:49.481
"but this game took three years to make.

0:08:49.481,0:08:51.589
"If you look at it, the graphics are perfect.

0:08:51.589,0:08:53.591
"You can see individual hairs on people's heads;

0:08:53.591,0:08:54.707
"when they run, they sweat.

0:08:54.707,0:08:56.846
"When they run, their shoelaces bounce!

0:08:56.846,0:08:58.319
"All they had to do was Google:

0:08:58.319,0:09:01.616
"Pakistan language."

0:09:03.924,0:09:05.090
"They were literally like,

0:09:05.090,0:09:06.512
'What language do they speak in Pakistan?'

0:09:06.512,0:09:08.250
'I don't care.

0:09:09.184,0:09:11.753
"I can't get his sideburns even."

0:09:13.510,0:09:15.377
Modern films, tv shows, and games

0:09:15.377,0:09:17.239
definitely perpetuate Islamophobia,

0:09:17.239,0:09:18.823
but it's no exxageration to say that

0:09:18.823,0:09:20.380
ignorant representations of people

0:09:20.380,0:09:21.918
from the Middle East in Western media

0:09:21.918,0:09:23.930
date back for centuries.

0:09:23.930,0:09:25.308
Orientalist paintings of the 1800s

0:09:25.308,0:09:26.657
were often characterized by

0:09:26.657,0:09:28.987
overly-sexualized depictions of daily life.

0:09:28.987,0:09:30.828
And romantic Orientalist literature

0:09:30.828,0:09:33.412
of the late 1700s and early 1800s

0:09:33.412,0:09:35.856
served to justify European imperialism,

0:09:35.856,0:09:37.836
presenting Middle Eastern people and cultures

0:09:37.836,0:09:40.809
as inherently exotic and strange.

0:09:40.809,0:09:43.130
So there's a conflation of Arab with Muslim,

0:09:43.130,0:09:45.166
and because our ideas about Islam are so deeply

0:09:45.166,0:09:48.049
linked to stereotypes about terrorism and violence,

0:09:48.049,0:09:50.933
both of those categories are associated with masculinity

0:09:50.933,0:09:52.211
and men.

0:09:52.211,0:09:54.026
While many male Muslim actors in Hollywood

0:09:54.026,0:09:56.888
can only find work playing bit parts as evil terrorists,

0:09:56.888,0:09:59.572
Muslim women are often erased altogether.

0:09:59.572,0:10:01.852
The very real advances that Arab women have made

0:10:01.852,0:10:03.942
in many parts of the world are ignored,

0:10:03.942,0:10:05.416
because depicting them would complicate

0:10:05.416,0:10:07.657
the simplistic racist narrative about Arabs and Muslims

0:10:07.657,0:10:09.313
that Hollywood continues trying to cash in on.

0:10:10.123,0:10:12.943
It's almost as if we don't know how to contend with women

0:10:12.943,0:10:14.341
as real people!

0:10:14.341,0:10:16.058
"Say what?!!!"

0:10:16.908,0:10:18.863
Filmmakers and tv producers know how to

0:10:18.863,0:10:20.083
objectify women,

0:10:20.083,0:10:22.222
how to prize them for their physical attributes,

0:10:22.222,0:10:23.315
and their appearance.

0:10:23.315,0:10:25.632
The stories we allow ourselves to tell about the Middle East

0:10:25.632,0:10:28.085
dont allow for the same kind of easy objectification

0:10:28.085,0:10:29.974
of these brown women's bodies,

0:10:29.974,0:10:33.255
and so we resist including them at all.

0:10:36.238,0:10:37.435
"Mom!"

0:10:41.380,0:10:43.236
At least we can thank 24 again for casting the great

0:10:43.236,0:10:46.381
Iranian actor, Shohreh Aghdashloo in season 4

0:10:46.381,0:10:49.871
as a Muslim terrorist who is also a wife and mother!

0:10:49.871,0:10:52.296
But there are artists, critics, and writers out there

0:10:52.296,0:10:53.786
speaking about what it means to be the target

0:10:53.786,0:10:55.725
of all this anti-brown racism;

0:10:55.725,0:10:57.072
and a lot of the most interesting critiques

0:10:57.072,0:10:59.064
are coming from Muslim women themselves.

0:10:59.064,0:11:00.021
[Phone rings]

0:11:00.021,0:11:02.077
Crap! I think I missed a call.

0:11:02.077,0:11:03.901
I wonder if they left a message?

0:11:03.901,0:11:08.466
Feminist Answering Machine!

0:11:09.368,0:11:11.974
What's up, Anita???!

0:11:11.974,0:11:13.799
It's your favorite feminist Muslim Iranian-American

0:11:13.799,0:11:14.978
comedian calling!

0:11:14.978,0:11:17.712
I was just thinking...

0:11:17.712,0:11:21.400
how come, in all the like, terroristy movies,

0:11:21.400,0:11:23.245
you know the ones where brown people are in,

0:11:23.245,0:11:26.138
why are we always, like, late?

0:11:26.138,0:11:29.063
To all of our, like, terroristy adventures.

0:11:29.063,0:11:29.950
Do you know what I'm talking about?

0:11:29.950,0:11:33.377
Like, they always have these brown dudes yelling,

0:11:33.377,0:11:36.028
"Yalla! Yalla! Yalla!"

0:11:36.028,0:11:38.363
"Yalla" just means "hurry up."

0:11:38.363,0:11:39.636
It's like a thing you say when you want

0:11:39.636,0:11:40.593
somebody to hurry up.

0:11:40.593,0:11:41.733
"Yalla, let's go."

0:11:41.733,0:11:44.943
"Yalla, kids! Hop in the car so we could go to school!"

0:11:44.943,0:11:48.955
And get in on some wicked adventures

0:11:48.955,0:11:51.733
against Claire Danes and Homeland.

0:11:51.733,0:11:54.475
What is the deal with that?

0:11:55.005,0:11:56.121
Yo, seriously!

0:11:56.121,0:11:57.390
What is up with that?

0:11:57.390,0:11:58.624
"Yalla" in my house just meant

0:11:58.624,0:12:01.425
"hurry up because dinner's getting cold."

0:12:02.426,0:12:04.456
There's tremendous harm in centuries of images

0:12:04.456,0:12:06.745
that reduce entire nations, cultures, and religions

0:12:06.745,0:12:08.971
to the status of sub-human savages.

0:12:08.971,0:12:10.515
As Jack Shaheen, the author of

0:12:10.515,0:12:11.985
Reel Bad Arabs has said,

0:12:11.985,0:12:15.628
"Politics and Hollywood's images are linked.

0:12:15.628,0:12:17.189
They reinforce one another.

0:12:17.189,0:12:20.138
Policy enforces mythical images;

0:12:20.138,0:12:23.815
mythical images help enforce policy.

0:12:23.815,0:12:28.569
"We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones;

0:12:28.569,0:12:31.348
and unite the civilized world against

0:12:31.348,0:12:34.261
radical Islamic terrorism."

0:12:34.261,0:12:36.916
Recently, during the 2016 presidential campaign,

0:12:36.916,0:12:39.067
Republican candidates tossed around the phrase

0:12:39.067,0:12:41.614
"radical Islamic terrorism" as if it were

0:12:41.614,0:12:43.449
some kind of magic spell they could use to

0:12:43.449,0:12:45.299
make votes appear out of thin air.

0:12:45.299,0:12:46.686
"Radical Islamic terrorism."

0:12:46.686,0:12:48.271
"Radical Islamic terrorism."

0:12:48.271,0:12:50.013
"Radical Islamic terrorism."

0:12:50.013,0:12:52.539
"Radical Islamic terrorism."

0:12:52.539,0:12:53.372
"Radical Islamic terrorism."

0:12:53.372,0:12:59.337
"Radical Islamic terrorism."

0:12:59.377,0:13:00.553
"President Obama, if you won't say it,

0:13:00.553,0:13:02.294
I will: radical Islam."

0:13:02.294,0:13:04.942
The only reason tactics like these have any effect

0:13:04.942,0:13:06.814
is that, to so many Americans,

0:13:06.814,0:13:08.923
people in the Middle East have never been established

0:13:08.923,0:13:11.640
as human beings with real lives, hopes,

0:13:11.640,0:13:13.449
dreams and struggles.

0:13:13.449,0:13:15.555
When almost every story you've ever seen about

0:13:15.555,0:13:18.106
a particular part of the world paints the people who live there

0:13:18.106,0:13:20.636
as monolithic, evil, and scary,

0:13:20.636,0:13:24.282
you're a lot more likely to believe that it's actually true.

0:13:24.282,0:13:25.602
When people believe it's true,

0:13:25.602,0:13:27.502
they aren't just more likely to support politicians

0:13:27.502,0:13:29.589
and policies that appeal to fear and ignorance

0:13:29.589,0:13:30.559
about the Middle East.

0:13:30.559,0:13:32.276
They're also more likely to act on that

0:13:32.276,0:13:34.093
fear and ignorance themselves.

0:13:34.093,0:13:35.702
The Southern Poverty Law Center notes that

0:13:35.702,0:13:37.354
the number of anti-Muslim hate groups tripled

0:13:37.354,0:13:40.112
in the United States in 2016.

0:13:40.112,0:13:42.478
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Commitee noted

0:13:42.478,0:13:45.499
the same increase after the release of patriotic fever dream,

0:13:45.499,0:13:46.776
American Sniper.

0:13:46.776,0:13:51.523
2016 also saw a 67% increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes,

0:13:51.523,0:13:53.515
and there's no question that Trump's racist,

0:13:53.515,0:13:55.849
fearmongering rhetoric has played a part in this

0:13:55.849,0:13:58.126
surge of xenophobia and violence.

0:13:58.126,0:13:59.707
Of course, Trump doesn't stop

0:13:59.707,0:14:01.007
with rhetoric himself.

0:14:01.007,0:14:03.121
Within the first 100 days of his presidency,

0:14:03.121,0:14:04.988
he has repeatedly tried to push through bans

0:14:04.988,0:14:06.389
preventing the citizens of several

0:14:06.389,0:14:09.082
Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

0:14:09.082,0:14:11.681
He dropped the US military's most powerful

0:14:11.681,0:14:13.809
non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan,

0:14:13.809,0:14:16.325
and he fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at,

0:14:16.325,0:14:17.520
I don't know, SOME

0:14:17.520,0:14:19.705
Middle Eastern country...while eating the most beautiful

0:14:19.705,0:14:22.007
piece of chocolate cake.

0:14:22.007,0:14:22.774
"I was sitting at the table,

0:14:22.774,0:14:26.161
we had finished dinner and we're now having dessert

0:14:26.161,0:14:29.185
and we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake

0:14:29.185,0:14:32.197
that you've ever seen...and we've just launched

0:14:32.197,0:14:35.162
59 missiles heading to Iraq.

0:14:35.672,0:14:37.905
"...Headed to Syria."

0:14:38.175,0:14:39.077
"Yes, heading toward Syria."

0:14:39.197,0:14:42.259
[waaaaah-waaaah sound]

0:14:42.259,0:14:44.542
Iraq, Syria: what's the difference?`

0:14:45.248,0:14:46.450
It was just one of those countries

0:14:46.450,0:14:50.207
that the evil, scary brown people live in.

0:14:50.207,0:14:51.879
Now I can already hear the army of

0:14:51.879,0:14:54.582
Richard Dawkins-parroting anti-feminist twitter users

0:14:54.582,0:14:57.401
typing up their responses about how Islam is a religion

0:14:57.401,0:14:58.987
dedicated to oppressing women.

0:14:58.987,0:15:01.490
It's amazing how suddenly everyone's a feminist

0:15:01.490,0:15:03.878
when it lets them perpetuate hate against brown people

0:15:03.878,0:15:06.103
or dismiss concerns about how women are oppressed

0:15:06.103,0:15:07.849
in their own culture.

0:15:07.849,0:15:08.985
So let's be clear:

0:15:08.985,0:15:11.017
misogyny is not a problem with Islam.

0:15:11.017,0:15:13.249
Misogyny is a problem that some cultures,

0:15:13.249,0:15:15.422
which happen to be Muslim, use the religion to

0:15:15.422,0:15:17.513
perpetuate and justify.

0:15:17.513,0:15:19.176
Christianity has been used as a tool to oppress

0:15:19.176,0:15:20.678
women around the world for millenia.

0:15:20.678,0:15:23.144
It's specifically because our media perpetually

0:15:23.144,0:15:26.331
equates Islam, a religion followed by nearly a quarter

0:15:26.331,0:15:27.754
of the world's population,

0:15:27.754,0:15:30.459
with evil, terrorism, and oppression

0:15:30.459,0:15:32.403
that so many people believe that that's what Islam

0:15:32.403,0:15:34.295
actually is.

0:15:34.295,0:15:35.432
Our entertainment media's insistence

0:15:35.432,0:15:37.654
on constantly portraying people from the Middle East

0:15:37.654,0:15:40.397
as scheming oil sheiks, slavers, snake charmers,

0:15:40.397,0:15:43.064
and suicide bombers but never as real people

0:15:43.064,0:15:45.246
has real consequences.

0:15:45.246,0:15:47.397
Muslims here in the US and everyone who is,

0:15:47.397,0:15:49.184
or looks like they could be Middle Eastern

0:15:49.184,0:15:51.682
constantly face ignorance and racism.

0:15:51.682,0:15:54.093
They live in fear of the very real possibility of being

0:15:54.093,0:15:56.046
accosted or attacked because someone

0:15:56.046,0:15:57.578
takes a look at them and associates them

0:15:57.578,0:15:59.317
with everything they've seen in the movies

0:15:59.317,0:16:01.147
and everything the president has said about

0:16:01.147,0:16:02.987
people from the Middle East.

0:16:02.987,0:16:04.525
What we need now are more stories

0:16:04.525,0:16:06.988
that dispel the deeply harmful stereotypes

0:16:06.988,0:16:08.897
and encourage us to see people from

0:16:08.897,0:16:09.485
the Middle East --

0:16:09.485,0:16:12.419
whether they're Arab, or Muslim, or neither or both

0:16:12.419,0:16:15.791
as what they really are: human beings.