1
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"Has the crowd dispersed now?"

2
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"No, its still out there, but unarmed.

3
00:00:03,705 --> 00:00:05,418
Just chanting. You know, standard

4
00:00:05,418 --> 00:00:07,278
'Death to America' stuff."

5
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From True Lies to American Sniper,

6
00:00:15,244 --> 00:00:16,299
From 24 to

7
00:00:16,299 --> 00:00:17,708
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare,

8
00:00:17,708 --> 00:00:19,323
western media is full of images of

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evil brown people who need to be wiped

10
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from the earth by noble righteous white men,

11
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heroically fighting for freedom and justice.

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And sure, it's so commonplace by this point

13
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that maybe you don't even bat an eye at

14
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old-fashioned American Islamophobia

15
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in our media.

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"[laughter]

17
00:00:36,762 --> 00:00:39,754
[characters speaking in Arabic]

18
00:00:57,784 --> 00:01:03,991
[protestors chanting in Arabic]

19
00:01:07,191 --> 00:01:08,364
"This is a hijack!"

20
00:01:08,364 --> 00:01:10,915
[passengers screaming]

21
00:01:12,665 --> 00:01:14,479
"Sit down! Sit down!"

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00:01:16,489 --> 00:01:19,303
"Nobody move! Nobody!"

23
00:01:19,303 --> 00:01:19,856
"All right!"

24
00:01:27,796 --> 00:01:30,621
"Engage hostile targets as they appear!"

25
00:01:30,621 --> 00:01:32,137
"Waste the motherfuckers!"

26
00:01:32,438 --> 00:01:35,880
"You have killed our women and our children.

27
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"Bombed our cities from afar...

28
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"like cowards...and you dare

29
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"to call us 'terrorists"?!"

30
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"Here, my desert blossom.

31
00:01:43,463 --> 00:01:45,132
"Keep the change!

32
00:01:45,132 --> 00:01:49,023
"Have you ever considered joining a harem?"

33
00:01:49,523 --> 00:01:51,382
"Oh my God. They found me.

34
00:01:51,382 --> 00:01:53,012
"I don't know how, but they found me."

35
00:01:57,272 --> 00:01:58,481
"Nooooooo!"

36
00:01:58,481 --> 00:02:00,845
What?! Back to the Future!!

37
00:02:00,845 --> 00:02:02,732
Even that beloved comedy classic

38
00:02:02,732 --> 00:02:04,783
takes a moment to toss in a few scary brown men

39
00:02:04,783 --> 00:02:07,514
to menace and terrorize our white heroes.

40
00:02:07,514 --> 00:02:09,441
Unfortunately, we can't hop in

41
00:02:09,441 --> 00:02:10,449
Doc Brown's DeLorean

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00:02:10,449 --> 00:02:12,642
and undo all the harmful representations of

43
00:02:12,642 --> 00:02:14,768
Muslims, Arabs, and Middle Easterners

44
00:02:14,768 --> 00:02:16,359
that have haunted our stories since,

45
00:02:16,359 --> 00:02:18,667
well, basically since the Crusades.

46
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But we can make sure that history

47
00:02:20,509 --> 00:02:22,955
doesn't keep repeating itself.

48
00:02:25,027 --> 00:02:27,844
Ok, ok. Maybe that's not entirely fair.

49
00:02:27,844 --> 00:02:29,928
In some ways, things have changed.

50
00:02:29,928 --> 00:02:30,860
Once upon a time,

51
00:02:30,860 --> 00:02:31,996
non-white actors could hardly

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00:02:31,996 --> 00:02:33,866
get any work in Hollywood at all.

53
00:02:33,866 --> 00:02:34,980
These days, shows like

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00:02:34,980 --> 00:02:36,149
Homeland and movies like

55
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Executive Decision are providing some brown

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actors with ample opportunity to portray

57
00:02:40,502 --> 00:02:42,583
scary terrorists who get gunned down

58
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while screaming something absurd like

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"Death to America!"

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It doesn't even matter if you're not actually

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of Middle Eastern descent.

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If you're vaguely brown, you can stick around

63
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(to play bad guys).

64
00:03:04,981 --> 00:03:07,962
"Oh, are you an artist, Mr. Thurkettle?"

65
00:03:07,962 --> 00:03:10,136
"No, uh, sir. I work for a little company

66
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"called Texan Oil."

67
00:03:12,932 --> 00:03:17,848
"Well, there is no oil here, Mr Thurkettle."

68
00:03:17,848 --> 00:03:18,902
"Just sand."

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00:03:20,272 --> 00:03:22,214
Now sure, not every Middle Eastern character

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00:03:22,214 --> 00:03:23,484
in films is a villain.

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00:03:23,484 --> 00:03:25,724
In the 1921 box-office smash,

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The Sheik,

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00:03:26,685 --> 00:03:28,903
the dashing hero gets the girl in the end.

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But the Arab world of the film is presented as

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exotic and dangerous,

76
00:03:32,487 --> 00:03:33,592
and the sheik himself,

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00:03:33,592 --> 00:03:35,736
the one, good, heroic Arab,

78
00:03:35,736 --> 00:03:38,451
is played by Italian-American heartthrob

79
00:03:38,451 --> 00:03:40,088
Rudolph Valentino.

80
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You see, since he's not really Arab,

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he's allowed to get the girl in the end.

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If you think this kind of racist coding

83
00:03:47,106 --> 00:03:48,324
to signify the difference between

84
00:03:48,324 --> 00:03:50,001
"good" Arabs and "bad" Arabs went away with the

85
00:03:50,001 --> 00:03:52,635
advent of talkies, think again.

86
00:03:52,635 --> 00:03:54,748
Have you ever noticed how in Disney's Aladdin,

87
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the good guy might as well be

88
00:03:55,866 --> 00:03:57,863
a tanned American surfer dude,

89
00:03:57,863 --> 00:04:01,272
but the bad guys look and sound a little more...

90
00:04:01,272 --> 00:04:03,766
uh, Arab?

91
00:04:04,915 --> 00:04:07,048
"You are late."

92
00:04:07,048 --> 00:04:10,019
"A thousand apologies, oh patient one."

93
00:04:10,019 --> 00:04:11,282
"You have it then?"

94
00:04:11,282 --> 00:04:12,962
"I had to slit a few throats,

95
00:04:12,962 --> 00:04:14,746
but I got it."

96
00:04:14,833 --> 00:04:16,725
While Hollywood has historically given

97
00:04:16,725 --> 00:04:19,023
"good" Arab roles to non-Arab actors,

98
00:04:19,023 --> 00:04:21,242
it has also given not-so-good Arab

99
00:04:21,242 --> 00:04:23,576
and South Asian roles to white actors, too --

100
00:04:23,576 --> 00:04:25,446
denying brown people work and decent

101
00:04:25,446 --> 00:04:27,982
on-screen representation in one fell swoop.

102
00:04:27,982 --> 00:04:31,245
It's basically the world's worst Catch-22.

103
00:04:31,245 --> 00:04:33,054
For example, take Mr. Habib,

104
00:04:33,054 --> 00:04:34,912
the scheming Middle Eastern villain in

105
00:04:34,912 --> 00:04:36,470
Father of the Bride 2,

106
00:04:36,470 --> 00:04:38,059
who's played by Eugene Levy.

107
00:04:38,059 --> 00:04:40,566
"The Habibs would like to buy the house, George."

108
00:04:40,566 --> 00:04:42,111
"It's exactly what they've been looking for!"

109
00:04:42,111 --> 00:04:43,367
"We've lived here for 18 years."

110
00:04:43,367 --> 00:04:44,446
"I don't know if we can get everything--"

111
00:04:44,446 --> 00:04:46,458
[gibberish]

112
00:04:47,848 --> 00:04:49,250
Those aren't even real words

113
00:04:49,250 --> 00:04:50,887
he's saying to his wife!

114
00:04:50,887 --> 00:04:54,261
It's just vaguely Middle-Eastern sounding gibberish

115
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And the written equivalent of this is

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00:04:55,446 --> 00:04:57,134
very common as well.

117
00:04:57,134 --> 00:04:58,345
Video games and tv shows

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constantly just toss up some squiggly text

119
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and try to pass it off as actual Arabic.

120
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Well, this one is Arabic,

121
00:05:05,391 --> 00:05:06,364
but it sure doesn't say what the

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00:05:06,364 --> 00:05:08,999
producers of Homeland wanted it to!

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00:05:08,999 --> 00:05:10,322
As insidious as it is to flatten

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entire cultures and populations into

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The Land of Squiggly Writing,

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00:05:14,099 --> 00:05:16,105
there's nothing so pervasive and damaging

127
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as Hollywood's tendency to constantly portray

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vaguely-Middle Eastern people

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00:05:19,981 --> 00:05:21,741
as generic terrorists.

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00:05:21,741 --> 00:05:23,687
It's so common that, on-screen,

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brown skin has practically become synonymous

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with bad guys who have little or no

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character development beyond

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hating America and freedom fries.

135
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[screaming]

136
00:05:41,771 --> 00:05:43,836
"Allahu Akbar!"

137
00:05:45,670 --> 00:05:46,603
Ah! Thanks, Jack Bauer!

138
00:05:46,603 --> 00:05:48,108
What would we do without you?

139
00:05:48,988 --> 00:05:50,495
One of the biggest problems with this

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is that it erases the actual lives and cultures

141
00:05:52,565 --> 00:05:54,302
of Middle Eastern people and leads

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many Western viewers to lump all of them

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into the same group.

144
00:05:57,561 --> 00:05:59,415
So let's start by clarifying a few terms

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whose meaning has been obscured by

146
00:06:01,008 --> 00:06:02,864
media that paints the entire Middle East

147
00:06:02,864 --> 00:06:05,763
with the same broad, shallow, ignorant brush.

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First of all, we've done a lot of research,

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00:06:07,456 --> 00:06:09,008
on this, and as it turns out

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00:06:09,008 --> 00:06:11,276
words actually have meanings.

151
00:06:11,276 --> 00:06:12,482
Weird, right?

152
00:06:12,482 --> 00:06:14,479
You can't just lump Arabs and Muslims together

153
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because they're not the same thing!

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Arabs are a specific ethnic group,

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united by culture and language,

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and who primarily originate from

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Middle Eastern countries.

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Arab is not, repeat not, a racial category.

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Got it?

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You can be white, black, brown

161
00:06:29,781 --> 00:06:31,152
and still be Arab.

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But not all people from the Middle East are Arab,

163
00:06:33,386 --> 00:06:34,608
and vice versa.

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00:06:34,608 --> 00:06:37,528
Like, say, ethnic Persians in Iran.

165
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A "Muslim" is someone who practices Islam,

166
00:06:39,467 --> 00:06:42,296
a religion with over 1.7 billion members

167
00:06:42,296 --> 00:06:43,662
spanning a vast number of ethnic

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and cultural identities.

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00:06:45,524 --> 00:06:47,708
The Muslim world actually comprises a multitude

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of groups that folks often forget, including

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Iranians, South Asians, North Africans,

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00:06:52,576 --> 00:06:54,844
Indonesians, black Americans...

173
00:06:54,844 --> 00:06:57,162
Islam is not confined to the Middle East,

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to olive-skinned people,

175
00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:00,666
or just people who speak Arabic.

176
00:07:00,666 --> 00:07:02,621
But despite the fact that Islam is a religion,

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not a race,

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00:07:03,385 --> 00:07:04,785
it's vital for us to understand that

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Islamophobia is racism.

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If you've been paying attention thus far,

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you might be asking yourself,

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if Islam isn't a race,

183
00:07:11,364 --> 00:07:13,744
then how can Islamophobia be racism?

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The answer lies in another "ism,"

185
00:07:15,439 --> 00:07:16,700
one many Westerners aren't

186
00:07:16,700 --> 00:07:20,010
particularly familar with: that's Orientalism.

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In short, the term "Orientalism" refers to how,

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00:07:22,267 --> 00:07:23,527
for hundreds of years,

189
00:07:23,527 --> 00:07:25,460
Western artistic and academic history

190
00:07:25,460 --> 00:07:27,580
has perpetuated an ignorant and prejudiced

191
00:07:27,580 --> 00:07:29,186
view of "the East."

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A view rooted in the idea of Western culture as

193
00:07:31,153 --> 00:07:33,274
inherently more advanced and enlightened,

194
00:07:33,274 --> 00:07:35,646
and Eastern culture as more inherently more ignorant,

195
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irrational, primitive, and often,

196
00:07:37,435 --> 00:07:38,916
highly-sexualized.

197
00:07:38,916 --> 00:07:40,784
Again, Muslims come from many different races,

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00:07:40,784 --> 00:07:43,183
and span a myriad of cultural identities.

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00:07:43,183 --> 00:07:44,690
In fact, the former president

200
00:07:44,690 --> 00:07:46,471
of the Islamic Society of North America

201
00:07:46,471 --> 00:07:48,646
is a white woman, Dr. Ingrid Mattson;

202
00:07:48,646 --> 00:07:50,212
but let's be real:

203
00:07:50,212 --> 00:07:51,237
nobody who spreads the hate of Islam

204
00:07:51,237 --> 00:07:53,241
is talking about white ladies.

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00:07:53,241 --> 00:07:54,887
Western media has contributed to a level

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00:07:54,887 --> 00:07:56,719
of ignorance so great, that for many

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00:07:56,719 --> 00:07:57,749
people, it has resulted in

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00:07:57,749 --> 00:07:59,744
equating Islam with scary brown people,

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00:07:59,744 --> 00:08:01,845
particularly scary brown men

210
00:08:01,845 --> 00:08:03,180
from the Middle East.

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It's been so effective,

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00:08:04,248 --> 00:08:06,020
that most of you probably didn't even know

213
00:08:06,020 --> 00:08:08,757
that this man isn't Muslim -- he's Sikh!

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00:08:16,547 --> 00:08:17,850
It isn't just film and television that

215
00:08:17,850 --> 00:08:19,867
perpetuates this kind of ignorance.

216
00:08:19,867 --> 00:08:21,349
Here's comedian Kumail Nanjiani

217
00:08:21,349 --> 00:08:23,263
on how video games often don't put in the

218
00:08:23,263 --> 00:08:26,052
absolute bare minimum of effort or research

219
00:08:26,052 --> 00:08:27,747
when representing the Middle East --

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00:08:27,747 --> 00:08:29,663
or South Asia for that matter--

221
00:08:29,663 --> 00:08:30,720
which is not the same thing as

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00:08:30,720 --> 00:08:32,225
the Middle East!

223
00:08:32,225 --> 00:08:33,939
"Ok, so the language we speak in Pakistan

224
00:08:33,939 --> 00:08:34,625
"is Urdu.

225
00:08:34,625 --> 00:08:36,208
"That's the name of the language we speak: Urdu.

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00:08:36,208 --> 00:08:38,385
"But all the street signs in Karachi in

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00:08:38,385 --> 00:08:41,116
"Call of Duty are in Arabic...

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00:08:41,116 --> 00:08:44,707
"yeah, it's a completely different language.

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00:08:44,707 --> 00:08:47,277
"And I know it does not seem like a big deal,

230
00:08:47,277 --> 00:08:49,481
"but this game took three years to make.

231
00:08:49,481 --> 00:08:51,589
"If you look at it, the graphics are perfect.

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"You can see individual hairs on people's heads;

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"when they run, they sweat.

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00:08:54,707 --> 00:08:56,846
"When they run, their shoelaces bounce!

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00:08:56,846 --> 00:08:58,319
"All they had to do was Google:

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00:08:58,319 --> 00:09:01,616
"Pakistan language."

237
00:09:03,924 --> 00:09:05,090
"They were literally like,

238
00:09:05,090 --> 00:09:06,512
'What language do they speak in Pakistan?'

239
00:09:06,512 --> 00:09:08,250
'I don't care.

240
00:09:09,184 --> 00:09:11,753
"I can't get his sideburns even."

241
00:09:13,510 --> 00:09:15,377
Modern films, tv shows, and games

242
00:09:15,377 --> 00:09:17,239
definitely perpetuate Islamophobia,

243
00:09:17,239 --> 00:09:18,823
but it's no exxageration to say that

244
00:09:18,823 --> 00:09:20,380
ignorant representations of people

245
00:09:20,380 --> 00:09:21,918
from the Middle East in Western media

246
00:09:21,918 --> 00:09:23,930
date back for centuries.

247
00:09:23,930 --> 00:09:25,308
Orientalist paintings of the 1800s

248
00:09:25,308 --> 00:09:26,657
were often characterized by

249
00:09:26,657 --> 00:09:28,987
overly-sexualized depictions of daily life.

250
00:09:28,987 --> 00:09:30,828
And romantic Orientalist literature

251
00:09:30,828 --> 00:09:33,412
of the late 1700s and early 1800s

252
00:09:33,412 --> 00:09:35,856
served to justify European imperialism,

253
00:09:35,856 --> 00:09:37,836
presenting Middle Eastern people and cultures

254
00:09:37,836 --> 00:09:40,809
as inherently exotic and strange.

255
00:09:40,809 --> 00:09:43,130
So there's a conflation of Arab with Muslim,

256
00:09:43,130 --> 00:09:45,166
and because our ideas about Islam are so deeply

257
00:09:45,166 --> 00:09:48,049
linked to stereotypes about terrorism and violence,

258
00:09:48,049 --> 00:09:50,933
both of those categories are associated with masculinity

259
00:09:50,933 --> 00:09:52,211
and men.

260
00:09:52,211 --> 00:09:54,026
While many male Muslim actors in Hollywood

261
00:09:54,026 --> 00:09:56,888
can only find work playing bit parts as evil terrorists,

262
00:09:56,888 --> 00:09:59,572
Muslim women are often erased altogether.

263
00:09:59,572 --> 00:10:01,852
The very real advances that Arab women have made

264
00:10:01,852 --> 00:10:03,942
in many parts of the world are ignored,

265
00:10:03,942 --> 00:10:05,416
because depicting them would complicate

266
00:10:05,416 --> 00:10:07,657
the simplistic racist narrative about Arabs and Muslims

267
00:10:07,657 --> 00:10:09,313
that Hollywood continues trying to cash in on.

268
00:10:10,123 --> 00:10:12,943
It's almost as if we don't know how to contend with women

269
00:10:12,943 --> 00:10:14,341
as real people!

270
00:10:14,341 --> 00:10:16,058
"Say what?!!!"

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00:10:16,908 --> 00:10:18,863
Filmmakers and tv producers know how to

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00:10:18,863 --> 00:10:20,083
objectify women,

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how to prize them for their physical attributes,

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and their appearance.

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The stories we allow ourselves to tell about the Middle East

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dont allow for the same kind of easy objectification

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of these brown women's bodies,

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and so we resist including them at all.

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"Mom!"

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At least we can thank 24 again for casting the great

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Iranian actor, Shohreh Aghdashloo in season 4

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00:10:46,381 --> 00:10:49,871
as a Muslim terrorist who is also a wife and mother!

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00:10:49,871 --> 00:10:52,296
But there are artists, critics, and writers out there

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00:10:52,296 --> 00:10:53,786
speaking about what it means to be the target

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00:10:53,786 --> 00:10:55,725
of all this anti-brown racism;

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00:10:55,725 --> 00:10:57,072
and a lot of the most interesting critiques

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00:10:57,072 --> 00:10:59,064
are coming from Muslim women themselves.

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[Phone rings]

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00:11:00,021 --> 00:11:02,077
Crap! I think I missed a call.

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I wonder if they left a message?

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00:11:03,901 --> 00:11:08,466
Feminist Answering Machine!

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00:11:09,368 --> 00:11:11,974
What's up, Anita???!

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00:11:11,974 --> 00:11:13,799
It's your favorite feminist Muslim Iranian-American

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00:11:13,799 --> 00:11:14,978
comedian calling!

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I was just thinking...

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how come, in all the like, terroristy movies,

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00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:23,245
you know the ones where brown people are in,

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why are we always, like, late?

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00:11:26,138 --> 00:11:29,063
To all of our, like, terroristy adventures.

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Do you know what I'm talking about?

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00:11:29,950 --> 00:11:33,377
Like, they always have these brown dudes yelling,

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00:11:33,377 --> 00:11:36,028
"Yalla! Yalla! Yalla!"

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00:11:36,028 --> 00:11:38,363
"Yalla" just means "hurry up."

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00:11:38,363 --> 00:11:39,636
It's like a thing you say when you want

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00:11:39,636 --> 00:11:40,593
somebody to hurry up.

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00:11:40,593 --> 00:11:41,733
"Yalla, let's go."

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00:11:41,733 --> 00:11:44,943
"Yalla, kids! Hop in the car so we could go to school!"

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00:11:44,943 --> 00:11:48,955
And get in on some wicked adventures

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00:11:48,955 --> 00:11:51,733
against Claire Danes and Homeland.

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00:11:51,733 --> 00:11:54,475
What is the deal with that?

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00:11:55,005 --> 00:11:56,121
Yo, seriously!

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00:11:56,121 --> 00:11:57,390
What is up with that?

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"Yalla" in my house just meant

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"hurry up because dinner's getting cold."

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There's tremendous harm in centuries of images

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00:12:04,456 --> 00:12:06,745
that reduce entire nations, cultures, and religions

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to the status of sub-human savages.

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As Jack Shaheen, the author of

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00:12:10,515 --> 00:12:11,985
Reel Bad Arabs has said,

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00:12:11,985 --> 00:12:15,628
"Politics and Hollywood's images are linked.

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00:12:15,628 --> 00:12:17,189
They reinforce one another.

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Policy enforces mythical images;

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00:12:20,138 --> 00:12:23,815
mythical images help enforce policy.

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"We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones;

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00:12:28,569 --> 00:12:31,348
and unite the civilized world against

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00:12:31,348 --> 00:12:34,261
radical Islamic terrorism."

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00:12:34,261 --> 00:12:36,916
Recently, during the 2016 presidential campaign,

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00:12:36,916 --> 00:12:39,067
Republican candidates tossed around the phrase

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"radical Islamic terrorism" as if it were

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some kind of magic spell they could use to

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00:12:43,449 --> 00:12:45,299
make votes appear out of thin air.

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"Radical Islamic terrorism."

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00:12:46,686 --> 00:12:48,271
"Radical Islamic terrorism."

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00:12:48,271 --> 00:12:50,013
"Radical Islamic terrorism."

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00:12:50,013 --> 00:12:52,539
"Radical Islamic terrorism."

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00:12:52,539 --> 00:12:53,372
"Radical Islamic terrorism."

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00:12:53,372 --> 00:12:59,337
"Radical Islamic terrorism."

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00:12:59,377 --> 00:13:00,553
"President Obama, if you won't say it,

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00:13:00,553 --> 00:13:02,294
I will: radical Islam."

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The only reason tactics like these have any effect

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00:13:04,942 --> 00:13:06,814
is that, to so many Americans,

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00:13:06,814 --> 00:13:08,923
people in the Middle East have never been established

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00:13:08,923 --> 00:13:11,640
as human beings with real lives, hopes,

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00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:13,449
dreams and struggles.

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00:13:13,449 --> 00:13:15,555
When almost every story you've ever seen about

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00:13:15,555 --> 00:13:18,106
a particular part of the world paints the people who live there

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00:13:18,106 --> 00:13:20,636
as monolithic, evil, and scary,

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00:13:20,636 --> 00:13:24,282
you're a lot more likely to believe that it's actually true.

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00:13:24,282 --> 00:13:25,602
When people believe it's true,

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00:13:25,602 --> 00:13:27,502
they aren't just more likely to support politicians

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00:13:27,502 --> 00:13:29,589
and policies that appeal to fear and ignorance

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00:13:29,589 --> 00:13:30,559
about the Middle East.

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00:13:30,559 --> 00:13:32,276
They're also more likely to act on that

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fear and ignorance themselves.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center notes that

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00:13:35,702 --> 00:13:37,354
the number of anti-Muslim hate groups tripled

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00:13:37,354 --> 00:13:40,112
in the United States in 2016.

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00:13:40,112 --> 00:13:42,478
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Commitee noted

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00:13:42,478 --> 00:13:45,499
the same increase after the release of patriotic fever dream,

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American Sniper.

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00:13:46,776 --> 00:13:51,523
2016 also saw a 67% increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes,

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00:13:51,523 --> 00:13:53,515
and there's no question that Trump's racist,

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00:13:53,515 --> 00:13:55,849
fearmongering rhetoric has played a part in this

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00:13:55,849 --> 00:13:58,126
surge of xenophobia and violence.

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00:13:58,126 --> 00:13:59,707
Of course, Trump doesn't stop

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00:13:59,707 --> 00:14:01,007
with rhetoric himself.

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00:14:01,007 --> 00:14:03,121
Within the first 100 days of his presidency,

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00:14:03,121 --> 00:14:04,988
he has repeatedly tried to push through bans

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00:14:04,988 --> 00:14:06,389
preventing the citizens of several

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00:14:06,389 --> 00:14:09,082
Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

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00:14:09,082 --> 00:14:11,681
He dropped the US military's most powerful

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00:14:11,681 --> 00:14:13,809
non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan,

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00:14:13,809 --> 00:14:16,325
and he fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at,

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00:14:16,325 --> 00:14:17,520
I don't know, SOME

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00:14:17,520 --> 00:14:19,705
Middle Eastern country...while eating the most beautiful

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00:14:19,705 --> 00:14:22,007
piece of chocolate cake.

377
00:14:22,007 --> 00:14:22,774
"I was sitting at the table,

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00:14:22,774 --> 00:14:26,161
we had finished dinner and we're now having dessert

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00:14:26,161 --> 00:14:29,185
and we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake

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00:14:29,185 --> 00:14:32,197
that you've ever seen...and we've just launched

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00:14:32,197 --> 00:14:35,162
59 missiles heading to Iraq.

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00:14:35,672 --> 00:14:37,905
"...Headed to Syria."

383
00:14:38,175 --> 00:14:39,077
"Yes, heading toward Syria."

384
00:14:39,197 --> 00:14:42,259
[waaaaah-waaaah sound]

385
00:14:42,259 --> 00:14:44,542
Iraq, Syria: what's the difference?`

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00:14:45,248 --> 00:14:46,450
It was just one of those countries

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00:14:46,450 --> 00:14:50,207
that the evil, scary brown people live in.

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00:14:50,207 --> 00:14:51,879
Now I can already hear the army of

389
00:14:51,879 --> 00:14:54,582
Richard Dawkins-parroting anti-feminist twitter users

390
00:14:54,582 --> 00:14:57,401
typing up their responses about how Islam is a religion

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00:14:57,401 --> 00:14:58,987
dedicated to oppressing women.

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00:14:58,987 --> 00:15:01,490
It's amazing how suddenly everyone's a feminist

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00:15:01,490 --> 00:15:03,878
when it lets them perpetuate hate against brown people

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00:15:03,878 --> 00:15:06,103
or dismiss concerns about how women are oppressed

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00:15:06,103 --> 00:15:07,849
in their own culture.

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00:15:07,849 --> 00:15:08,985
So let's be clear:

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00:15:08,985 --> 00:15:11,017
misogyny is not a problem with Islam.

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00:15:11,017 --> 00:15:13,249
Misogyny is a problem that some cultures,

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00:15:13,249 --> 00:15:15,422
which happen to be Muslim, use the religion to

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00:15:15,422 --> 00:15:17,513
perpetuate and justify.

401
00:15:17,513 --> 00:15:19,176
Christianity has been used as a tool to oppress

402
00:15:19,176 --> 00:15:20,678
women around the world for millenia.

403
00:15:20,678 --> 00:15:23,144
It's specifically because our media perpetually

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00:15:23,144 --> 00:15:26,331
equates Islam, a religion followed by nearly a quarter

405
00:15:26,331 --> 00:15:27,754
of the world's population,

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00:15:27,754 --> 00:15:30,459
with evil, terrorism, and oppression

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00:15:30,459 --> 00:15:32,403
that so many people believe that that's what Islam

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00:15:32,403 --> 00:15:34,295
actually is.

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00:15:34,295 --> 00:15:35,432
Our entertainment media's insistence

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00:15:35,432 --> 00:15:37,654
on constantly portraying people from the Middle East

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00:15:37,654 --> 00:15:40,397
as scheming oil sheiks, slavers, snake charmers,

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00:15:40,397 --> 00:15:43,064
and suicide bombers but never as real people

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00:15:43,064 --> 00:15:45,246
has real consequences.

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00:15:45,246 --> 00:15:47,397
Muslims here in the US and everyone who is,

415
00:15:47,397 --> 00:15:49,184
or looks like they could be Middle Eastern

416
00:15:49,184 --> 00:15:51,682
constantly face ignorance and racism.

417
00:15:51,682 --> 00:15:54,093
They live in fear of the very real possibility of being

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00:15:54,093 --> 00:15:56,046
accosted or attacked because someone

419
00:15:56,046 --> 00:15:57,578
takes a look at them and associates them

420
00:15:57,578 --> 00:15:59,317
with everything they've seen in the movies

421
00:15:59,317 --> 00:16:01,147
and everything the president has said about

422
00:16:01,147 --> 00:16:02,987
people from the Middle East.

423
00:16:02,987 --> 00:16:04,525
What we need now are more stories

424
00:16:04,525 --> 00:16:06,988
that dispel the deeply harmful stereotypes

425
00:16:06,988 --> 00:16:08,897
and encourage us to see people from

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00:16:08,897 --> 00:16:09,485
the Middle East --

427
00:16:09,485 --> 00:16:12,419
whether they're Arab, or Muslim, or neither or both

428
00:16:12,419 --> 00:16:15,791
as what they really are: human beings.