The I-SOC (Islamic Society) (X)

I was walking into my downtown office building the other day when I was stopped by a passer by. "Aren't you the guy on TV?" he asked. We proceeded to have a 45 minute conversation. He expressed concern about many Muslim-related topics starting with ISIS, then Hijabis, then Muslims in general. He asked me about Anwar Al Awlaki, the Houthis, etc.

Half way into the conversation, he asked me this: "I am probably going to sound ignorant, but so, the Arabs and the Muslims right, so which of those is the one that prays to Allah?"

Now mind you, this is a senior manager at a fortune 500 company. That's one reason the question surprised me beyond the obvious. But the other reason is this is a guy who knew how to perfectly pronounce Anwar Al Awlaki, knew where he was born, how he died, was up to date on ISIS in Syria and Iraq, knew enough about Saudi and Yemen to bring up the Houthi rebellion in Yemen, etc. Yet he could not tell the difference between an ethnic group and a religious group, at the heart of the issues he was debating.

The contradiction was astounding. But it further drew my attention to the problem before us: namely, how much many Americans know of the aberrational state in the house of Islam compared to how little they know of the normative state of Islam. (Which by the way I would argue is a direct reflection of the discrepancy in US media reporting on Muslims, Islam, and the Muslim-majority world). To gage the intensity of the discrepancy, imagine a person who claimed a certain aptitude for the details of leukemia - or blood cancer - yet was confused on where the heart was located in the body.

In any case, I proceeded to explain to him that Arabs were an ethno-linguistic group and that Muslims were a faith group. I explained to him that Arabs are to Latinos as Muslims are to Catholics. "Imagine if you asked someone, so is it the Latinos or the Catholics who follow the Roman Church?" I explained that there were Arab Catholics, Protestants, Bahais, and even agnostics - as well as Muslims; while on the other hand, Muslims are not just Arab but Black, White, Latino, Asian and everything else -- and that in fact 82% of Muslims are not Arab.

He seemed to appreciate the insight. As he did for his question on Hijab. Like Juan Williams of FOX News, he expressed fear of "Muslim garb" namely "the Hijab." I asked him if he had ever considered going to a client site "butt naked." After getting the intended rise out of him, along with the expected "no", I explained to him that he too then was guilty of applying a "Hijab." "How so?" He asked.

"That you have a portion of your body that you insist to cover every morning before you go out in public is hijab by definition. Your hijab was informed by a combination of religion, tradition, culture, etc. In other words, dogma. So much that you would likely fire an employee who showed up to work in Speedos, would you not? The concept of Hijab is therefore very much applied as "the norm" in our Western Civilization in our every day life, the absence of which is in fact deemed unacceptable by society. The difference between you and a Muslim woman when it comes to covering up - or Hijab - is therefore not in "concept" but in "extent." It is considered fascist to allow yourself one extent abd deny a slightly different one to a fellow cotizen. In that regard, You are as justified in fearing her "garb" as someone who prefers wearing shorts all day is in fearing your "garb" - your polo shirt and docker pants - perhaps deemed by him as ultra conservative, dogmatic, and an unnecessary overkill."

"In a free society, we tend to accommodate varying extents of an agreed upon concept. Indeed we already do: some women in your office wear knee high skirts, others wear ankle high skirts. You don't object to the latter's extent. It seems that the objection (and fear) is uniquely reserved to a Muslim woman which is the definition of discriminatory."

"As far as associating the Hijab with terrorism which is where I presume the fear comes from, that is as much an error of correlation as seeing you in a business suit and wondering whether you're a potential Bernie Madoff or White Collar criminal."

He acknowledged that he practiced a form of Hijab and said he never thought of it that way. And also granted the analogy of erroneous correlation.

We proceeded to cover different topics including the Qur'an usually starting with him making an outlandish or accusatory statement (i.e. "the Qur'an teaches violence") and I trying to deconstruct them using statistics, facts and logic.

At the end, he expressed his gratitude for my patience, we exchanged information, and I invited him to visit our office at a later date.

So what's the take away?

By now, I have enough experience to distinguish the bigoted from the innocently ignorant; the maliciously intended from the genuinely clueless- though both may come to the same outlandish stereotypes and soundbites.

This man, as ill-informed as he was does not have a bigoted bone in his body. How many of our fellow Americans while not bigoted are utterly clueless on some of the key issues making headlines and engrossing public opinion today - towards the same net effect? And how much does the nature, setup and mere business model of our hit-and-run media contribute to it? And are we equipped to differentiate between the two groups and rise up to each as different and unique challenges.

We need to analyze the nuances of the problem before us and apply more varied and sophisticated strategies as solutions.
I'll soon be announcing one exciting project am involved with that is designed to up that game.