By 4. On what makes an issue a Muslim issue:
Abed: You have to look at the situation that surrounded Chapel Hill; whenever you have deaths or senseless murders this way, it’s going to hit home… this one hit home to the Arab-Muslim communities.
It’s the first time something like this happened in this generation to Muslim Arabs in this country. In the 80s there was the ADC office bombing, but this is the first time in this generation. I think that’s what sparked the immediate reaction…
It’s important to look back and see the challenges we are facing now are not relatively new, these challenges have been faced before, but it’s important to learn how we can apply this moving forward.
Linda (@lsarsour): To be fair, it’s not like every other citizen in this country is up in arms. It’s not like the entire Asian community out there to end police brutality, it’s not like every Latino is out there trying to end police brutality. I feel like I see a lot of progress in the American Muslim community. In general, one of the things that gives me some hope is that im starting to see a lot of young Muslims, many of whom are immigrants who have different experiences, many of whom have never been impacted by police targeting or racial profiling, but the fact that they are in the movement right now is a breath of fresh air.
Malik: The Chinese say “may you live in interesting times”.
This time? It’s a great time. It’s a great time for the Muslim thinkers. It’s a great time for revolutionary change… I’m lucky that I’m alive right now to talk about the very diverse Muslim communities with very diverse issues and very diverse, very different agendas… They will be talking 100-200 years from now about how we unified the Muslim community, and it was the activist Muslims around activist issues.