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Fear-based oppression towards Muslims in America has led to a rise in hate crimes. Islamophobic policies (the Muslim ban), and our current president in office are fueled by single narratives of Muslims being portrayed as oppressive and dangerous.
To combat these single narratives, Write About Now, in collaboration with SlamFind and Short Line! is sponsoring the American Muslim Video Cypher!
“After news of Trump’s Muslim ban reverberated across the nation, a group of American Muslims and allies came up with the idea of raising money to support American Muslim storytellers as a way to stand up to the anger and fear-based oppression this community is facing,” the event page states. “The project recognizes that American Muslims are diverse and our stories are complex.”
Funded by the American Muslim Storytellers Grant from the Islamic Scholarship Fund (ISF), the project’s goal is to film Muslims from all over the country to share their voices, going one after another reading and performing poetry and stories until the camera battery runs out.
Write About Now is a community-oriented collective of poets that meet at Avantgarden in Houston, Texas every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., providing a multimedia platform for poets to share their work. WANPOETRY has cultivated a space for marginalized voices through open mics, YouTube videos, podcasts, press,and a literary magazine. Now, they are creating a platform for Muslim poets and storytellers to combat Islamophobia and tell their narratives.
The American Muslim Video Cypher is heading to New York City and will take place on Sat., Nov. 4 at 500 W 52nd from 5-8 p.m.
Check out the event page here and learn more about Write About Now here.
Fearing Muslims is protective considering their nature.
That’s only true if you think that non-Muslims are by default predisposed to peace and Muslims pre-disposed to violence. So basically if non-Muslim governments promote and install policies that discriminate against Muslims, the logic is that those barbaric Muslims must have done something t o deserve it. I’ve seen this argument being played with regards to the murderous Buddhist Monks actions against Royhinga civilians. Replace the word Muslims with Blacks and then see how racist and ugly that really sounds.