Author and scholar Omid Safi adresses prejudice faced by Muslim-Americans

By Haleema Mian in Events, News on Nov 6, 2012 7:36 / comments

Omid Safi, renowned Muslim-American scholar and author, gave a presentation Monday evening in the Fleming Building titled “America and Islam: Rising Beyond the Politics of Fear Post 9/11″, which was hosted by the Department of Religious Studies. Safi’s speech addressed the Muslim-American identity, how it is distorted by the media, and how society can address misrepresentation and prejudice of minority groups.

“The difficulties that we are having as a nation are not primarily about what we do with the Muslims,” Safi said. “We are actually having a difficult time in our soul-searching as we have had in the past.”

Muslim-American scholar Omid Safi speaks Monday in Fleming. (Haleema Mian/CU Independent)

Safi stressed the lack of knowledge most people have regarding certain social groups, specifically Islam. He mentioned the president and how, because of the middle name, Hussein, many Americans saw him as Muslim.

“All politics is personal, all politics is local,” Safi said. “This is personal for me. About 20 plus percent of Americans continue to believe that President Obama is Muslim.”

Discussing radical Islam’s Jihad toward America, Safi mentioned the outbreak of DVDs mailed to the American public in an effort to campaign against Muslims.

“In 2008, a little known mailbox corporation, mailed out 28 million free copies of this hateful DVD to voters in the swing states called Obsession,” Safi said. “This augments the level of hate in a society that’s already struggling with way too much hate.”

Anthony Junta, a 21-year-old senior international affairs major, said that Safi successfully discussed issues experienced by Islamic Americans beyond a political context.

“[Safi] was excellent at conveying his message and I thought he was a very inspiring speaker,” Junta said. “I anticipated [the lecture] to be more politically focused. Instead, it was a lot more theological and philosophical.”

In discussing how America’s racist past continued to haunt its present, Safi said that he sensed that the youth generation is utilizing the resources around them to address discrimination of minorities like Muslims and African-Americans.

“This is one of the first times in my life that I see young people, who are acting up, speaking out, marching, demonstrating, and pushing on behalf of human beings around the world that have no relationship to them ethnically, religiously, color-wise,” Safi said. “They are acting up because they recognize that our humanity isn’t something that you possess inside you, you’re humanity is actually something that reaches out from you.”

Safi wrapped up his discussion with the idea of spreading love throughout the world. Not just in terms of world peace and many people’s typical ideas of love, but also as a means of justice brought together by all.

“Love is not emotional mush,” Safi said. “Love is this radical act where you say that you are a child of God and because of that, I have a commitment to you. Justice is what love looks like in public.”

Ivy Mcdermott, an 18-year-old freshman MCD biology major, said she liked how Safi shifted the focus of the lecture from Islam to a broader perspective.

“He was keeping more focus on the community, like globally, the community, and not just the religion itself,” Mcdermott said. “With his position on unity, he talked a lot about, not just pushing the hate onto another group of minorities, but rather, to just get rid of it as a whole.”

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Haleema Mian at [email protected]