Dreaming of 'A Different World'
Today's guest blogger is Nico Lang, an intern at Interfaith Youth Core and a senior at DePaul University. Lang co-founded the Queer Intercollegiate Alliance and is the Change Coordinator for LGBT Change's The Faith Project.
In middle school, I learned first-hand the ways that media diplomacy can profoundly affect our lives. Growing up queer in a community hostile to difference, watching "Will and Grace" every week with my NASCAR-worshipping stepfather ended up being a formative part of my adolescence. Upon living, laughing and loving with these stereotypes of LGBT persons, my stepfather would beam with admiration about the "gay guy" he worked with, priding his ability to tolerate people different from himself.
Although I may not have known it at the time, this was the first moment that I got to dream bigger and imagine a society where my sexuality was accepted rather than excoriated. These dialogues made my struggle to assert my identity one worth fighting for. This would have been impossible unless the television brought people like me into my living room.
As Egypt dreams bigger, this moment is a challenge to Americans that support Egyptian democracy, a challenge to use that cultural diplomacy to create a better society for Muslims at home. Last month, Katie Couric looked at America's "Muslim problem" and offered her own remedy. Her idea was simple enough. To help combat Islamophobia, Couric suggested a "Muslim Cosby Show."
For the most part, her input went from soundly attacked to flatly ignored.
However, some Muslim bloggers are ardently defending Couric. In a recent article, Los Angeles Times writer Firoozeh Dumas recalled the effects that watching "The Brady Bunch" had on her childhood. As a 7-year-old immigrant from Iran, watching the Bradys live, laugh and love on television was formative in breaking down her preexisting prejudices against American families.
And as Couric suggested, the Huxtables had a similar effect on American households during the 1980s, many of which had never truly gotten to know a black family. Although "The Cosby Show" was an incredibly problematic representation of blacks in America, we must not forget that the Huxtables opened the door for much more telling depictions of black life.
Before the Huxtables came into our living rooms, the only TV blacks Americans knew were folks like Amos, Andy or Aunt Jemima. However, just three years after the launch of "The Cosby Show," its spinoff, "A Different World," brought audiences to the historically black Hillman College, a fictional institution modeled after Howard University.
For its first four seasons, "A Different World" ranked as one of the top five most-watched television shows in America. During this run, the program tackled such hot-button issues as the Rodney King riots. In the culturally segregated 1980's, watching "A Different World" was a way for Americans to enter into dialogue on black issues at a crucial time for the black community.
We are living in a moment where the varied medias of our era give us the extraordinary opportunity to start conversations and unite people on a seemingly limitless scale. Last Friday, Egypt proved it can be better together, but their nation cannot prove it alone. If we are to continue to stand with them, we can only do that by standing up for our Muslims at home and by inviting their families into our living rooms each week.
We all have the power to dream of a different world. Sometimes that starts by turning on our televisions.
The content of this blog reflects the views of its author and does not necessarily reflect the views of either Eboo Patel or the Interfaith Youth Core.
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Eboo Patel
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February 15, 2011; 9:56 AM ET
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Interfaith Issues
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Personal Religion
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Posted by: YEAL9 | February 19, 2011 8:34 AM
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"Islamaphobia." is a propagandist term. Not all Muslims are to be feared. But some are to be feared. There was a report this past week from the Middle East Research Institute concerning discussions in Saudi Arabia about the legitimacy of offensive jihad. I quote:
"The main discussion was between Sheikh Salman Al-'Odeh, the former dissident sheikh who publicly broke with Osama bin Laden in 2007, and who is now a loyal supporter of the Saudi regime, and Sheikh 'Abd Al-Rahman bin Nasr Al-Barrak, an extremist cleric who is a former lecturer at the Saudi Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University. Al-'Odeh represents the more liberal Islamic position, i.e. that Islam does not seek war but considers it an inevitability to be avoided as much as possible. He claims that offensive jihad was appropriate to the circumstances during the early Islamic era, when might made right, but that it is not relevant today, when international laws regulate relations between countries. He considers that if there had been such arrangements then, Islam would have welcomed them. Sheikh Al-Barrak, in contrast, represents the traditional rigid Islamist position, i.e., that jihad is an imperative originating in the Koran and the Sunnah – and that, as such, it supersedes any man-made law and Muslims are obligated to implement it until the Day of Judgment.[3] Each cleric based his statements on Koran verses and hadiths."
One of these Muslim scholars, and his followers, is to be feared. to fear him, and them, is not a phobia. while one welcomes more liberal interpretations of Islam, the extent of the extremist position does not seem to make fear of Islam a phobia, but a natural human phenomenon in the face of a thretening political/ religious power.
Posted by: habibbarri | February 19, 2011 3:12 AM
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Behold O' ROCK O' SABRAite/iSRAELite NATION!
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Hear O' Kafir-Nations, Help Contain Nazi-ISLAMi!
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DEATH to THEOCRACY in Mid-East & Elsewhere!
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D-E-A-T-H TO "AL TAQIYAH" & AYATOLLAH UMMAHs!
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LEAVE THE SABRAites & Friends Alone O’ Jealousy!
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O'Blind "SATANIC-VERSUS" Lovers of ISLAMi Umah!
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LET THE “A-B-R-A-H-A-M” Religion Go, O' Hijackers!
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D-E-A-T-H To WAHHABi'S & AYATOLLAH'S Monarchy!
O' Jealous-TURKEY Jerks, HAMAS HEZBOLLAH & CO.!
Posted by: ITs-TIME | February 18, 2011 11:50 AM
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"Although "The Cosby Show" was an incredibly problematic representation of blacks in America, we must not forget that the Huxtables opened the door for much more telling depictions of black life."
Yeah, what we really need is A Cosby Show that will teach young African-Americans that children should be reared by two parents, who preferably completed an education before getting married and THEN had kids.
Posted by: WmarkW | February 18, 2011 7:46 AM
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Did you ever see Oz, the prison drama on HBO.
One of the central characters was a convict who converted to Islam in prison and became a sort of spiritual advisor and community leader to the other prisoners.
And that's pretty much how Islam works. A few intellectuals like Eboo and Pamela Taylor aside, educated ones tend to leave their societies, and low IQ populations like convicts convert to it.
Posted by: WmarkW | February 18, 2011 6:19 AM
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The Five Steps To Deprogram 1400 Years of Islamic Myths:
( –The Steps take less than two minutes to finish- simply amazing, two minutes to bring peace and rationality to over one billion lost souls- Priceless!!!)
Are you ready?
Using "The 77 Branches of Islamic "faith" a collection compiled by Imam Bayhaqi as a starting point. In it, he explains the essential virtues that reflect true "faith" (iman) through related Qur’anic verses and Prophetic sayings." i.e. a nice summary of the Koran and Islamic beliefs.
The First Five of the 77 Branches:
"1. Belief in Allah"
aka as God, Yahweh, Zeus, Jehovah, Mother Nature, etc. should be added to your cleansing neurons.
"2. To believe that everything other than Allah was non-existent. Thereafter, Allah Most High created these things and subsequently they came into existence."
Evolution and the Big Bang or the "Gib Gnab" (when the universe starts to recycle) are more plausible and the "akas" for Allah should be included if you continue to be a "creationist".
"3. To believe in the existence of angels."
A major item for neuron cleansing. Angels/devils are the mythical creations of ancient civilizations, e.g. Hittites, to explain/define natural events, contacts with their gods, big birds, sudden winds, protectors during the dark nights, etc. No "pretty/ugly wingy thingies" ever visited or talked to Mohammed, Jesus, Mary or Joseph or Joe Smith. Today we would classify angels as fairies and "tinker bells". Modern devils are classified as the demons of the demented.
"4. To believe that all the heavenly books that were sent to the different prophets are true. However, apart from the Quran, all other books are not valid anymore."
Another major item to delete. There are no books written in the spirit state of Heaven (if there is one) just as there are no angels to write/publish/distribute them. The Koran, OT, NT etc. are simply books written by humans for humans.
Prophets were invented by ancient scribes typically to keep the uneducated masses in line. Today we call them fortune tellers.
Prophecies are also invali-dated by the natural/God/Allah gifts of Free Will and Future.
"5. To believe that all the prophets are true. However, we are commanded to follow the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)alone."
Mohammed spent thirty days "fasting" (the Ramadan legend) in a hot cave before his first contact with Allah aka God etc. via a "pretty wingy thingy". Common sense demands a neuron deletion of #5. #5 is also the major source of Islamic vi-olence i.e. turning Mohammed's "fast, hunger-driven" hallu-cinations into horrible reality for unbelievers.
Walk these Five Steps and we guarantee a complete recovery from your Islamic ways!!!!
Unfortunately, there are not many Muslim commentators/readers on this blog so the "two-minute" cure is not getting to those who need it. If you have a Muslim friend, send him a copy and help save the world.
Posted by: YEAL9 | February 17, 2011 11:57 PM
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WELCOME
ON BOARD: [Nebula-Built] Space-Ship Earth.
Posted by: IN_IT_WE_TRUST | February 17, 2011 7:36 PM
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Why Muslims are feared: the following koranic-driven acts of terror:
1a) 179 killed in Mumbai/Bombay, 290 injured
1b) Assassination of Benazir Bhutto and Theo Van Gogh
2) 9/11, 3000 mostly US citizens, 1000’s injured
3) The 24/7 Sunni-Shiite centuries-old blood feud currently being carried out in Iraq, US Troops killed in action, 3,481 and 924 died in non-combat98,691 – 107,707
Iraqi civilians killed as of 11/9/2010, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ and
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf
4) Kenya- In Nairobi, about 212 people were killed and an estimated 4000 injured; in Dar es Salaam, the attack killed at least 11 and wounded 85.[2]
5) Bali-in 2002-killing 202 people, 164 of whom were foreign nationals, and 38 Indonesian citizens. A further 209 people were injured.
6) Bali in 2005- Twenty people were killed, and 129 people were injured by three bombers who killed themselves in the attacks.
7) Spain in 2004- killing 191 people and wounding 2,050.
8. UK in 2005- The bombings killed 52 commuters and the four radical Islamic suicide bombers, injured 700.
9) The execution of an eloping couple in Afghanistan on 04/15/2009 by the Taliban.
10) - Afghanistan: US troops 1,116 killed in action, 902 killed in non-combat situations as of 08/10/2010. Over 40,000 Afghan civilians killed due to the dark-age, koranic-driven Taliban acts of horror
11) The killing of 13 citizen soldiers at Ft. Hood by a follower of the koran.
12) 38 Russian citizens killed on March 29, 2010 by Muslim women suicide bombers.
13) The May 28, 2010 attack on a Islamic religious minority in Pakistan, which have left 98 dead,
14) Lockerbie is known internationally as the site where, on 21 December 1988, the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 crashed as a result of a terrorist bomb. In the United Kingdom the event is referred to as the Lockerbie disaster, the Lockerbie bombing, or simply Lockerbie. Eleven townspeople were killed in Sherwood Crescent, where the plane's wings and fuel tanks plummeted in a fiery explosion, destroying several houses and leaving a huge crater, with debris causing damage to a number of buildings nearby. The 270 fatalities (259 on the plane, 11 in Lockerbie) were citizens of 21 nations.
15) Followed by the daily suicide and/or roadside and/or mosque bombings every day in the terror world of Islam.
16) Bombs sent from Yemen by followers of the koran which fortunately were discovered before the bombs were detonated.
17) The killing of 58 Christians in a Catholic church in one of the latest acts of horror and terror in Iraq.
18) Moscow airport suicide bombing: 35 dead, 130 injured. January 25, 2011.