Video: CAIR-Houston Billboards Target Islamophobia

If you drive in the Houston area, chances are you've seen at least 1 of the 10 billboards from the Council of American Islamic Relations, Houston chapter.

They've been drawing a great deal of attention, both positive and negative.

The billboards are part of CAIR's "Peace and Unity" campaign. They've been up for about a month now and, like me, you may have wondered why the billboards are even up. And why now?

Since the 9-11 attacks, many Americans continue to have a very negative image of Muslims: dangerous men with beards and weapons and oppressed women who hide under scarves.

This is the exact stereotype CAIR Houston is trying to dispel with their billboards.

"There's a lot of misinformation and disinformation, anti-Islamic, Islamaphobic out in the atmosphere, we decided we needed a campaign that actually spoke to issues, brought people together," said Mustafaa Carroll, Executive Director of CAIR Houston.

"Muslims are very diverse, every economic class, ethnicity, racial background, languages, socio-economic status, Muslims are so diverse, profiling is not fair," said Shireen Jasser, Outreach Coordinator at CAIR Houston.

One billboard version reads, "Proud Americans, Proud Texans, Proud Muslims" and the second reads "Different Faiths, One Family"....each billboard shows the faces of local Muslims.

"Muslims are being demonized like we're an enemy and we're monsters, and we want to put our faces out there and say connect with us, we're American, just like you and okay we might have a different faith, we're still Americans, it doesn't make us any different or any less," said Shireen.

So why now? Executive Director Mustafaa Carroll says it's the only way they could reach a large audience.

"You can be running all over the cities, churches, synagogues, temples, which we've done for so long and it's not lighting a candle when someone can get a 30 second spot on national television or radio and just blurt out a whole lot of stuff, it sprays the whole community," said Mustafaa.

Mustafaa reminds me it was just 2 months ago that there were 2 arson attacks on local mosques, one in Clear Lake and one in southwest Houston.

"They feel perfectly fine making statements and doing some of these things and it's leading, I'm really afraid and we're really afraid that it may lead to more violence if the same thing we are fighting against, like radicals or extremists, we ourselves are becoming extreme or acting in extreme ways," said Mustafaa.

CAIR hopes the billboards make Houstonians realize Muslims are your neighbors, your doctors, your mailmen and maybe even your friends.

All of the funding for CAIR's billboard campaign came from local contributors. CAIR does not get any money from the government or any government for that matter.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• CAIR
• Houston
• billboards
• Islamophobia
• Council
• on
• American-Islamic
• Relations