 Welcome to day two of Unity Through Diversity Week. We're all excited that you came out to spend some time with us and brother Benjamin. It is my honor to present brother Benjamin Shabazz. Brother Benjamin is a father of four and a grandfather of 12. He is a retired Vietnam War veteran, board member of the Islamic School of Seattle, a TV producer for public access program, W.D. Mohammed and Guess and the Community Issue Group. Brother Benjamin is also a radio program producer for the W.D. Mohammed and Guess and Imam, W.D. Mohammed and Guess, Imam of the Islamic Center of Seattle. So please join me in welcoming brother Benjamin to our community. Thank you. I want to say it's great honor to be here. I want to thank Powell for recognizing me one day at an interfaith meeting. And he came to me afterwards and asked me if I'd like to be a part of something like this. What was funny about the whole thing was that the church we were in, the subject came up about white Jesus. And being on the cross, you know, we see white Jesus on the cross a lot. And I told the people, I said, I was so relieved to find out that there were no white Jesuses on the crosses, it was just the plain cross. Because I felt like that I'm catching hell outside. I got to come in here and catch hell again. So people thought that was kind of humorous. But the point of the matter was we were talking about how the mind can be manipulated, how people can be scapegoated, how this thing called Islamophobia is running rapid in the society. And we were talking about symbols, signs and symbols, and how important symbols are. And we were talking about balance. So I was trying to explain how my understanding of the cross that at one time it was promoted as being balanced. You know, multidirectional, universal sign. And then the concept of Jesus being put on the cross kind of took over that. And then when we see that symbol, we have a whole other narrative to relate to. Then the other part of that is that Jesus automatically became a Caucasian. And as we know through study, that that was impossible. But it's how the narrative is being presented to the majority of the people is the only thing that we have to go by. So the media is critical. And whoever controls the media, they know that. So we will hear all kind of messages about all kind of things. You notice how in the political arena, the candidates will tune in on a very sensitive area and just stay tuned into that. Stay tuned into that so that the people are real sensitive. The real issues never get really talked about. So you know, there's one guy, I forgot his name now, but he talks about, we're going to build a fence and make the Mexican government pay for it. And you keep hearing that over and over and over and over. I remember when President Barack Obama was running for president and they had him in this church with Reverend Wright. And one of these channels, I forget the name of it, kept playing one of Reverend Wright's speeches where Reverend Wright was saying, goddamn America. And he just kept playing that over and over and over and over and over. So you just forgot about the platform that the candidate was running on. So I'm saying all that to say that those of us that are in the media, we understand those techniques, that magic. Those of us that are consuming the media, you have to be aware of what we are receiving. And the only way that we can be aware is to always keep our minds open and critical, critical thinking. So we're an institution that develops critical thinking. Am I right? All right, big man said so. It's got to be right. As being a Muslim, you know, Muslims follow the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. And what he said was that education is a must. He said education is a lost property of the believers. He said, seek education even if you have to go all the way to China. Now, 1,400 years ago, China was a far off place. It's still a far off place, but we can get there in a few hours now. But we're talking about people that's riding camels and boats. So he was saying the importance of education that we should search, make any effort in all efforts to receive an education. So I want to applaud the students here. If you have any problems or any kinks in what you're doing, stick with it. Because being able to know something from being in a situation where you don't know something can affect your life for the rest of your life. For example, if you look at a beautiful sunset on the water, doesn't the sun look like it's setting in the water? And if you don't know that the sun is not setting in the water, you will go back home and tell your kids and your neighbors I saw the sun set in the water. And if you're a trustworthy person, they will believe you and they will pass that on. But who is it that tells us the sun doesn't set in the water? It's the scientist. No, the sun doesn't set in the water. As a matter of fact, the sun doesn't really set. The earth is going around the sun. It just appears that way. So we, as educated people and those striving to get an education, have to understand the way things appear is not necessarily the way that it is. Now, speaking from grandma's wisdom, only believe what? Half of what you see and none of what you hear. Those people had life experiences to teach them that and never set foot. Some of them never set foot in an institution of higher learning. So what I'm supposed to talk about today is the media portrayal of Islamic faith continues to saturate negatively across media forums, causing misconceptions of its teachings and rich diversity. In this lecture, we will discuss the intersections of race, religion, media influence, and how we, as a global community, can begin to dismantle what is fabrication from reality. So speaking of the media, what we brought today was some newspapers called the Muslim Journal. I tried to bring enough copies so that everybody could take a look at them. They're all different issues. And if you notice, on the top, there's an American flag on one side and then a symbol of the Holy Quran on the other side. This paper has been in existence for over 50 years. It started out as the Mohammed Speaks. And then it graduated through different stages. But the reason why I brought these papers is because a lot of times, you hear in the media, well, where is the outrage against the terrorism that's taking place from the Muslim community? And I'm here to tell you that outrage is in full effect. But for some strange reason, mainstream media won't accent it. In my bio, the brother said that we have a TV program on public access. Public access, which is free in most situations, is a wonderful way to get your message across to society. We also have a radio program on KKNW, 1150 AM, comes on every Sunday between 5 and 6. So we are attempting to use the media to the best that we can to counter some of these things, this negativity that's being spread about the religion of Islam. So let's talk about race a little bit. Myself as an African-American, I became a Muslim through the influence of people that we all have heard about and know, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Elijah Muhammad. So how many have heard about Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali? So this is popular names. Dr. Martin Luther King at the same time was pushing his advocacy for justice and civil rights for those that were being oppressed. So you had Martin Luther King on one side and Malcolm X on the other side, both working for the same goal. Muhammad Ali was the voice of Black manhood. Malcolm X was the voice of Black manhood. I say that Black manhood in terms of the North. If you know anything about the difference between the racism in the North and the South, it was two different things. In the South, our people for decades couldn't vote, couldn't ride in the front of a bus, were getting cheated in their wages, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, being terrorized by the Klu Klux Klan, by the way whose full name is Christian Knights of the Klu Klux Klan. So Malcolm X wouldn't have lasted in the South because he was too bold. The mindset was different. So it took a Dr. Martin Luther King to come in in a passive way and advocate nonviolence. Muhammad Ali, every time you turn on the TV, you see the brother running his mouth. I am the greatest. I whip Sonny Liston. I'm the king of the world. And he was comical in a way, but he backed up everything that he said. And then he presented himself as a Muslim. Then he got into politics. I'm not going to Vietnam. Why should I go all the way over across the ocean to fight against some dark people who have never called me a nigger? So this popular attitude was all in the media. And everybody was all upset and excited. The Vietnam War was raging. But do you know what brought the Vietnam War to a halt? The media. The media. The media was showing pictures of the body bags coming back on the planes. The media was showing pictures of the Agent Orange being spread all over the place. The media was showing pictures of the atrocities that was being done that the war causes. And the average American sitting at home could see, this is terrible. We have reached the point of diminishing returns. Let's bring our boys home. Now you notice now the social engineers have got wise. So they don't show these things now. They show very selected things about the war. You have to go to alternative media to find out some of the nasty stuff that's going on. So James Brown made a record. I don't know if many of you remember this. It's called, Say It Loud. I'm Black and I'm Proud. Anybody remember that? Anybody remember that? OK. James Brown, you know James Brown was the man. Mr. Please, please, please. And he lost a lot of white support for making that record. But for a lot of us, it was a national anthem. Why is that? Because people didn't talk about Black. They said, yeah, I'm Black brother, I'm Black brother. But it was still a hesitancy. You were in the extreme. If you jumped out and started talking about Black, Black, Black. So James Brown made it mainstream. For African-Americans, color was a major problem. Color consciousness was a major problem. I know I look out in the audience, I see a lot of you are young. You don't probably have no idea what I'm talking about. But we used to have a saying, it was something like this. If you're white, you're all right. If you're brown, stick around. If you're yellow, you mellow. But if you're black, get back. This was something we would say amongst ourselves. I could tell you stories all day long about the color consciousness among Black people. So for James Brown to come out and make that statement and embolder people to not be ashamed of their color, not be ashamed of being dark. So here we have James Brown, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, all pushing for one thing, to have justice in this great country called America, for all of its citizens. So this is the race part. So politics, I don't have to tell anybody here. All politicians say what they need to say to get where they need to be. And what they do can be absolutely different. So I'm trying to say that in a way by not saying all politicians lie. It's part of the process. Because they don't see us as equal with them. They see us as fishing a pool. And how do you manipulate the fish in the pool? You take a pole, you put a worm on it, and you throw it in the pool. And the fish eat the bait and get caught up. That's why they say, you know, they take a pole. See how many people think this way? They take another pole. See how many people think that way? And hence you get the word politics, politics. But what they're saying is that we are sheep. We're not on the intellectual level that they are. So they play on our sensitivities. So for African-American Christianity, especially for young African-Americans, Christianity did not appear to address the issues of the day. Christianity more like presented itself as just be passive, get along, don't worry about it, get your reward after you die. Well, young people, they were tired of that. They didn't want to necessarily hear that. So Islam had an influence to draw the young people who wanted to fight. They saw their parents work all their life, go to church every day, and yet end up disenfranchised, poor, broke down, sick, dying. So they wanted something different. So Islam came along and offered alternative. But it was Islam that came in the form of the nation of Islam under the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. Because Mohammed Ali, they sprung from that source, that foundation, of Elijah Muhammad. And what was Elijah Muhammad's doctrine that the white man is the devil and the black man is God? Now, I want you to tell me what higher ego manipulation can you have when somebody tells you that you're a god? I mean, your head gets so big it's going to start floating out this room. You're what? I'm what? I'm a god? And the white man is the devil. Well, hey, that explains everything. That explains all the oppression that we've been going through. The white man is a devil. Now, for some of us, we didn't take that literally. We took that symbolically, because we all had white friends that we knew we grew up with. Some of us were married to white spouses. So we knew we couldn't have been talking about the individual, but it was talking about an institution based on white supremacy. The white man is the devil. Now, in the nation of Islam, we got introduced to words like Allah. I don't know what that is. Allah who? Allah. We got introduced to this book called The Holy Quran. Elijah Muhammad used to tell us that this was the only pure book and to wrap it up and to put it high and somewhere high in your home. Very soon did he teach Allah the Holy Quran. And very soon did he teach us to study from the Holy Quran. He taught mostly from the Bible. But we're introduced to terms like Ramadan. Oh, that sounds nice and neat. What is that? The month of fasting for Muslims. We got introduced to words like Mecca and the Hajj. We were told that Mecca and Mecca, the streets were paved with gold. So our minds had been completely reduced to the level of those sheep. And Elijah Muhammad was trying to open up our minds, plant seeds, explode some of the lies that we've been talking about what life is all about. So again, it was your younger people who gravitated towards it. Didn't necessarily understand any of it. But they gravitated towards it because they knew it was a movement to step out and get some justice for black people in America. That was really the foundation and the emotional thrust behind the whole thing. Emmett Till, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and the list goes on and on and on. They all got eliminated violently. Now, here's the intersection between African-American Muslims and the immigrant Muslim community. All during this time that we were trying to find our way, we didn't see any immigrants, Muslims. Only time we saw our immigrant Muslim when they were trying to tell us that what we were practicing wasn't Islam. I'll never forget I was walking down the street selling my Mohammed Speaks. And I saw a brother. And he was smoking a cigarette, and he's walking up. And he said, brother, I don't follow that. I follow the Quran. And I started laughing, because I said, you follow the Quran and you smoke in the cigarette, something wrong with what you're doing? Because we don't smoke. We don't drink. We don't eat pork. So life is a process of growing and developing. So at some point when Elijah Muhammad passed away, his son took over. Imam Wallace D. Muhammad. And he stepped on the stage. You know, the nation of Islam had a military unit, paramilitary unit. He stepped on the stage with all these military people behind him. And he said, everything my father taught you was wrong. He was saying, what? He said, my father's role was to empty all the foolishness that had been put into you over the centuries, all the lies, all the misconceptions about yourself, about life, about the world. My father's role was to empty that vessel. And my role is to fill that vessel up with the truth. And then he started teaching us how to pray, how to prostrate when we pray. In the nation of Islam, we just put our hands up like this. And we said a prayer. We stood up and said a prayer, what's called a doer now. And he started telling us that the white man is not the devil because he's white. The white man is the devil because of the evil that he does and that a black man can be a devil too. Oh, that shook some people up. He said, you're not God. A law is God. And a law is not human. A law is the creator of creation. And human beings are part of creation. So there's creator and there's creation. And a law is God. So then we got drop down our disguise, back down to the earth. Is this a natural human being? And then the immigrant community started rushing. Oh, yes, brother, let me teach you this. Let me teach you that. Let me teach you this. Let me teach you that. We said, hey, wait a minute. Where was you at when we was getting our ass kicked? We didn't even see you. Matter of fact, I go in the store and it says, allow supermarket and you're selling pork and alcohol. And your name is Mohammed and you change it to Moe. So what you going to tell me now? But then there were some beautiful brothers and sisters who understood the situation of growth and development. And they sat down with us and they helped us understand more about the religion. But this is this intersection of international universal Islam with Islam springing up from America. So then through study, you find out that the immigrant Muslim community had a different agenda. They didn't come to America necessarily to convert people to Islam or even to teach Islam. They came to America to have a better lifestyle for themselves. So they would form their own communities. They'd build a mosque in their community. They'd stay amongst themselves just like many immigrants do. So we put too much pressure on them because they had a different agenda and we had a different agenda. But there's one thing in the agendas that runs through, that's common that runs through all of it, is that violence is forbidden. Violence is abhorred, is loathed. So out of all the different Muslim communities, now we have Farrakhan, which is going backwards into teaching with Elijah Muhammad talk. But still, between all these different agendas, there's no violence, there's no friction because we understand each other. We comment, we dialogue with each other and keep it moving. A lot of things I want to cover here today, one of the things I want to say quickly because we want to open it up for questioning and answers and we know some of the students have to leave, one of the things I want to introduce is that most movements that have a religious jacket on them are really based on politics and most politics is based on industry and labor, land, natural resources. The politicians are the ones that voice the sensitivities to the masses to get them to agree with what's going on. But it has nothing to do with religion. Basically, religion is not the foundation. I'll give you an example. How many of you here realize how Hawaii became part of the US? You know how Hawaii started off? It wasn't a, oh, hello, Hawaiians, how are you? You want to become part of the US? Hawaii was taken over, brutally taken over. Taken over, why? Because of the fruits, sugar cane. If you're not familiar with it, study it, you'll be surprised how it was done. Mexico, you know how much of America used to be Mexico? Now there's a little spot called Mexico. The Native Americans were decimated. You know, I was taking a class at Bellevue Community College. Instructor was talking about how Native Americans have a predisposition to alcohol, something in their blood when they drink. You know, they can't really drink because it's something in their blood that catches on and it causes them to be the way they are. And I'm sitting there and I'm boiling. I says, well, what kind of predisposition would you have if somebody came in your house and told you to go live in the basement? Because it's my house now. What kind of predisposition would you have if somebody told you, we're gonna sign a document where you're gonna leave this town and go to this town and you can set up shopping in? And then when you get to the next town, there's nothing there. And then they say, bye, see you. Have good luck. And there's all kind of situations how the Native Americans were lied to. Treaty after treaty was broken until you hear that saying where the Native Americans say, pale face speak with forked tongue. African slave trade. It wasn't about white people hating black people. It was about labor, free labor. There was a time when America was called, well, then it wasn't called. There was a term called cotton as king. America was exporting cotton all over the world. With free labor. Now just think for one second. If you had workers, you owned a business and you had workers that would do all the work for you for free and all of the profit from the product you were selling came and was put in your pocket. The workers got nothing. So there are mindless people who have their idea of who God is distorted that would accept that. But there were people who didn't accept that and they were called the abolitionists. They fought hard against the institution of slavery. But my point is that slavery was used, religion was used in slavery as it was a Christian concept to put people in slavery. Religion was used to decimate the Indians. They came up with a statement called manifest destiny, white man's burden and it goes on and on and on. So that's why when we think, we think critically but don't just accept what's on the surface. There's a lot more I wanna get into but I know some of you have to leave so we would like to ask you if anybody have any questions right now before you have to leave and I'll try to answer them. Just one question, I feel like you guys are helping me out here. Just give me one question. Okay, I'll ask the question. How many people have heard of a book by Howard Zinn called A People's History of American Empire? How many people have read it? I would like to mildly recommend that everyone read that book because he tells the truth about American history minus all the myths, all the lies and all the propaganda. Okay, any questions? If not, I'll keep moving but I know some have to leave might wanna ask a question. Now we passed those papers around so that you could see, oh excuse me, yes ma'am. I think we've made very many mistakes, I'm sorry. I think we've made strides in terms of overcoming race and diversity and all that but what would it take for people not to be judged by their color and be judged by the content of what they have because I think we've not reached even half of that up to now. Excellent question. Now that's the question I wanted you to ask too. This is a problem that's been reduced down to don't judge people by the color of their skin. So it's not about not judging people by the color of their skin, it's about respecting people for the color of their skin because every situation in the world you have different cultures. I've heard people say, well I don't see race. Well if you don't see race what I think I'm hearing you saying is that you don't see racial differences. You just see the human in the person but also what you're saying you might not even realize it is that you don't recognize me in my culture. I don't see race but I have a culture. Everybody, all the immigrants that come here they come from a culture and that culture should be respected. Certain cultures eat certain foods all the time. Certain cultures do certain dances, sing certain songs that's their culture, that's their way of living. They have a certain dialect that they speak, that's their culture. So to really get to the point where you respect people in Dr. Martin Luther King's ideology is that you look at a person and treat them the way you wanna be treated. It's just as simple as that. And you know they call it the golden rule do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It's a very basic thing, it's a very basic thing and that's hard to do when you don't know about a person's culture and you turn on the television and all you see is these people acting crazy. You don't have nothing to do with that. So you see a person that looks like who you saw on TV and you back up. That's just natural human activity. You back up. This is why counter media is so critical. This is why classes like this are critical, critically important, but mainly saying, now am I to believe everything that I hear on the news? That's the other thing. I give you an example of how those that control the media have an agenda. There was a meeting in Seattle on 23rd and Union had police escorts and everything. They blocked off the whole intersection and it was a protest about a pot shop being set up right next to a church. I mean right next to the church and a teen center across the street. So there was about 18 people that spoke at this protest and I was there and I sat and watched the whole thing. Then when I went home that evening, I turned on channel seven. I know they were going to do a spread on it. 15 seconds, lip protest 23rd and Union about the pot shop next to a church and they showed one of the brothers giving a speech and you didn't hear what he said or anything and it was over with. So it's like, why didn't you cover the story about the protest? Oh, we did. See, so they can't say that we didn't, we did, but there was no, there was no emphasis on it. There was no exaggeration of anything. There was no extended viewing, 15 seconds. So then we just got home from work, retired, we're having dinner, most of us don't have the energy to call up the state and say, hey, how come you didn't cover that story in more detail? We just do our daily routine, go to sleep and get ready for work the next day and that's most of us. But there's going to have to be some of us who're going to have to take that responsibility. Like Dr. King took a great responsibility. Like all those civil rights leaders who stood up, they took great responsibility and put their personal life in danger to stand up against the injustices. So I want to get to know my neighbor who's from Russia. I want to get to know my neighbor who's from Mexico. I want to get to know my neighbor who's from China. That's going to take a lot for me to extend my hand in friendship. It's going to take a lot for me because I'm told all the Russians or communists, all the Mexicans who want to do is rob and steal. All the Chinese do is want to take over America. You know, told all this stupid stuff. So I just go on about my business. If I bump into somebody and they say, oh, excuse me, I might say hello, I might not. This is the average one of us. But we've got to rise above that. If we don't rise above that, we fall into that pool of fish and we can be fed anything as a bait and then we get captured and eaten. But one thing Dr. Martin Luther King did say, he said, you can't legislate the heart but you can legislate the behavior. So we have to talk to our legislators. Whenever we see crazy stuff going on we have to find people that think like us. We have to put our money on the table. You know, a lot of times we can talk but if there's no resources involved, a lot of things don't get done. So for your young people here, it's a choice you have to make in life. I remember President Obama talked about how he could have worked for any of the top companies in America and been a billionaire by now. But he chose community activism. And when they were giving that as one of his attributes, running for president, he was a community activist. That sounds so limited, so local. Asalaamu alaykum sisters. But any of you who know anything about community activism, you know, that is one of the most trying, trying, trying jobs that you can ever have. Being a community activist, a community organizer, because you learn about people, you learn about attitudes, you learn about the differences of a person from Friday to Monday, you learn about so many things. And I accredit that history that he had in community organizing with the way that he's able to handle himself as a president. Can you imagine being the president of a country and you walk out to give a state of the union address and somebody hollers out from the audience, you lie and you still maintain your composure and keep on going. You imagine how much strength that takes? Now it'd be different if you walked out to a crowd that you don't know anything about, a rowdy crowd, and they say, you lie and they start throwing tomatoes at you. That's one thing, but you're walking out amongst so-called civilized, intelligent, educated people. In the government, it takes a lot. You know I had a policeman friend that told me the death threats that he was getting, he said like the death threats were up like 1,000% that they could never tell the public about. Just death threats, not because of his policies, but because of the color of his skin. Okay, give me another question. All right, by a show of hands, how many people know who Kim Elijah one is? Basketball player. Karim Abdul-Jabbar, Muhammad Ali. What about Bernard Hopkins? Two boxing fans, go ahead. Cat Stevens, there we go. Dave Chappelle, most deaf. All these people that I name are Muslims. These are people that we've seen in the media and that we've never ascertained from any of their actions or words that they were violent people. Matter of fact, we admire them, give them accolades. Janet Jackson, Tito Jackson, and it was said that Michael Jackson was leaning towards becoming a Muslim. Okay, what about the Philadelphia sound, Gamelin Huff, Teddy Pendergrass? Okay, we got one old school right over here. But Gamelin Huff, Muslim songwriters. Okay, here's one, what about Brother Ali, the rapper, underground rapper? Okay, there we go. I'm reluctant, but I'll say it, Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson's come a long way. I'm watching his progress, he's really come a long way. Muslims, popular Muslims. So being a Muslim is, I should say, it represents freedom from oppression of any kind, freedom from slavery of any kind. So for African-American, Islam was very appealing because we're the ones that are so sensitive to being oppressed and being put in slavery. Let me read something from our prophet, Prophet Muhammad. This was called his last sermon or his last big speech. And for the sake of time, I'll just excerpt some things. He says this, there's no superiority of a white over a black. And there's no superiority of a black over a white. Then he said, to take this message to those who are not here, perhaps they will take heed better than those who are here. So this message has been kept transmitting through generations, through generations, through generations. And it's finally ended up here in America. And some of your most active adherents to that message are those who come from the nation of Islam because we lived under a doctrine that said that the black man was superior to the white man, bringing us out of a doctrine that said the white man was superior to the black man. So we've experienced both sides of that coin. And then to understand that if we truly want to be a Muslim, then we have to follow the dictates of what a Muslim is. And the prophet or teacher tells us there's no superiority of a black over a white or a white over a black. The, let's see, the pleasing attitude in the sight of God is those who are the most righteous. So it has nothing to do with skin color. It has everything to do with what's in your heart. It has nothing to do with skin color. It has everything to do with what's in your heart. And who is it that sees the heart? Only God can see the heart. We can't see the heart. Only God can see the heart. So we're the new Muslims. What I mean by that is that we just got introduced to Islam proper in 1975. And how many of you in here are Christians? How many of you Christians have read the whole Bible? See, only one hand raised up. So when we think about Muslims, you think about Muslims that have been Muslims for hundreds of years. Their country is Muslim. Their family is Muslim. Everybody they know is Muslim. But if this energy is not kept alive, we can slide. We can slide. And a lot of them have slid to where they say, I'm a Muslim. Some of them have not read the Quran. Some are Muslim because their family's Muslim. And I'm not saying that anything is wrong with this. What I'm saying is how the laziness can come in to being anything. But no, for the new convert, man, he wants to know everything there is to know. He wants to know everybody that's a Muslim. He wants to read the Quran in the morning and the afternoon and the night. And then wake up in the middle of the night and read it some more. Because it's so exciting. It's brand new thing. And that's what you see in America. And I believe that it's going to be the Muslims in America and those who respect Islam in their heart that live in America, that's going to bring about a renaissance of Islam is gonna come from America. Because in my naivete, when I would hear about people from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, you know, these African countries, Indonesia, I was so excited. I run up to the people, hug them. Asalaamu alaykum brother, asalaamu alaykum sister. Tell me this, tell me this, tell me this, tell me this. And I find out there's a lot of oppression from the state against Muslims. Like every Friday, we have what we call the Juma prayer, the Friday prayer, the main day for Muslims. In some Muslim countries, the state writes the speech for the Imam and gives it to the Imam and then they stand guard at the door to make sure he delivers the speech the way it was written. So to make a long story short, America is really in my estimation and a lot of people agree with me. It's really the only real Muslim country. Oh, brother, how can you say that, man? Look what goes on in America. Look at the freedoms in America, the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly and what's that last one? The freedom of religion. We can be a Muslim in America. The police can't come into a group of Muslims and say you can't gather here. We're free to express ourselves the way we want to. The police can't bust in and say, you know, that's the wrong speech, you can't say that in here. So that's why I put on my resume, excuse me, my bio that I was a Vietnam veteran. You know, there was a huge thing about African-Americans not joining the military. So why should I join the military and not get the freedoms that every other citizen has that's guaranteed to all of us, but we don't get it? But understanding the freedoms in America, I encourage young people to go into military because we have an obligation to stand and defend this country. Now, I know some of you say, well, some of the military policy is not righteous. Some of the political policies are not righteous. So you can have a Muslim on the battlefield and have another individual right beside you, both fighting, but in your mind, you may not be fighting for the same objective they're fighting for. You're fighting for to preserve the freedoms of America. So when you go back home, you can stand tall and say, assalamu alaikum, and have invested your treasure and your life to keep this country functioning. Now, there's what we call America the beautiful and America the ugly. So for all of us, all of us that wanna see America the beautiful keep pushing ahead, we have to band together and stand against those who wanna see America the ugly, revive its ugly head again. We don't ever wanna see that in America again. And unfortunately, we see this Islamophobia taking over the media. So I wanna put this out there when people wanna talk about Islamic terrorism, we should lay a foundation. Who started World War I? Was it Muslims? Who started World War II? Was it Muslims? Who killed about 20 million Aboriginal people in Australia? Was it Muslims? Who sent the nuclear bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Was it Muslims? Who killed more than 50 million Indians in South America? Was it Muslims? Who killed more than 100 million Indians in North America? Was it Muslims? Who took about 180 million of African people as slaves whom 88% died and were thrown in the Atlantic Ocean called the Middle Passage? Was it Muslims? And who oppressed the entire population of South Africa to work the gold and diamond mines? Was it Muslims? No, they weren't Muslims. First, we have to define terrorism properly. If a non-Muslim does something bad, it's a crime. But if a Muslim commits the same act, he is a terrorist. First, we move the double standard. Then we can move and come to the point. How much time we got? Can any of you remember about three, four years ago when Oprah Winfrey was talking about beef and the hazards of beef? Somebody came on our show and started talking about how beef causes cancer, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And she said, wow, I don't think I'll ever eat another burger. Can any of you remember that? We got one. Anybody else remember that? Well, you know she got sued? She got sued by the beef industry? And I don't know what, I know she came out of court smiling, but I don't know if it was a settlement or what, but it was a long drawn out thing because they said her voice carried so much weight that people were gonna stop eating burgers and cut back on their profits and they sued her. Now, let's bring it up to this talk today. One of the things about Islam that people hate, big business hates, because one of the things we're told is to eat foods that are good and pure. So if we push that, fast food business are gonna go out, they're not gonna have any business from Muslims. Because once you find out what's in fast foods, you don't wanna eat that. I tell my grandkids, they talk about McDonald's, I say, you mean McBoo-Boo? Said all fast foods is excrement with flavoring on it. Muslims don't eat pork. Now, there is hardly no food in the Western world that does not have pork products in it. Hardly no food. And you know how they promote bacon. I mean, bacon is the thing, bacon is in everything. They even got bacon and ice cream now. The other thing about Islam is that loan sharking is forbidden. Now, what am I talking about about loan sharking? I'm talking about, you got bad credit, you're working on your job, everybody in the neighborhood got a big screen TV and you got that little bitty 24-inch thing that somebody gave you, you want a big screen TV. But when you go to buy one, you can't pay for it in cash and you don't have good credit. So where do you go to get your big screen TV? Payday loan. Rent a center. Rent a center will sell you a $2,000 big screen TV for $50 a week. And the average poor person is thinking in terms of $50 a week. Well, $50 is not that much money. That's $200 a month. But when you sign your name, what you don't read or realize is that you're paying $4,000 for that TV because your contract is extended for two or three years. But that's not important because you're getting your big screen TV the same day you walked in the store, you're gonna walk out with it at $50 a week. That's loan sharking. That's loan sharking. Rent a center, excuse me, payday loan. Same thing. You gotta pay a bill, you go in there, they give you the loan, but what you pay back is usually four or five times what you were loaned. But you pay is often a long period of time. And then when you get stuck again, you just take out another loan. So you're in a constant cycle of oppression and slavery, economic slavery. So that's forbidden in Islam. No gambling. Forbidden. Do you know how much people make in casinos? Can you imagine? And gambling is also, not only is it a sin, it's an addiction. There are people who quit gambling just like they can't quit using drugs. It's an addiction. And if you wanna know the truth, it's all rigged. You gotta listen to alternative TV, go on the internet. When you first walk into a casino, they take your picture, bam. Then they run it to see if you've been in there before. Then they run it to see if you've been in the ones in the area. So if you're brand new, they watch the machine you go to and they make sure you win something. Soon as you walk in, you can win two or $300 right off the bat, just pull in the little slots. Now they got you. They got you. Cause you're gonna lose that $300 that you won, plus the $300 that you came in there with to spend. Then you're gonna go back to the cash machine. You're gonna call mama, daddy, uncle somewhere, send me some more money. Now you're hooked. It's all a trap. It's all a trap. No drugs or alcohol. It's a big one. No drugs or alcohol. Now I just named these few things here. And these few things that I just named are multi-billion dollar industries. And so we're talking about Islam becoming popular in the West, these people are gonna lose too much money. But at the same time, out of all that we've talked about, Islam is still the fastest growing religion in the West. And why is that? Because people look at it from a critical thinking posture. And they see that it makes a lot of sense. And I see that my host is standing up here, gonna tell me that my time is probably up. So holla. Well, yeah, but I did have a question. Oh, yes ma'am. Can you talk a little bit about the interfaith work that you do here in the Greater Seattle area in regards to working with other faith-based groups? Thank you. Thank you. There is a movement going on. It's called the Interfaith Movement. And it is strong all over the country. And in some of the papers that we passed around, you'll see some of that interfaith going on. And there's a Lutheran church, a pastor from the Lutheran church named Terry Kylo that I work with. I work with Jewish rabbis. We work with all types of Christian denominations and politicians to show that we all serve the same God. We just serve it from a different walk or a different persuasion. But we all serve the same God. Because in fact, there's only one God. There's not two or three or four or five different gods. There's only one God. And as Muslims, we believe that we believe in all the books, the Old Testament, the New Testament. We believe in all of the messengers and prophets that God sent to teach the people. As a matter of fact, one of the first interfaith movements during the time of the beginning of Islam was when the Muslims were under persecution, heavy persecution. So the prophet told some of his followers to go to Africa, to Abyssinia, Ethiopia, said there's a king there who's a just and fair ruler. And so they escaped the persecution and went to Africa. And the enemies came behind them and they all arrived there kind of like at the same time. And the king said, what's going on? So the oppressor said, these people are our subjects and they're causing problem in our kingdom. And they've escaped and we're trying to recapture them and bring them back. And the king said, I understand that. There are many times troublemakers are around. He said, certainly you can take them back. He said, but I have to hear what they have to say. And when they started speaking, they talked about all the corruption in the society, all the tribal wars in the society, all the disrespectful women in the society, all the disrespect for the working class in the society. And they said, when this one man came, when this Muhammad showed up and said, he said that he was receiving revelation from God and that all these things were forbidden. And we stopped walking around with our heads down. We stopped disrespecting our women. We stopped fighting at the drop of a hat and killing each other. We had trust amongst ourselves. We could leave our possessions with each other. And the king said, well, this doesn't sound too bad. He said, what's the problem here? So the oppressor said, oh, but they don't believe in Jesus. Now the king got really upset. He said, tell me about Jesus. Tell me about the baby. Jesus, our savior. And so now everybody was looking around. Well, how are we gonna handle this? So one of the Muslims, all he did was recite what the Lord had revealed to Muhammad about the virgin birth. And I can't recite it exactly, but he basically broke it down to where the angel came to marry and told her that God was gonna bless her with a word from him. And his name would be Jesus and how he would go out and do great works, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So he recited that to the king. And the king was sitting on his throne and he had a staff and he got up, walked down and he drew a line like that. And he said, what you believe and what we believe, there's no more difference than that line. He said, you can stay with us forever. I will never send you back. And he sent back the oppressors and they had brought great gifts hordes of gold and silver. He said, take your gifts back with you. And those Muslims stayed there and lived there in the society. That was the first great inner faith situation in Islamic and Christian history. So back to the question, the group that I work with, the particular group I work with is with Terry Kahlo with the Lutheran church and he travels all over the state with Christians, Muslims and Jews to show the solidarity between people who believe in God and how that we can work together. So that's kind of the answer to your question. How much time we got? Any more questions? Yes, sir. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, there's a small incremental fact about Islam that the Islamophones won't tell us. And that is that in Spain, there was a civilization of Muslims, Christians and Jews who lived together in peace, in quiet, and in harmony and in intellectual transfer for over 800 years. And it's known as Muslim Spain. And if you Google it and look it up, you'll see that I talk about the coexistence. So when people really get serious about practicing their religion and believing in God, all that superficial stuff just falls away. So that's the one example. The other example is during the time of the Prophet when Islam got established in Mecca and Medina, Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together. And it's something you can almost call a heaven on earth because there were travelers that used to come through there and during the time of prayer, all the shop owners would leave the shop and go to the mosque and make prayer. And one of the travelers came through there and he was looking around. And so one of the believers came up to him and said, are you new here? He said, yes, he said, what kind of city is this? He said, no one is guarding the door. No one is guarding the shops. He said, no, we're Muslims. We don't have need of any locks or guards. So there is something in the Christian prayer which talks about that kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. And this is what Islam represents, is that kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Now I must say that this is the ideal. Today we don't see it that much, but it did happen. There is a place of reference that we can look to because America is how old? 200 years, 400 years, how old is America? Spain was, we had coexistence, peaceful coexistence for over 800 years in Spain. So thank you for that question. You know, I had that down here to talk about but I kind of overlooked it, so thank you. Okay, we have a few more minutes, any more questions? Can anyone tell me what the word propaganda means? How it's defined? Just briefly, propaganda. Yes, sir. Okay, yeah, that's it, that's it. Yeah, I remember seeing those pictures. They would talk about the Jews and then show rats running in the sewer at the same time, things like that. And if you break that word down, syllable by syllable, you get pro-pagan, pro-pagan. So it's appeal, pro-pagan, propaganda. So it's appealing to the pagan inside of us. It's appealing to the inhumanity in us. And they're very skillful at it, like you said. They'll present a narrative, show a picture. Let's see, I want to wrap this up with a quote from the Holy Quran. This is chapter 49, al-Hujarat, the chambers. O mankind, we created you from a single soul of a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other, not that you may despise each other. Verily, the most honored of you in the sight of God is he who is the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted with all things. That's my closing quote. If you have any questions, I want to say in closing, I appreciate you guys' time and your patience to bear with me. I appreciate the sister, Doris, for working through this process of getting me here and big props to Brother Powell, Asma, yes, for inviting me here in one of the interfaith dialogues. So I hope that I have shared some things. I ask you all to keep those papers if you don't want them. Pass them on to somebody else. You will see on those papers an alternative to what the propaganda that we've been fed. And I want to say, Asalaamu alaikum to you all, which means peace be upon you and thank you. And I want to return this back over to Powell.