 My name is Maimona Afsilberda. I am a special education teacher in San Jose, and I'm also on a local school board as an elected official. So we're going to be talking about stereotypes, and stereotypes impact Muslims in a lot of ways. I'm sure a lot of you have experienced them or witnessed them, but they also impact a lot of other groups of individuals. And so it's important that we learn about and specifically reflect on the negative impact of stereotypes, but also how we can take back some of that power so that we can counteract the stereotypes that do exist in our society and communities. So we're going to start by actually looking at some of the historical examples from the Sira and from the early believers. And so to do that activity, well actually let me backtrack, did you all get a copy of the agenda? They don't have a copy? Okay, so I'll go ahead and read the agenda and goals then just so you know what to expect. So this session again is going to cover the personal experience, it's going to cover stereotypes, the relationship between stereotypes, policies, and real-world consequences. And then some of the goals are we're going to discuss and process different interpersonal experiences with stereotypes. We're going to reflect on the ways that all of you as students, Muslim students specifically, can be recipients, but also perpetuators of specific stereotypes. And we're going to understand how those stereotypes also perpetuate unjust policies against marginalized communities and how that knowledge operates in a larger system of oppression. And then hopefully by the end of this you'll be able to generate kind of a thesis statement which articulates different platforms for combating oppression as individuals and as a broader community. So that's just to give you an idea of what to expect in the agenda. And don't worry, I'm not having you write an essay at the end of this, I'll leave that up to Brother Usman if he wants to challenge you with that. I did see the thesis statement but I don't believe that's part of an activity yet. So you don't have to worry about that. So we're going to go ahead and do a read, I'll go ahead and read a story. But before we do that I would like for you to check under your desk to see if you have a card stuck under your desk somewhere. So if you have a card or under the, oh on top of your desk, okay perfect. If you have a, not the sticky note, but an actual card, yes. I see a couple of you, perfect. So if you have a piece of paper with a term and a definition, when I come across that term in the story, I would like for you to read the term, the word, and its definition so that we all have the same understanding of what that word means. Okay, so you should all have a copy of the story though. Do you all have that? That's what I'm going to be reading off of to start us off. Okay, and then do we have all of the cards? I think I saw a couple. There's not too many. But everyone who has a card, okay. Okay, so I'm going to ask you to read that please. Thank you. Okay, so we'll go ahead and get started. We're going to be reading the, the elite of Gresh and the early believers. Again, to give us some context, right? Why as Muslims is it so important and what does the Sira teach us about this? The Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him came from the tribe of Gresh, the most powerful and prestigious tribe in the Arabian Peninsula. Their status as keepers of the Kaaba and caretakers of the pilgrims who visited the Holy site every year gave Gresh authority and legitimacy. The pilgrim, pilgrimage was also a big source of revenue for the business leaders of Gresh who sold souvenir idols and other goods to the pilgrims. Hence idol worship was a source of power and money for the leaders of the Gresh. It was no wonder that then that they felt threatened when the Prophet peace and blessings be upon him called for the worship of one God. This threatened the entire social, political and economic power structure of the elite. It's no surprise that the early community of Muslims faced all kinds of accusations and stereotypes. So who has stereotypes? Some of these papers. Can you go ahead and read us what stereotypes mean please? Thank you for reading that to us. So stereotypes to delegitimize their cause. The Prophet peace and blessings be upon him was called a fortune teller, a poet, a liar, and a sorcerer whose words could tear families apart. The leaders of Gresh looked upon the early Muslims with suspicions and distrust believing that their Islam threatened the very fabric of society. Arguably the tribal elites created the first atmosphere of Islamophobia. Who has the term Islamophobia for us? Can you read that out loud for us please? Thank you. So it created the first atmosphere of Islamophobia which was used to justify the harsh treatment of early Muslims. Gresh operated a system of tribal alliances so if you messed with a member of the powerful clan then you were basically asking for tribal war. Having tribal alliances with the rich and powerful meant having physical protection. Since the people without those alliances without that protection the slaves, servants, and immigrants of Mecca received the worst discrimination. Who has discrimination? Yes can you please read that for us? Thank you brother. Unequal treatment of people based on their membership in a group to discriminate is to treat a person not on the basis of who they are but on the basis of a prejudgment about a group. Discrimination can describe treatment under the law like segregation laws or against the law like hate crimes. Thank you for reading that. So they received the worst discrimination when the leaders of the Gresh decided that they would no longer tolerate the practice of Islam. Somaya and her husband Yasser were the first martyrs in Islam. They were poor. Somaya a servant and her husband Yasser an immigrant from Yemen. Upon accepting Islam they were tortured and eventually killed with no tribal connections to protect them. One can argue that Somaya and her husband Yasser were the victims of classism. Who has classism? Okay so bring the mic over and then if you could read the definition of classism please. Any attitude action or institutional practice that subordinates people due to their economic condition. A person's class is determined by access to a mix of resources including but not limited to money, culture, contacts and formal education. Class includes food, clothing, language, cars, entertainment, work and much more. Thank you. Bilal may Allah be pleased with him was a black slave from Abyssinia. His talent and integrity earned him the confidence of his slave owner Omeya Ibn Qalaf who entrusted Bilal to manage his trade and goods. His refined character and tremendous recitation of poetry surpassed many of Mecca's elites but because Bilal was a son of a black woman he would never be accepted among the leaders of the Quraysh. Upon learning that Bilal had become Muslim Omeya placed burning desert rocks on his flesh and subjected him to extreme torture to get him to renounce his faith. In legendary defiance he repeated over and over again. Allah is one. Bilal's experiences illustrate the depth of society's institutionalized racism. Who has the word racism? Racism is a system of oppression used to the advantage of one race and the disadvantage of another race or races. It involves the use of institutional power to reiterate stereotypes and enforce discrimination in systemic ways. Thank you for reading that definition of racism. You see Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him understood that these stereotypes were a mask for the real fears of Mecca's elite. In a society that worshipped wealth, tribal connections, and whiteness la ilaha illallah there is no god but god meant abandoning these false idols that gave the elite of Quraysh their power in Meccan society. Islam came as the newest and baddest form of knowledge power. Who has knowledge power? Yes. A knowledge power refers to the idea that if you can influence the knowledge that people adopt through media, education, pop culture, and other social mediums, then you can influence how power is exercised either ethically or unethically. Stereotypes are a negative form of knowledge power which work to advantage certain groups and disadvantage others. Thank you for reading that definition. So Islam gave us that knowledge power in the Arabian Peninsula. It's no wonder then that many of the earliest and most dedicated believers were servants, slaves, women, and youth supposedly the weakest people in society. So that gives us some context for our lesson today, right? I want you to go ahead and turn to like a person sitting next to whoever's closest maybe and maybe and let's talk about this a little bit. Talk to them about in this story how are the ideas about groups of people related to the systems that mistreat people. So I'll say that one more time. I want you to turn and talk to them about how the ideas about groups of people are related to the systems that mistreat people. So go ahead and turn and talk. I'll give you guys a couple of minutes just to process what we read. A brave soul and share what you processed with your partner. Basically what I thought that I understood from this was that the people in the tribe with the higher social hierarchy or the people with the higher status were more were less likely to accept Islam because their idol worship was kind of it was sort of a thing that got them to their higher status that they were less likely to give that up for Islam because then they lose that status. Yeah that's a great connection right there was there was so much that they were gaining financially from their social status that would be a great loss to them if they decided to go against right because it's all about the connections you had so if you're going to go against that then it would jeopardize your position. Thank you for sharing that connection. Okay so before we get into another activity what I want to actually do is you might be wondering like okay well why did brother Usman or why did care pick me to do this session? Like who am I? Why is this like why is this such a big deal to me? Well I would argue that stereotypes actually drastically change the trajectory of my life and I'm not saying that as an exaggeration. So I'll tell you a little bit about my story um specifically with stereotypes and really I feel like I had to care in some as you know like a as a student. I went to an Islamic school in Sunnyvale and so I was always around a lot of Muslim my peers were always Muslim but when I became a teacher and decided to teach in the public school that was some of my first experiences so I've been teaching about four years at the time and as a special education teacher and so most of my time spent on a public middle school campus working with students with learning disabilities and so at the time again working there for about four or five years um I honestly was doing great it was you know things got tough sometimes you know you've all been middle schoolers so you understand it's sometimes it can be a little bit difficult to work with but I would say my life really changed on 9-11 2017 when I came to my classroom early to get set up and started and as I turn the corner I see that my classroom had been vandalized with words of hate words associating me with terrorism I had ISIS written on my door and I just could not believe what I was seeing because the majority of the students that I work with were also students of color students who are English language learners students who are undocumented and so they also had lots of you know they also experience stereotypes um but for me and you might remember what happened in November of 2016 does anyone remember what happened November 2016 which was right before this or January of 2017 yes Trump got elected and so that kind of started a snowball effect for me to that instance on 9-11 2017 where I saw that my classroom had been vandalized so I was really devastated I'm not expecting that to happen and unfortunately that was the 13th incident that had taken place on my school campus and not just to me but to other other hijabies other staff members who work there and so I was I was alarmed and I was alarmed not just for how that impacts me as a staff member but the environment that it was cultivating for other students so what did I do I decided to call care I had been in their Muslim youth leadership program and so I knew a lot about the types of resources that they offered and so I called care and I said you know like what do we do and we talked about a plan to figure out how I could gain back the power in that situation excuse me I'm having a little hijab malfunction here and so the plan that we came up with was I decided I was going to go public with my story and so with care's help basically decided to demand action of the school district right they are responsible for creating the systems that protect students that protect staff that protect our community and so my my story was printed on the front page of the mercury news which is a new organization in San Jose that November and I decided to speak at a school board meeting in front of my local elected officials and specifically what I was asking them is what are the policies you have in place to protect us from these experiences how are we going to respond to these experiences because these stereotypes are not acceptable and in this case resulted in a hate crime with my classroom being vandalized so after that story went public and after I spoke at the school board meeting that's well first of all it was terrifying I'm not really much of a public speaker I enjoy being in my small classroom and speaking to and working with kids right but speaking publicly kind of created this chain reaction where I was flooded with people contacting me literally I had all of these cards and emails and phone calls of both people who are who were horrified of what was happening in our community but also people who are like you're making this up what did you do to these kids to make them do this to you and I really didn't know what to do with it but it was a lot right it was a lot to process and so I needed to figure out how to use my knowledge and my experiences about stereotypes to really impact lasting change right in the system and so when a local position opened up on my on a school board in the district which I where I live I decided why not I'm going to run for that seat and I won and I became the first hijabi elected official in the state of California and the reason that I did that was so that I could help write the policies that then lead to change and work with care on things like Muslim Day at the Capitol to advocate for bills like AB 2291 which was to help teachers get trained on responding to school bullying and so that article so again why do I share all of this with all of you because I know unfortunately each and every one of you has probably experienced a stereotype at some point in your personal experience or witnessed someone else experiencing that again it's not just to Muslims stereotypes impact many groups of individuals and so it's really important for us to reflect on those experiences today and think about what can we as individuals do for to help ourselves but also helps our community and our broader society to challenge stereotypes this was just a image of the NPR article where I didn't know I was going to be sworn in but I was sworn in to take that position on the school board so with that I want to give you guys some a chance to process what your own experiences are so each of you should have a post-it on your table do you all see those so what you're going to do is you're going to think about what are some what is a stereotype that you have personally experienced it could be and there's I'm going to go through a couple of different examples of what those what those can look like because there's actually different types or different ways that you can experience stereotypes and I'll give you a couple of those so not sure actually if I can write this down maybe might just might be helpful that way you can think about because there's actually different types and I think it would be helpful you might be familiar with a lot of these right like a slur how many of you have been called or heard someone be called a slur before a slur is a derogatory term to meant to demean a person or a group of people based on that stereotype about your identity raise your hand if you've ever experienced a slur or seen someone or heard someone be called a slur before yeah so a lot of you right so that's one like example that's kind of easy so when I came to my classroom there was quite a number of slurs kind of written on my walls of my classroom so that was one of those experiences of a specific stereotype the other examples I guess I'll just read them out loud and then if you have questions about a specific example let me know we have an encounter jarring experiences where your social reality or constraints are made real we have microaggression it's a brief and commonplace daily verbal behavioral or environmental indignities whether intentional or unintentional that communicate hostile derogatory or negative racial slights and insults towards people of color now microaggressions are actually really important to understand that they are created out of an environment where racism exists so this I only learned this recently but for example a person who does not have who already is in a position of power they are the ones who can microaggress towards another person with less power it doesn't always work the other way or it doesn't work the other way around so if you are in a position of power and you are using that position to abuse and to stereotype someone else that is a microaggression it has to do with that power I talked about a slur which is a derogatory term used to demean people based to stereotype on their identity a stereotype threat when you avoid acting a certain way because you might fulfill a stereotype about your identity some examples of this is like you don't want to be the angry muslim in a in a protest or um you're concerned about being too loud like I know when I get on the plane sometimes I'm I get a little bit embarrassed or like nervous of if my dad or my oh actually I'll give a better example of this a little tangent here but my husband and I went to visit waterfalls in South America and he decides he's just so overtaken by the waterfalls that he starts doing the adhan and I'm like freaking out because I'm like we are gonna like people are gonna think we're doing something and like I was freaking out about it but that's you know like me that was me like acting based on that like thinking people were gonna think us of as a threat um identity contingencies when you think or act a certain way based on a stereotype of your identity so things like muslim's girls should be quiet almost must become doctors or engineers or lawyers some of those are also cultural stereotypes but you get the idea so those are some examples for you to reflect on right now as you think about what to write on your post it just so you kind of know you're not going to be sharing your own stereotype out loud but we will be exchanging them so that you'll randomly get to read someone else's stereotype so just keep that in mind as you're writing this um write something that you're comfortable sharing even if it's not associated with you directly it'll kind of help us give us more examples okay so again you have your post-it note go ahead and write an example um it could be any of the categories of stereotypes that I've already shared um of an encounter a microaggression a slur a time where you felt you had to act a certain way or avoid acting a certain way because of a stereotype about your identity so I'll give you a couple minutes to do that on the post-it note so we'll go ahead and hadra will you start with yours please mine says microaggressions at school okay thank you um it says my friend was called to tears um mine says the day a kid called me an outsider and go back to your own country yeah you read what they wrote it says the concept that a woman's place in the world is to stay at home to household chores thank you for reading that um someone calling me a terrorist as a joke in seventh grade um mine says that um and people thought that I was Indian when when I told them that I was um Pakistani they labeled me as someone who's not proud enough of their ethnicity um being associated with terrorism constantly just because one is Muslim um they said two times I've been flipped off for being a different race or hijabi and one the first time was when a guy was kept staring at me wordly and making me uncomfortable and then just flipped me off and then second time when we were crossing the road another guy flipped us off even though it was our turn to walk but mine says uh bombing slash terrorist jokes um one of my friends joined about me being a terrorist and blowing up the school mine says being careful I think it's about praying um in school um it's not safe you can just do your best yeah that's good thank you mine says exploding jokes when a Muslim enters a room and pieces of media like call of duty that cycle out various vaguely Arab terrorists antagonists I don't have one so I presume there's a discrepancy between the amount of sticking out some of the kids thank you thank you for your flexibility uh someone told my friend philosophy go back to your country that's interesting uh like if someone finds like a rude Muslim from our community they would like generalize that all Muslims are that way uh getting called a terrorist because it was Muslim also getting called a nerd because it was Indian oh mine says avoiding voicing my opinions and fear of being considered loud and obnoxious to give into this stereotype of being the quiet Muslim girl uh someone yelled Allahu Akbar when we were learning about 9 11 in class stereotype one example of this is often in school I avoid talking about academics or grades a lot so I don't fulfill that stereotype towards Asians mine says being caught a Wahhabi uh mine is was called a bomber after my class in 9 11 was and was called the end um they were uh their father was praying at the summit of a hike and they were afraid of what other people would think uh this one says someone was called a suicide bomber mine says Muslims are terrorists it says I have been called a terrorist and even though I know nobody has actually meant it I still don't like being called death people singing happy birthday on 9 11 uh being told 9 11 should be my holiday um mine says I personally faced slurs many times micro aggressions many times multiple encounters times when I thought I should change how I act times when I was I don't know how to read that but that's okay and much more thank you for sharing so I think we would all agree right that experiencing stereotypes is not the best feeling it actually really sucks um but there's a lot of ways there's a lot of and I shouldn't say but there's and there's a lot of weight different ways that we experience it some have to do with um our Muslim identity our identity as Muslims and others have to do with all other aspects of um your identity so when we think about um stereotypes it's really important to think about the many many different realms and we heard a lot of good examples of that of the ways that stereotypes can impact us um and but the other important thing to understand is stereotypes although they really suck they also impact a lot more than just our feelings and what do I mean by that so when we talk about the day-to-day incidents a lot of times these incidents they just become like part of the new normal they become normalized right like oh this is like yeah this happened today it sucks and it's probably going to happen at some in the future um but what happens is when it becomes part of our daily lives as Muslims for black people for immigrants for women when they become part of this idea that it's no big deal that's when the problem of stereotypes impacts a person's sense of belonging in society and also starts to impact the policies and the system that are being made by the decision makers and I would say especially when the people who are sitting at the table making these decisions are not reflective of the people who are experiencing these types of things so what I would like for us to do now is we're actually going to do a little bit of deeper thinking on what we call you know someone had the definition but the knowledge power yes okay so we got this one a lot I actually heard this example quite a bit but Muslims are terrorists right that's a pretty common stereotype so we're going to use this tool we've got our knowledge policies and then real world consequences so this knowledge right this concept that Muslims are terrorists people are getting that from a variety of different places yes so again if you need to take care of yourself for whatever reason you all are young independent individuals please feel free to take care of yourself yourself and your needs so again knowledge we're getting that from lots of different places this tool is going to help us understand how oppression operates on different levels so the first level of oppression is knowledge and knowledge is that information that individuals are getting and how they're perpetuated so stereotypes are perpetuated by mass media by culture by education and other platforms and it's the way that people understand the world and that impacts then the decision makers the people who are making the policies which then also leads to how those policies have consequences in people's real lives so we'll start with this example Muslims are terrorists I want you to give some examples of some policies right and some policies that have that also that impact people's day to day lives as a result of this right how many of you I know just recently I'll go on a little tangent yes the travel ban yeah that's a great example so what you'll do is you're going to turn and talk about some of those policies with your partner sitting next to you talk about some of the policies and we'll go ahead we'll write them up so I want to give you hopefully we'll be prepared where if you don't know something maybe you can share it with your partner and then we'll generate a list of ideas together okay so again that's an example of an actual policy that's impacted by this Muslims are terrorists okay so go ahead and go and turn and talk and then I'm going to collect some ideas from you on policies that influence and come back together and then I know we brother small is going to bring the microphone around for you to share what the policy is that you guys discussed okay so who's ready I know one of them we had was the travel plan so I'll start with that one that's a policy okay who has another example of a policy they're shared by you or your partner we'll wait for the mic so anyone on the recording can hear also thank you I'm stricter immigration policies or just the making the policy of becoming a citizenship much harder okay the first part was strict immigration laws okay and maybe it would also add right that they're not always the most equitable immigration laws right thank you for sharing that yes doesn't have to be in America only no um well I'm not sure this true but I heard in India they're now trying to ban the hijab yeah on hijab and I would say right a lot of other um like the Burkini in France too there's lots of like controlling of what Muslim women specifically wear yes we have another one thank you for sharing uh like the tsa and like searching Muslims over and over again keeping them in a security levels in the airport etc yeah i'm gonna say tsa the extra special treatment right as you go through the airport other examples of policies or ways that um we have actual legislation or or laws or systems in place based on this concept or this knowledge you could even think broader too like in terms of in the world um what are things that are laws or other policies so i'll give you some other examples how many of you have heard of Guantanamo Bay yeah so policies where people are unjustly and without a fair or due process taken and detained for years of their life right that is an example other examples this might well this might have been a little bit before your time or maybe you've heard of it but the war on terror right this concept that we can go and invade other countries just because we feel like they're more of a threat than others and then also similarly right with with immigration i would also say things like the actual process to become a citizen oftentimes that can be delayed or unjustly ruled on based on this this concept right so this is just to give you an idea of what are ways that this actually has an impact right it may seem like okay yeah that was in call of duty you know where they're associating Muslims with terrorism by incorporating like this violence with actual Arabic terms or words that sound similar to Arabic but these actually have impacts on the types of policies and systems that are created and then unfortunately what's even worse is that these policies then have real world consequences so that's what i want us to think about also go ahead and turn and talk really quickly about what are some real consequences of all of these policies or other things that you think of when this knowledge is perpetuated remember we're talking about it becomes normalized it becomes part of our day to day what are the real world consequences of that i might have accidentally mentioned some of them too but what are some real world consequences of these policies go ahead and turn and talk um so i do remember there was this time a while back uh hijabi Muslim women tried to go on a trip that she paid for um in a plane but they tried to make her take off her hijab in public and she refused to so they didn't let her go on the trip that she paid for yeah so actual innocent Muslims right every day Muslims who are being detained thank you for sharing yes um refugees trapped in war zones because of like the travel ban yeah i had an example of somebody i know who um their first and last name were just happened to be on like a suspect list after 9 11 um and as you guys know like Muslim names tend to be common um so she wasn't allowed to travel and she had a lot of restrictions just because of this even though she never did a single thing um and there was like nothing on her criminal records at all yeah so being restricted right having your basic rights that's the impact the real world consequence are there examples oh yes um so like the war on terror invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan a lot of innocent civilians died and it was mainly because it was a muslim a jury country yeah that's a huge one right this actually impacts people's lives like literally as in people are being killed that's an actual real world consequence yeah um i said that generally as like a society when these things happen like for example a ban on hijab or tsi searches when people see these it gets ingrained in their brains you know naturally that oh these things are bad or like a hijab would be bad or like muslim people are more suspicious that kind of stuff yes you bring up such a great point is that these consequences now start to impact again it's a cycle it's now perpetuating that muslims are terrorists right it's getting so ingrained that people are it's it's a constant cycle yes thank you for sharing that um when something happens in like a to like a muslim group a lot of the time it's seen as less important than it's happened to an muslim group so for example like in Ukraine like it's completely terrible what's happening there but when the same stuff was happening in Yemen or Syria it didn't receive nearly as much attention because it wasn't like a western ally and also like what's happening in Palestine where the Palestinian people and the governments are painted as terrorists because they're trying to you know for the most part defend themselves from the occupying powers of Israel so like generally like the stereotype will make most like you know Muhammad said muslim causes less uh less serious in the media as I yeah and I would argue that that's actually very deeply dehumanizing when you are taking away the value of individual's life on the basis that they're muslim or on other basis right it's dehumanizing them it's stripping them of not only their rights but of their right to exist right thank you for sharing that okay so again I want you to think about when this also starts to impact this are there other things that sometimes like again make this worse like when is this reinforced in a way amongst muslims for instance or individuals who may call themselves muslims but have different actions what else helps unfortunately helps perpetuate this yes yeah unfortunately that is a real world consequence right is when so-called muslims who claim Islam is the reason why they're doing this groups like ISIS right that's a real world consequence unfortunately and they're also helping perpetuate this again right so they that's the creation of these groups so hopefully that makes sense kind of how we have we're so ingrained in the society we're where this is perpetuated in so many ways and then it creates these policies that help that continue to are again are building on this knowledge but now it's actually like in laws and in systems which then has actual consequences on individuals lives and it just keeps repeating so what we're going to do is um before well let's think about this let me ask one more question how does knowing this affect the way that we address the oppression like how does knowing that there's policies that this is yes we're living in a day to day life where this knowledge is perpetuated but then it's created in policies and then has real world consequences how do we know how does knowing this affect the way that we address oppression any thoughts on that do we need more processing time okay turn and talk to your partner because then I'm going to ask or I might have to call in someone turn and talk I'll say the question again how does knowing how this affects people what does that tell us about the way that we address oppression what are we learning from this what do we need to do now as a result of this and turn talk all right hopefully you've got an idea of how this affects the way that we start to address this oppression who wants to share yes I'll wait for the mic on this side so one would be to stop those policies from being implemented by being active at wherever those they're being legislated and then also to maybe spread and enforce positive knowledge to kind of create this counter effect of how they're good people yeah you bring up two really important points right being a part of this right the decision-making process when these policies are formed and also this concept of Dawah right we have to be able to share the positive aspects of our faith and help counteract this knowledge that's being perpetuated thank you for sharing that other examples of how do we stop this system of oppression yes um I said that we should always try to represent Islam in a in a good light and so that the people around us that are maybe you know that maybe are viewing these policies that was like as what Islam actually is they think that it's you know like Muslims are terrorists we should you know try to kind of like that counteract that by representing Islam in a good light and always being like at our best behavior when we're trying to represent our religion yeah it's so important to embody that knowledge right again helping make sure there's that the correct knowledge about there and the best way for people to experience that I mean that's how in your day-to-day life you're learning you're representing that in a lot of ways by sharing that knowledge and sharing that thank you yes you have brother Eswan bringing the microphone quick thank you for your patience I just wanted to mention that because we see it's such a clear cycle it's essential to not have Muslim people like reacting in a way that's like fueling it more and just just like something that came to my mind was when something like very crude had been drawn about the process that I think it was kind of recently and then a man reacted with violence in it you know the attention was on the man who reacted not the actual action done itself that was very wrong and offensive to you know us Muslims so right so much of the the real world consequence of our actions that we also have to be mindful of thank you for sharing that so again we have to be able to counteract that oppression at all levels that's how we break this cycle is making sure that we are yes have the knowledge to be able to respond even when it seems like something small like a microaggression right and then yes certainly at the larger level with our policies and systems and then also speaking up and making the connection and helping other people make the connections when it's having real impacts real world consequences on people's lives so again we'll think about and we'll think about this one a little bit more maybe a little bit later on but what we're going to do now is remember I said we're learning about this as Muslims right because that's one thing that all of us have in common but I also want you to think about we're going to be thinking about how this now impacts other groups we had a couple of examples when we did the the posted activity but you're actually going to get a chance now to do a deep dive with on a specific other group of individuals and the way that they experience stereotypes so you'll have your own chart of the knowledge again what the knowledge about a specific group that's being perpetuated what are the policies that exist in our in our society that impact that are impacted by that stereotype and then what are the real world consequences that that group again is experiencing as a result of this cycle so what we'll go ahead and do is you'll each we'll have about five groups and we'll look at the dominant narratives for each of those your group will have your group will each be focusing on one of those dominant narratives right the knowledge that's being perpetuated so we'll have a couple of examples I'll actually go ahead and read these out loud so we have the dominant narratives are black men are thugs immigrants are stealing our jobs poor people are lazy women are overly emotional and irrational Asians are model minority so I'm going to give you guys about we'll get do 10 minutes to start in your groups and then based on that you're actually going to be sharing with the larger group what you come up with in your chart okay and you'll need someone to kind of unless you want to do it tag team it but you need someone who's going to be sharing that information as you guys brainstorm on your pieces of paper so we'll do groups we'll do five groups so I guess if there's like yeah okay okay six yes okay so we can do numbers I know you guys are probably going to be like no but six groups right six groups or five five groups okay okay so I'm going to number you off so that you get a chance to interact with some different people okay so just remember your number one two three four five one two three four five one two three