Ambassadors of Peace and Hope

As an American Muslim, I am daily confronted by the fact that many of my fellow Americans are uneasy about my faith. This unease is not limited to the uneducated and uncultured; I have seen flickers of apprehension even on the faces of very well-educated friends and colleagues.

In the wake of the tragedy of 9/11 and the overwhelmingly negative media portrayal of Muslims, American or otherwise, I can't say I find this too surprising. But what does surprise me is the unwillingness of the same people to confront their unease by learning about Islam and its message.

Debbie Almontaser tried to tackle this unease head on by founding a public school in New York that teaches Arabic as a second language, with the intention of creating students who would be "ambassadors of peace and hope."

New York City already has public schools that follow this model, including the Amistad Language School, which specializes in Spanish, and the Shuang Wen School, which specializes in Chinese language and culture.

Ms. Almontaser and the local American Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities came together and, as a result, Khalil Gibran International Academy was born. Like all New York City public schools, the school's curriculum was strictly secular, even the school's namesake was an Arab Christian, not a Muslim.

But some local New Yorkers, blinded by bigotry, and led by Daniel Pipes, felt the school would become a center of Islamic extremism and started a disinformation campaign using what can only be called yellow journalism, to fuel fear and misunderstanding, the very things the school was founded to dispel.

Amid all the confusion and controversy, Ms. Almontaser was forced to resign and, without her leadership, the school has floundered towards failure rather than success. It was only recently that more balanced coverage, by the New York Times, allowed for the real story to come out.

I strongly recommend everyone read the article by Andrea Elliott and watch the interview of Debbie Almontaser by Democracy Now. Hopefully, it will go a little way towards making us all a little more comfortable.



Also worth reading, Gershom Gorenberg's post "Daniel Pipes vs Religious Tolerance"

Thanks to Tareq for sending me the NY Times article.

Obama's Speech on Race

An excerpt from Barack Obama's speech on race:

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

I'm glad he finally addressed race, the whole speech is worth a read (link above)

Things that should end...

1. The Verizon, "Can you hear me now?" campaign...really, do we need to see commercials in which the Verizon guy is pretending to be pregnant in a cab? It's time to retire the Verizon guy and his network cronies...

2. Do we really need Peter from "Family Guy" to tell us to eat at Subway? Peter is a fictional morbidly obese fat guy...is that really the kind of spokesman Subway needs? I thought you guys were the healthy fast food place? I can't believe I'm saying this - bring back Jared!


3. Wendy's commercials. All of them. I'm tired of the fake red wigs with the pigtails. And what is up with using Abe Lincoln in commercials - he was also prominently featured in the Remeron sleep aid commercials. The guy saved the Union, ended slavery and now he's just a pill and burger pusher? Boo!

Life is like wrestling a gorilla

So we had a crazy busy day on Tuesday, got a lot of consults, including one patient who's been in the hospital since December. It was 8:30pm and I was exhausted, my brain hurt, my stomach was rumbling and I was not looking forward to the next day because I knew I'd have to come in pretty early. As I was driving back to my place, I was reminded of a quote that one of the attending physicians told me is posted in the transplant clinic office:

Life is like wrestling a gorilla - you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla stops.

His lips are moving

We were seeing a patient today on the consult service, a good-natured fellow whose brother was in the room. The patient, unfortunately, has metastatic cancer but was in good spirits despite his prognosis. After making some small talk, his brother said, "well doc, it's always been easy to tell when my brother's lying - just look for when his lips are moving."

We all broke out in laughter...it was nice to see such a well-knit family in the face of such a difficult circumstance. I hope we are able to provide our patient with the best quality of life in his remaining days...