“All-American Muslim”: A Retort to Islamophobia
by: Denise Romano on November 12th, 2011 | 12 Comments »
Nader, Nawal, and baby Naseem of the Aoude family in their Dearborn, Michigan home. / Courtesy of TLC Network
The new TLC series “All-American Muslim” hasn’t even aired yet, and it’s already come under fierce and prejudiced criticism.
The reality show follows the everyday lives of five Muslim families living in Dearborn, Michigan, whose population has the largest proportion of Arab Americans for a city of its size. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 33.4 percent of residents said they were of Arab ancestry.
The issues they face are similar to everyone else’s – some are trying to start a family, getting married, and venturing to open a new business. They disagree with each other. They deal with rowdy children and guilt-tripping parents. The characters talk, act, and look like average Midwesterners. Because they are.
Alon Orstein, vice president of production for the series, said it unfolded organically. “We started talking about it at the end of last year and were interested in finding some Muslim families that we could build a show around,” he explained. “It was sort of natural for us. It’s all families and provides a glimpse into some of these places that viewers may not be so familiar with. It seemed like a great fit.”
Orstein and his team started speaking to people in different cities. In April, a group who found several families in Dearborn, Michigan who were interested in participating and approached them.”We looked at them on tape and fell in love with their stories,” Orstein said. “It was sort of like between their individual personalities, the things they had coming up in their lives – from weddings to births to people struggling with fertility issues – hit the core element of what we focus on at TLC.”
But not everyone is sold on the show’s concept.
“If this show airs I will not watch the TLC network ever again,” wrote Lori Mansuy on TLC’s website on October 29. “I work with a lot of Muslims and it is very clear to me that they hate America.”Gordie Roedding wrote on October 26, “I doubt they would allow Jesus loving American Christian people to do this in their country!”
These venomous statements are just the beginning. The blog, Bare Naked Islam, has also slammed the show. Its author, who is anonymous, wrote an entry on October 20, stating, “…the Muslim cast is insistent that this show wouldn’t be political in any way, reiterating instead the importance of having a series that can showcase a culture that many know little about and often judge.”Then it reads sarcastically, “Everything we need to know about your culture we learned on 9/11.” The post also shows mean-spirited pictures depicting Islam, such as two laughing women in hijab looking at their cell phones while a car explodes in the background. “Isn’t technology grand? Just push one button and kaboom!” says one to the other.
Thankfully, “All American Muslim” can speak for itself. Angela Jafaar prefers to “wear her religion in her heart” and is career-focused as well as a great mom. Nina Bazzy is an entrepreneur who dresses in the trendiest of clothes and wants to open up a nightclub. Shadia Amen married an Irish-Catholic man, who converted to Islam.
Orstein said he does not let the dissent bother him. “Honestly, we just expect people to draw their own conclusions,” he said. “Our goal is to provide an untarnished look into this world. We trust our audience, and it’s up to individuals to form their own decision.”
The show premieres amidst a rising tide of Islamophobia. Last year in New York, controversy swarmed around a proposed mosque and Islamic cultural center a few blocks away from Ground Zero. The uproar got so bad that the developer, Park 51, is looking into new uses of the property.In Tennessee, resident Lou Ann Zelenik was inclined to hold a “The Constitution or Sharia?: Preserving Freedom Conference” at a local hotel, but was denied access. To make the matter more daunting, Zelenik ran in the 2010 Republican primary for a House seat, but she came in close second to U.S. Rep. Diane Black of Gallatin.Also in Tennessee, three men spray painted a Columbia mosque with swastikas and the word “white power,” then burned it beyond recognition.
Recently, suspicious views of Muslims have found their way into law enforcement policy. According to a new report released by Muslim Advocates titled “Losing Liberty: The State of Freedom 10 Years After the Patriot Act,” government organizations such as the FBI harbor a bias against Muslims. “In 2003, FBI Director Robert Mueller directed each of the FBI’s 56 field offices to count the number of Muslims, mosques, and Muslim-run charities in their regions,” the report states. “The FBI also conducted so-called ‘voluntary’ interviews resulting in the interviews of nearly 500,000 Muslim and Arab men during the period from 2001-2005 alone. Today, the FBI has 15,000 spies and informants, mainly targeting the Muslim community, and as many as 45,000 ‘unofficial’ informants.”While Muslims account for only two percent of the U.S. population, they account for a quarter of discrimination complaints filed against employers, according to the report.
Although Muslims are experiencing it acutely, other religious groups suffer discrimination, including Jews and more recently Mormons. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has come under fire for practicing the often misunderstood faith.
But maybe things are getting better. Last week, New York media widely reported the story of two Muslim cab drivers who saved a 91-year-old Jewish bagel shop by buying it and agreeing to keep it kosher.Outspoken Mayor Michael Bloomberg may have a vendetta against salt and cigarettes, but he supports the mosque at Ground Zero. He tearfully said at a press conference last May, “”I think it’s fair to say if somebody was going to try, on that piece of property, to build a church or a synagogue, nobody would be yelling and screaming. And the fact of the matter is that Muslims have a right to do it, too.”Bloomberg said that not building this center would be un-American and not democratic.
“All-American Muslim” is another positive, groundbreaking step.
“Something like this has never been done before,” Orstein said. “It’s eight hours of television focusing on everyday, normal, American, Muslim people. Usually that’s only in a documentary format or on the news. This is presented in a super-entertaining and compelling way, taking viewers on a journey with these families.”
“All-American Muslim” premieres on Sunday, November 13 at 10/9c on TLC. Follow this link to see a preview of the show.
Moslem are the most coddled minority we have. An and there are way more anti-Jewish incidents in this country then there are anti-moslem incidents.
Moslems And
One can see how easily the Nazi party gained ground by making “the other” (Jews particularly though
not the only minority) the target for all of their society’s struggles. If we don’t stand up for every law abiding person and group, no matter how different, if we turn our backs on the first generalizing, stereotyping prejudice that shows its ugly head, then somewhere/sometime they will get to Jews, no matter how loyal and law abiding they may be. The word “tolerance” derives from the Latin tolerantia, which means the capacity to endure our own pain or adversity. So very hard to do; so much easier to find any “strange” other and dump our pain onto them. To say we know all about Islam and its worldwide culture from 9/11 is to say we know all about Christianity by the crusades, or the Jews by the Irgun, or Black Americans by race riots.
Dear Mssrs Kardener and Pearlman,
I believe that Mr. Kardener is correct when he asserts that we must all speak out against every hate crime, perpetrated against any individual, because to keep silent is to assent. We must all “hang together or we shall hang separately”. The latest FBI hate crimes statistics show that, in fact, race is still the most divisive issue, not religion: “Hate Crime Statistics, 2009, includes the following information:
Of the 6,598 single-bias incidents, 48.5 percent were motivated by a racial bias, 19.7 percent were motivated by a religious bias, 18.5 percent were motivated by a sexual-orientation bias, and 11.8 percent were motivated by an ethnicity/national origin bias. Bias against a disability accounted for 1.5 percent of single-bias incidents.”
So if you’re black or Hispanic, you have a greater chance of hate crime than if you’re Jewish or Muslim. And if you’re gay? Just look at the large number of youth suicides caused by bullying because of perceived sexual-orientation.
Mr. Kardener’s final sentence sums it up perfectly for me; it is not just to judge all 1.6 Billion Muslims on the actions of 19 hijackers and Osama Bin Ladin.
I just finished reading a wonderful novel: _The People of the Book_ by Geraldine Brooks. It is about the Sarajevo Haggadah, and how it was preserved by people of all Abrahamic faiths: Jewish, Christian and Muslim. I think this speaks to our world now. We must learn from the beauty that is inherent in each faith — and a television show that speaks to the normalcy of being Muslim in America during this time of tremendous hate-mongering and mud slinging, is a step in the right direction.
Muslims are the most coddled? I am baffled as to how you can say that. Muslims are the one group that people feel they can publicly malign — even more so than gays/lesbians.
This TLC show is just another step in making the journery to reform , of saying its OK to be Muslim , Christian or Jewish and dress like a badly and open up a night club.
sadly, They did the same to Judaism, ripped out its moral core amd made it reformed. which turned it away from being a religion into a secular ethnic idenity. wont work with islam tho since there is no ethnic idenity. In the end, I prefer Fiddler on the roof muslim (jews), way cooler culture than seinfeld.
Come on Claire, publicly malign moslems and you stand a good chance of ending up like Theo Van Gogh
The problem is that a climate is created where if one is a Muslim one must feel obliged to defend that. Why is that? Why does one need permission from Bill Pearlman (with his ear amputation phantasies) or somebody to be a Muslim?
I am a Christian. The so-called CHristian countries of the world (in North AMerica and Europe I am thinking of mostly) have inflicted more hellish brutality on the Muslim world than the Muslim world has inflicted on Christendom. But nobody comes to me and says “Roxy, look at all the evil Christians have done. We must curtail your rights now. Naughty naughty Christian Roxy.”
The most powerfully diabolical religion in the world right now is capitalism. But those who wouldn’t bat an eye at capitalism ascend the judgement seat and furrow their righteous brows at Islam, gleefully and pharisaically enjoying every crime (real or imagined) that it commits.
roxykatt.blogspot.com
Don’t be useful idiots! Muslims are intolerant (i.e. the Irish-Catholic on the show was pressured into conversion to marry the Muslim, not vice-versa) look at the experience in Europe, where the heads of liberal Great Britain, France and Germany have recently declared “multiculturalism has failed”. Those ultra-tolerant societies have tried to accept the intolerant, which eventually kills off tolerance! Remember that there is no central head of their faith, so varying sects and imams intrepret the Koran in different ways, so some might tell us that “jihad” is harmless; that it’s a struggle to better onesself, but means kill the infidel/holy war. Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims kill each other over minor differences; Baptists don’t kill Lutherans etc. Their “takkiqa” is the permission to Muslims to lie to infidels, esp. to promote their faith.
The Irish Catholic chose to convert due to respect for the family. And also the Quran only had one interpretation of everything, people may follow it the way they chose, but it’s still one interpretation. For example wearing the hijab is a must but some Muslim women chose not to. And in the mosque, the discussion in jihad was never mentioned through over 17 years of experience, the imam only discusses the Quran and the teachings of prayer, alms, fasting…etc. Also Sunni and Shiite’s are all Muslims, so it is a sin to kill a human being, also in Islam, Muslim men and women are known to each other as brothers and sisters (as a way to greet themselves), it is a bigger sin to kill a Muslim, in fact in is prohibited. There is a minor difference, (the Khalifa being chosen in the time of the prophet), but there is no war between each. People just like to exaggerate things to make Muslims seem as beasts, but from what I’ve learned, Islam means PEACE. It is a very peaceful religion and stereotyping Muslims is very wrong especially when there aren’t much evidence in your argument.
Hi, i have been following your postings, and really like your posts.
I think that most Muslims in America would be deeply offended by this program. Ornstein, Jewish, seems to have deliberately selected these families who are atypical of proper Muslims to give the illusion to non-Muslims that they are representative of the norm which is far from being true. Methinks Orstein had an agenda. Five families are chosen. Nina dresses in a very provocative manner that does not seem to bother her husband or the rest of the community and wants to open a nightclub that will offer all the elements of what Muslims are supposed to avoid. The US Federal Agent is shown refusing to even touch his newborn baby and much less to pick it up in an adoring manner. The woman who is to be wed to a man who converts to Islam has about a dozen facial piercings, also dresses provocatively, and admits that the man she is to wed did not convert because he loves Islam but rather just to be able to marry her, which he denies but the bell has been rung and cannot be unrung.. The coach uses bleeped words to his football team that Muslims are not supposed to use. A man has many tattoos despite Islam’s forbiddance of men decorating their bodies that is a trust to us from God. Those are the members of the five families depicted in the TLC program. They are the ones that Ornstein selected to portray Muslims in America and had it been a program about Orthodox Jews or Evangelical, Mormon, or Amish Christians it would not have happened due to outrage by those peoples on a volcanic level. The vast majority of Muslims do not want to be melted into the mold that defines those Americans who have become addicted to all the social ills, evils, and sins of the average non-Muslim American.or members of those five families. We want to retain our proper Islamic values, principles and traditions and impart them to our children as a reflection of our heritage and upbringing. We may be told that if we do not like the socially ruptured American Way then go back where we came from but the reality is that many of us came from…here.
Yousef Salem Sunnyvale, California