Don't be shocked that the US spied on American Muslims. Get angry that it justifies spying on whomever it wants

my oped in The Guardian responding to expose by The Intercept.

What do a Republican candidate, a military veteran, a civil rights activist and a professor have in common? They are all American Muslims – and all have been subject to pervasive surveillance by the NSA and FBI.

A report published by The Intercept on Wednesday reveals that the two agencies used secretive procedures designed to catch terrorists and spies to monitor the email accounts of prominent American Muslim leaders. Among the documents supplied by Edward Snowden, a spreadsheet titled "FISA recap" contains 7,485 email addresses apparently monitored between 2002 and 2008. (The report also clearly documents how biased training by the FBI leads to biased surveillance, and that calling Muslims "ragheads" is everyday lingo at federal law enforcement agencies.)

These revelations demonstrate that there are two sets of laws in the United States: one designed for dissidents, political activists and American Muslims – and another for everybody else. But nobody is safe when one group is singled out: if our government can simply decide with little or no oversight to monitor the personal email account of an American Muslim Republican military veteran, then it can decide to monitor any of our emails, too. That should strike fear into the heart of every American who values our freedoms. Read More

Watch This Muslim-American Activist (Me) Take Down A Leading Islamophobe

A Muslim-American leader on Sunday criticized one of the right wing’s top traffickers of Islamophobia for exaggerating the threat that Muslims pose to the United States and for regularly linking the religion to terrorism.

Anti-Muslim activist Brigitte Gabriel made news last week for berating a Muslim student at an event hosted by a conservative think-tank. “People like you need to be put in their place,” Gabriel later said to the student.

Linda Sarsour of the Arab American Association of New York — and recently recognized as a “Champion of Change” by the White House — challenged Gabriel on CNN’s Reliable Sources. “Ms. Gabriel speaks out of two sides of her mouth,” she said. “In one breath she’ll say the West must support moderate Muslims, and the moderate Muslims must speak out against terrorism and in the same breath she’ll say peaceful Muslims are irrelevant.”  Watch video here:

If the first thing you ask a Muslim woman is if she's American, you might be a bigot

my oped in response to the Heritage Foundation event, published in The Guardian on June 18th, 2014 

It took one American Muslim law student, Saba Ahmed, making one mild criticism during a conservative panel discussion of Benghazi, to get people foaming at the mouth at an event co-hosted by a conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation.

What could she have said to deserve an upbraiding from the stage? "We portray Islam and all Muslims as bad, but there’s 1.8bn followers of Islam. We have 8 million-plus Muslim Americans in this country and I don’t see them represented here." 

Watching the video of the panelists respond to Ahmed on Monday afternoon, you can almost hear the wheels turning in their heads: How dare this young American Muslim law student – in a hijab, no less – talk back to us? How out-of-line for her to assert that the majority of Muslims in the world are peaceful people and that society should not use a broad brush to demonize an entire faith based on the acts of a very tiny minority! Read more

Justice NOT Just-Us

     Sisters and brothers - what I am about to share with you is ‪#‎realtalk‬. I hope you are enlightened and accept my words as sound analysis, encouragement and advice to advance our causes and our community. This comes from a place of love. Please open your heart and mind, absorb, reflect.

     We are watching in horror as fellow human beings are being massacred by the scores in Gaza. We are outraged. We feel helpless. We continue to chastise our government for supporting such atrocities. We ask ourselves where is humanity, why are our leaders looking the other way. What are we doing wrong and how can we alleviate the suffering of our people.

     While we work to bring morality back to society and in to the political arena - let us keep in mind it is a slow and enduring process. We live in a country in which slavery was legal. Some people were seen as sub-human. The dehumanization of Blacks allowed slavery to continue for more than two centuries. It took blood, dead bodies, lynching, protesting, risk taking to recognize (first) a Black man as human and a citizen. This did not come over night. We went through segregation, Jim Crow South, The New Jim Crow/mass incarceration and remnants of it still remain.

     Brothers and sisters - every few years Gaza/Palestine comes under attack. Hundreds lay scattered in the streets, thousands injured, entire neighborhoods leveled to the ground. We rise up - we become outraged, conflict continues for a few weeks. It ends. Then silence.

     Our opposition has two weapons: persistency and consistency. What are we doing every day to build the political power and political will for our causes? Are you a reactionary activist? are you born in time of crisis but when the pictures and videos of dead babies are no longer the first few posts on your feed - you go back to your every day life?

     Our commitment to justice for all is a contract we make every day. If you want to fight injustice you must step up and keep your head in the game. We will not win against injustice if we only rise when the injustice is against us. As my friend Fahd Ahmed articulately says all the time: Its about JUSTICE not JUST-US.

     We need to see the liberation of the Palestinian people connected to the liberation of all oppressed people. We must build solidarity across communities, issues and causes. We must be sincere in our work to build these relations.

For those in Detroit that are outraged over Gaza: Did you attend rallies to stand in solidarity with your fellow Americans who have been without running water? Did you join rallies for Renisha McBride who was murdered in cold blood after she knocked on a White man's door for help?

For those in Chicago: Have you ever joined a rally as City Hall shuts down schools in poor communities by the dozens? Have you stood side by side with communities of color denouncing gun violence that take the lives of young people every day?

For those in Arizona: Have you stood against Sheriff Arpaio, a man who terrorizes immigrant communities, where the prisons he runs have hundreds of human rights violations, a man who supports profiling of those who are suspect of being undocumented (which means most of you on my FB list)?

For those in New York City: Have you stood with the countless families who have lost their loved ones at the hands of the NYPD like Eric Garner, Ramarley Graham and Sean Bell? Stood side by side with families whose loved ones have been deported by the Obama Administration for "not having papers"? Stood with workers denied basic rights?

     Have you stood against the massacres in Syria? Against the oppression and persecution of Ahmaddiya Muslims? Shias? Persecution of Christians in Iraq? Killing of Muslims in Central African Republic? Burma? Stood to reform our nation's draconian immigration laws that tear families apart? discriminatory police practices? Drones? Guantanamo. The list goes on. You don't have to do it all. These are food for thought.

     Solidarity, building alliances are key to fighting injustice in all its forms and creating powerful coalitions that are multi-racial, multi-ethnic, interfaith and cross sector. This is POWER. This is where the shift begins.

     Mass mobilization. We need to be in the STREETS. We need to get out of the comfort of our homes, offices, neighborhoods and take it to the streets. We need to use mass mobilization to educate our fellow citizens about what is happening, about the injustice we are fighting against, and be clear about what we want and what people can do to join the fight. Mass mobilization sends a message to our government that we are angry and we won't take it anymore.

     Boycott Divestment Sanctions. It worked to end Apartheid in South Africa - why would it not work to pressure Israel to recognize the Palestinians, end military occupation and apartheid in Palestine?

     Electoral participation. How many of you have written an email to your Congressperson just to have your blood pressure rise? You angrily post about their response, you begin threatening them about reelection, then elections come around - what happens? Participating in elections are ONE WAY and a part of the larger puzzle. IT IS AN IMPORTANT PART of building power. If participation of communities of color wasn't something that threatened the political power dynamics - we would not be fighting voter suppression laws and practices across the country. The perfect candidate will not come during one election or in 4 years, it will take decades of organizing our community, our votes and our money. We have to be in it for the long haul.

     What I am saying Sisters and Brothers - stay engaged. Attend mass mobilizations, teach-ins, meet with your elected officials throughout the year not just when they are doing something wrong or a crisis is happening in the world, register to vote and VOTE on election day. Let's be reminded that our sisters and brothers in the Arab and Muslim world are being massacred for the chance at freedom and democracy - something that I cherish here in the United States as an American. By no means are we risking the same here. Shame on us when we let those few vote against our interests.

     For too often we stayed in our own bubbles. We lacked the strategy and the know-how to build new and fresh leadership and maintain momentum. Times are changing. Our time is now. Shift is happening. Don't walk away. Keep talking, keep walking, keep educating, keep building. The movement needs all of us.

     I want to take the time out to commend those who have invested so much in building the movement, committed themselves to justice and equality, sacrificed time with their families to make our world a better more just place. Your work does not go unnoticed. Gratitude and love to you all.

     It is now time to use our privileges and freedoms to be consistent, persistent, strategic social justice change makers. We have it in us. We need to RISE UP, STAY UP and not come down till everyone is able to RISE UP.

#Gaza #Palestine #changetheNYPD #timeisnow 

Huffington Post Live "Women Making News" w/ fellow guest @FeministaJones

Check out this awesome episode of Huffington Post Live on "Women Making News" where we discuss anti-women bills across the country w/ a focus on Ohio, a new controversial documentary about violence against women in Muslim majority societies funded by an islamophobic group - The Clarion Fund,  a NY Times piece that proposes a "salary negotiating guide for women" that tells us how we need to be feminine about it (WTF), and the departure of Chelsea Handler from late-night television.

http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segment/women-make-news/5332fdbafe3444478c00009f

Being Arab or Muslim is Not Probable Cause for NYPD

By: Linda Sarsour (reposted from MSNBC Melissa Harris-Perry Blog)

I learned a few days ago that the New York Police Department’s Intelligence Division labeled my non-profit organization a “Terrorism Enterprise.”

That organization is the Arab American Association of New York, a social service and advocacy group serving predominantly Arab immigrants looking to make a better life for themselves and their families. Among the services we provide: 

• English as a Second Language schooling for immigrant women 
• After-school enrichment programs for elementary and middle school age students 
• Legal and immigration services 
• Domestic violence prevention and intervention 
• Young adult empowerment 
• Leadership development 
• Advocacy campaigns on issues that affect our community 

So why would the NYPD consider us a terrorist threat? Why would the NYPD feel the need to spy on us? Read More...

Would Martin Luther King, Jr., Have Supported Immigration Reform?

In the backdrop of the 50^th Anniversary of the March on Washington, the immigrant rights movement is the civil rights fight of the century and our generation.  Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t address immigration directly but his words in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, hinted at the importance of immigrants and all who live within the United States when he wrote,

“Moveover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about that happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside of the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

For many Arab Americans, the United States was a place of refuge from oppression, conflicts and war, political persecution and poverty that many endured in the Arab World. The United States was the opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families. Their aspirations were to work hard and attain the American dream. To realize this dream for our communities, Arab Americans across the country join the call for immigration reform legislation that keeps families together, provides a pathway to citizenship and respects the civil and human rights of all people. Members of our community are directly impacted by our very broken immigration system. Delays in family reunification applications have left husbands without their wives and most often children without their parents for years at a time, backlog due to background checks, programs such as NSEERS (National Security Entry and Exit Registration System) that have targeted members of our community based on ethnicity and national origin, lack of anti-profiling language that includes religion and national origin as protected categories are just some of the fundamental issues we have with the current immigration system.

The time is now. We can’t wait any longer. Our families continue to be torn apart by unjust deportations, local small businesses and religious institutions raided by immigration enforcement agencies, police departments who are too busy profiling those perceived undocumented instead of catching real criminals and states running rouge passing anti-immigrant legislation across the country.  This must end.

If Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today he would be at the forefront of the fight to pass just and humane immigration reform. King would not have stood by idly watching record number of deportations and the unjust treatment of undocumented workers. He would have joined our marches, engaged in civil disobedience, and educated the masses. That is why in his honor and the anniversary of the March on Washington we should realize a dream for many undocumented Americans by passing an immigration reform bill that treats them fairly and provides an earned pathway for citizenship.