Monday, December 26, 2016

Van Jones on Muslims: "Model American Community", "Geniuses from Pakistan"

Here's CNN analyst Van Jones talking about the ill-effects of Islamophobia in America:

"Honestly, if a Muslim family moved next door to you, you would be the happiest person in the world. First of all, the chances of your kids getting into trouble just went way down. OK, went way down.

Because (American) Muslim community has the lowest crime rate, the highest entrepreneurship, the highest educational attainment for women in the country (US). They are the model American community.

And so, when you have people who are now afraid to come here--that's starting to happen--you have geniuses from Pakistan, who are from Indonesia, who now (think to themselves) "I'm not safe here".

That becomes an economic problem for America long term. So that we're starting to do stuff here that doesn't make good sense for what has made us great so far."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr5cLv8Dj2I




Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Hindus and Muslim Well-educated in America But Least Educated Worldwide

What's Driving Islamophobia in America?

Pakistani-Americans Largest Foreign-Born Muslim Group in Silicon Valley

The Trump Phenomenon

Islamophobia in America

Silicon Valley Pakistani-Americans

Pakistani-American Leads Silicon Valley's Top Incubator

Silicon Valley Pakistanis Enabling 2nd Machine Revolution

Karachi-born Triple Oscar Winning Graphics Artist

Pakistani-American Ashar Aziz's Fire-eye Goes Public

Two Pakistani-American Silicon Valley Techs Among Top 5 VC Deals

Pakistani-American's Game-Changing Vision 

Minorities Are Majority in Silicon Valley 



10 comments:

LA said...

I always liked Van Jones. He was a pleasure to listen to during the election season. The American Muslim community is indeed doing pretty well. But opinions on Muslims aren't always positive in certain sections of the country. There's not much we can do about that. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, though.

Anwar S. said...

Extremely compelling!

Singh said...

The muslim community in America is way better integrated into mainstream society than in some other countries in western Europe. It's also not a homogeneous monolith, the Somalis being a tight knit bunch in their communities, they are different from Pakistanis, who in turn are not Iranians or Arabs or etc.

Good so far, but it'll change rapidly if they throw open their borders to millions of young "refugee" men from Syria etc, it's not exactly going smoothly for Germany or Sweden and co.

Given that, I think Trump has the right idea to not import a hateful foreign ideology that some groups might risk bringing in. For the rest, they're an advanced society, muslims, or any other ethnic or religious minority don't have any reason for concern. Expect a barrage of fake leftist news trying to smear Trump and his supporters though

Dawood M. said...

Thats the problem, Geniuses from Pakistan move to other countries and we are left with Gobbars like Nawaz Shareef and Zardari and co. InshaAllah 99% of Overseas Pakistanis are with Imran Khan who will bring them back along with their $Bilions of Dollars of investment once they know they have someone who they can trust with their life savings.

Riaz Haq said...


Pakistan is the fourth biggest country to provide doctors to United States and at present 12000 Pakistani physicians and specialist doctors are working in different states.

It is expected that in near future Pakistan will become the third biggest country to provide doctors who fulfill the demand for international doctors in the USA, says a press release.

This was informed during a visit of a delegation led by Dr. Humayun J. Chaudhry President and Chief Executive Officer of Federation of State Medical Boards of United States to offices of Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) on Monday.

The PMDC President along with its council members and PMDC staff welcomed the delegate.

A detailed presentation of PMDC functioning was given to him by President PMDC.

PMDC arranged visits for the delegate in public, private and military medical dental colleges i.e Army Medical College, Rawalpindi Medical College, CMH, Holy Family Hospital etc to brief about the medical and dental educational system of Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Dr. Humayun Chaudhry also attended a seminar regarding Pakistani medical and dental curriculum and licensure in Holy Family Hospital jointly organized by PMDC and Rawalpindi Medical College.

The delegate Dr. Humayun Chaudhry appreciated the system of medical and dental education in Pakistan.

He said out of 12000 doctors in USA, 3100 doctors graduated from Dow University of Health Sciences, 1900 from King Edward Medical College and others from Agha Khan University and also Allama Iqbal Medical College Lahore.

He apprised that the Pakistani national doctors in USA are having a very good repute and are considered the best doctors.

He added that he is very impressed that Pakistan is getting more advancement in the field of medicine and system of medical dental education and its standard is at par with the west.

Dr. Humayun J. Chaudhry is also the Chair-Elect of International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities (IAMRA) which has 107 members from 47 countries including Pakistan.

Since 2009 he is the President and Chief Executive officer of Federation of State Medical Boards FSMB of United States which co-owns the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE).

http://www.brecorder.com/pakistan/general-news/333193-pakistan-4th-largest-country-to-provide-medical-practitioners-to-usa.html
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US lawmakers move bill to bring in more doctors from India and Pakistan


India has six doctors per 10,000 and Pakistan has eight. By comparison, the United States has 24/10,000. That hasn't stopped two American lawmakers from introducing legislation aimed at speeding up visa approval for Indian and Pakistani doctors slated to work in the US, citing shortage of physicians in the United States.
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The lawmakers say foreign physicians scheduled to serve their residencies at American hospitals are encountering extremely long delays in obtaining J-1 visas from US embassies in their countries, while specifically identifying India and Pakistan as catchment countries.
The holdups, they said, have resulted in "major dilemmas" for those doctors and the US hospitals - many in rural and underserved communities - at which the physicians are set to work. In many instances, they said, the delays have forced hospitals to withdraw offers from foreign physicians who had already accepted.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/US-lawmakers-move-bill-to-bring-in-more-doctors-from-India/articleshow/47042068.cms

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Riaz Haq said...

79% of American Muslims marry within their faith, 21% outside, according to Pew Research.

77% of American Muslims identify with their childhood religion, 23% don't.

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chapter-2-religious-switching-and-intermarriage/#interfaith-marriage-commonplace

Anonymous said...

https://scroll.in/article/825287/counterview-taimurs-actions-were-uniquely-horrific-in-indian-history

Riaz Haq said...

In Year of Anti-#Muslim Vitriol, #Brands Promote Inclusion. #Islamophobia #Trump #Amazon #Advertising

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/business/media/anti-muslim-vitriol-brands-promote-inclusion.html?_r=0

The gentle piano music starts as the doorbell chimes. A white-haired Christian pastor greets his friend, a Muslim imam, and the two converse and laugh over a cup of tea, wincing about their creaky knees as they prepare to part ways. Later, it spurs the same idea in each for a gift: kneepads sent via Amazon Prime. (It is a commercial, after all.)

The piano notes accelerate as the men open their deliveries with smiles, and then each uses the item to kneel in prayer: one at a church, the other at a mosque. The final chords fade.

The ad from Amazon and its message of interfaith harmony became a viral sensation this holiday season, at the end of a year in which talk involving Muslims became particularly ominous. Amazon — which aired the commercial in England, Germany and the United States — cast a practicing vicar and Muslim community leader in the lead roles and consulted with several religious organizations to ensure the ad was accurate and respectful.

“This type of a project is definitely a first for us,” said Rameez Abid, communications director for the social justice branch of the Islamic Circle of North America, one group Amazon worked with. “They were very aware that this was going to cause controversy and might get hate mail and things like that, but they said it’s something that they wanted to do because the message is important.”

---


It was “a glimmer of hope in the midst of a greatly traumatic year for Muslims,” said Mona Haydar, an American poet and activist who appeared in a recent Microsoft commercial with a variety of community leaders, including a transgender teenager and a white policeman.

“For me as a Muslim woman, I represent something right now in the country that for some people incites fear,” said Ms. Haydar, 28, who wears a hijab and hails from Flint, Mich. “This normalizes the narrative that we are just human beings.”

Several advertising executives likened the movement to the decision by mass marketers to cast same-sex couples and their children in ads for the first time in 2013 and 2014, making inclusion and acceptance a priority over potential criticism from some customers.

“With the kind of gay parent issue, we’ve gotten a little closer to acceptance, but the Muslim issue in America is still pretty raw for a lot of people,” said Kevin Brady, an executive creative director at the ad agency Droga5, which worked last year with Honey Maid on a commercial about white and Muslim-American neighbors. “I don’t think it should be, but it’s one that I think brands took an extra step of courage to really go out there with in 2016.”

A campaign for YouTube Music in the middle of last year highlighted five individuals, including a young woman in a hijab, rapping to a song by Blackalicious while walking through a school corridor. The inclusion of the ad, “Afsa’s Theme,” was purposeful, said Danielle Tiedt, the chief marketing officer at YouTube, adding that highlighting diversity is “more important than ever.”

“I don’t think diversity is a political statement,” she said. “This is an issue of universal humanity.”

For its ad, Amazon was painstaking in its attention to detail, checking with religious groups about costuming and background imagery, and sending over final proofs of the ad for review, said Mr. Abid and Antonios Kireopoulos, an associate general secretary of the National Council of Churches, another group Amazon consulted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouu6LGGIWsc

Riaz Haq said...

Spectator WW II deaths (millions) Russia: 26, China: 15, Germany: 6.9, Poland: 5.9, Japan: 2.5 India: 1.6, France: 0.6, UK: 0.45, US: 0.4

Riaz Haq said...

NY Times History of Islam in America

https://youtu.be/lSycg4APyu4

Muslims arrived with Columbus and have been leaving their mark on American culture and society ever since. Did you know that the Statue of Liberty was based on an Egyptian Muslim woman and that two of the oldest mosques in the United States are in Ross, N.D., and Cedar Rapids, Iowa? In the video above, we explain many other ways Muslim history is tightly woven into American life.

Muslims have been here since the time of the earliest explorers and have left their mark on everything from the White House to the Marine Corps uniform.

By Hussein Rashid, Negin Farsad and Joshua Seftel

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/opinion/contributors/muslims-united-states-history-islam.html