Story Archives of 'Muslims'

At a campaign rally in Ft. Meyers, Fl. this week, County Sheriff Mike Scott took the stage to introduce Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and yelled: "On Nov. 4th, let’s leave Barack Hussein Obama wondering what happened!"

His intent was clear: to paint Barack Obama as a Muslim, just like Saddam Hussein and all the other bad guys. That people believe it despite proof to the contrary unserscores cynicism at best, or willful ignorance of facts at the worst. Consider the message to the nation’s six million Muslims: being Muslim is a problem.

"How does it feel to be a problem?," W.E.B. DuBois asked in his classic The Souls of Black Folk just over a century ago. Today, a growing population of Arab and Muslim Americans are the latest "problem." Government surveillance and detentions, workplace discrimination, and threats of vigilante violence are a reality for many Arab Americans, whether Muslim or not. A 2006 poll found that 39 percent of Americans admit to holding prejudice against Muslims and believe that they should carry special IDs.

Moustafa Bayoumi is associate professor of English at Brooklyn College, and the co-editor of The Edward Said Reader. He followed seven young Arab-Americans living in Brooklyn to answer the question, which is also the title of his new book: "How does it feel to be a problem?"

Click here to read an excerpt from How Does it Feel to Be a Problem?

(Photo by Kevin Tyson)

Canadian born, Catholic raised, Dr. Ingrid Mattson made history in 2006 when she became the first woman and first convert to head up the continent’s largest Muslim organization. Today she’s speaking at St. Paul’s School in Concord as part of the New Hampshire Humanities Council “Shifting Ground: Religion and Civic Life in America” We’ll speak to Mattson about her journey to Islam, her goals as president of the Islamic Society of North America and the state of the Muslim faith in America today.

Guest

• Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America, Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations and Director, Islamic Chaplaincy Program for the Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations

Being a teenager in America means questioning everything. At least that’s true for many teenagers. But if you are Muslim and female and an immigrant or refugee, life can be less about questioning, and more about learning to navigate. Today in our week-long series Culture Lessons, John Rudolph reports on Muslim girls at Manchester Central High School. Of all the students at the school, they are the ones most obviously searching for a way between American culture and the culture of the country they left behind.

After September 11, it would have been understandable if Zade Dirani had cancelled his American house-concert tour. But as a musician and a Muslim, Zade embraced his opportunity to bridge the cultural divide between East and West. He also has performed larger concerts for Queen Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela, and the Jordanian royal family. Zade joins John to talk about his family, his life in America, and his new self-titled album from producer Will Ackerman.

College cafeterias are often lampooned for serving ?mystery meat.? But the menus unveiled at Dartmouth College yesterday are anything but. Dartmouth?s new dining hall meets the strict standards for Jewish, Muslim and Hindu diets. College officials say it?s part of an effort to make Dartmouth more welcoming. NHPR?s Trish Anderton reports.