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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Students of Color Conference in Yakima tackles racism

By Molly Rosbach Yakima Herald-Republic

YAKIMA, Wash. - “I must comply to the ?FBI / I’m a suspect who is subject to my ethnic ties.”

So rapped keynote speaker Amer F. Ahmed, kicking off the 26th annual Students of Color Conference on Thursday by discussing how hip-hop helped him find his voice as the son of Muslim Indian immigrant parents, and why a sense of belonging is so important and so elusive for many nonwhite Americans today.

Ahmed, who holds a doctorate in education, went on to deliver a condensed history of colonialism and cultural oppression for the hundreds of college students gathered at the Yakima Convention Center for the three-day conference.

The conference theme this year is “This is OUR time, Truth Redefined,” with an emphasis on truth’s role in achieving social justice and questioning some long-accepted narratives.

Ahmed, who has spoken on college campuses nationwide, appeared on TV news and in a documentary on racism, is the director of intercultural teaching and faculty development at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

His presentation took students through his upbringing in suburban Ohio, pre-9/11 when his neighbors knew little of Muslim culture, and then post-9/11 when, he said, every male in his family has been on a flight watch list at some point or another – even his 6-year-old nephew.

He listed popular hip-hop figures whose Islamic faith may not be well-known – Mos Def, Ice Cube – and offered students a primer on Islam and how extremist groups have interpreted the religion to suit their own political interests.

And Islamophobia has impacted non-Muslim communities, particularly through the Patriot Act, by promoting surveillance of anyone deemed a threat, he said.

“Under the red herring of terrorism, we’ve now undermined the civil liberties of every American,” he said.

It’s especially unhelpful considering that only about 20 percent of Muslims worldwide are Arab, he said. Much larger Muslim populations live in Indonesia and India and other Southeast Asian countries.

“Our (Muslim) community is extremely diverse. If you support racial profiling of our community, you support racial profiling of basically everyone,” Ahmed said.

Members of the Sikh religion in America have suffered the most under racial profiling, he said, for their highly visible turbans, but so have Hispanic and Hindu people.

“It’s not about being Muslim; it’s just about being brown,” he said. “We’re just a big blob of brown people all thrown together.”

The challenge now, he said, is overcoming the ambivalence toward profiling and violence against Muslims and others, before that violence expands.

“There’s a level of acceptability right now that we don’t accept for any other community,” he said. “Our community needs allies, y’all.”

Students cheered often throughout his hourlong talk and gave him a standing ovation at the end. Groups from Centralia to Port Angeles, Wenatchee to Walla Walla were in attendance.

The conference continues through Saturday afternoon with workshops on identity, awareness of others, skills development, social justice and personal development.

Yakima Valley Community College students were there Thursday in matching black T-shirts.

“I thought that was very powerful,” Daniela Villa-Amaya said after Ahmed’s talk.

The 19-year-old accounting major said that while she’s never judged Muslims to be terrorists, she didn’t know anything about Islam or Islamic culture before.

“Now I’m more aware of what’s going on around me,” she said. “I hope to leave more informed than when I came here so I can take it out to the communities. Anywhere I go, I want to take it, to have people be aware like me.”

For everyone in Yakima to hear what they just heard, she said, would change a lot of people’s views of Muslims.

Economics and writing student Jesus Ayala Delgado, 25, said people need to become more ?active in the community to combat those ingrained divisions.

“In order to fix Yakima, everybody needs to get involved,” he said. “You can get involved in little ways – going to marches, going to City Council meetings, getting informed. That’s the only way we’re really going to make a change.”

Otto Cruz, 49, studying to be a counselor, has an interesting perspective as a veteran who was deployed twice to Iraq.

Over there, he said, he knew they were fighting an enemy. But he met U.S. soldiers who were Muslims, and he met Arab Christians who were helping the fight, so the xenophobia he sees in the U.S. represents some kind of split where more cultural education is needed.

“There’s no reason why we all can’t live here and all get along together,” he said. “Everybody really does not know and they’re quick to judge.”