when I was 18 years old I got the worst
news I was going to Harper College while
the rest of my friends would be
exploring their freedom in the
cornfields of southern Illinois in Iowa
I would be stuck at home and I was
really bummed about this but someone had
given me some advice he said get
involved at Harper and it’ll make things
fun so I took that advice I joined the
speech team and I revived a pretty
dormant Muslim Student Association you
see I had grew up in a pretty
traditional Muslim American family but I
was very private about my identity in
high school I didn’t have any Muslim
friends I don’t even know if my most my
friends knew I was a Muslim so I knew I
wanted to explore this part of my
identity even more in college and I
wanted to make more Muslim friends so I
figured the best way to do that is to
appoint myself president of the Muslim
Student Association and it worked out
great I even recruited some friends and
we were having a great time and then the
unimaginable and the unexpected happens
September 11 2001 and I was on this
campus coincidentally in building L
huddled in a corner with my classmates
and my teacher watching the world
unravel on the television it was a
transformative moment I think we knew
the world would never be the same and
neither would I I watched this campus go
into panic mode in the days and the
weeks that followed I myself became
fixated obsessed with the identity of
the terrorists how could I share any
kind of identity with these monsters
right how could they claim to do this in
the name of my faith everything I had
ever studied and known and learned none
of that could remotely justify
happened on 9/11 so how could they it
basically led me to rediscover my entire
belief system which was a good thing
because it turns out a lot of people on
this campus had similar questions about
my faith so as the leader of the local
Muslim group I had to you know speak all
over campus
I found myself giving presentations on
the Islamic fundamentals and I found
myself defending my faith a lot tensions
were high on campus so a couple of
students in the MSA decided they wanted
to hold a prayer protest they would hope
they were hoping that this would
accomplish two things first by praying
in the middle of building ell which was
a very high traffic area they could
remind people that we all enjoy the
freedom of worship and freedom of
religion and that all faiths should be
respected but they had also hoped it
would show people that if they could
just see you know the prayer ritual
which is not subtle but if they could
see the humble submissive nature of it
they would see that you know by by the
very definition is anything but violent
and aggressive and hostile
so that would offer some insight so the
day of the prayer protest comes and you
know there’s a little bit of a crowd
seven or eight boys get into formation
Ali is the one leading the prayer he
sounds off he starts and some people you
know they watch a couple people yell
things as they walk by but there’s this
one boy in particular that catches my
attention you can tell that he does not
like what he’s seeing he’s angry his
nostrils are flaring his arms are
crossed he is glaring at the scene in
front of him and suddenly he decides to
walk up to the boys get a little closer
and as the praying boys go into
prostration mode which literally means
their forehead is touching the floor he
walks up
to ally and stands at the tip of his
head and mutters something along the
lines of know your place dog and I’m
watching this and I’m thinking oh my god
he’s going to kick him in the head and I
think Ally felt it too because he up
roughly ends the prayer he stands up and
now they’re staring at each other nose
to nose you know total testosterone
throw down and public safety quickly
interjects words were had we decide all
right it’s enough for today and just as
I’m thanking God for dodging a bullet
Elise says we have to do this again
right we can’t leave it like this it
defeats the whole purpose they win and
I’m actually arguing with them and I
think well this isn’t about winning and
losing times are sensitive and we’re
arguing and we come to a compromise and
we say all right we’ll do it again but
we’re gonna wait a couple of weeks let
people cool off a couple of days after
this incident I agree to hold a group
discussion with the inner varsity
Christian group on campus their
president was a friend of mine from our
world religions class and she said look
mahom I’m hearing some things I don’t
like it I want you to come in maybe help
dispel some misconceptions and I’m like
of course I will right this is what I’ve
been doing all a couple of months now
but I’ll never forget this meeting I
wasn’t expecting the 40 or 50 people
that showed up and I got some really
tough questions during the Q&A questions
that I think would be hard for anyone to
answer let alone an 18 year old right
and the one that I remember this girl
asked me why did this happen I want to
know why you as a Muslim think this
happened and I don’t know if it was the
stress from the prayer protest days
earlier or from the grueling Q&A that I
just had or four months of feeling like
I had to prove an innocence but that is
the moment I broke right I could feel
the burning sensation in my throat
the tears are in my eyes and I lose it
they just start to come out and I am
bawling in front of 40 people mortified
and all I can say to her is I don’t know
I don’t know why this happens I don’t
know why they claim to be Muslims and I
am terrified that this is gonna happen
again and again and people like you are
always gonna hate people like me and I
walked out of that meeting feeling
completely defeated not my best hour and
just when I think things can’t get any
worse it’s time for round 2 of the
prayer protest and we you know word on
the street is is that we might have a
bigger confrontation waiting for us so
I’m really really nervous the morning of
the prayer and I decided to pray now I
don’t know if you know this but Muslims
they you know they can pray up to five
times a day but there’s an earliest
prayer is at the crack of dawn but
there’s a prayer that’s actually earlier
than that I’m talking like three four
a.m. and the idea the point is that if
you’re really stressed out about
something you can wake up you just break
your sweet slumber and prayed about it
and as a Muslim who never caught her
five prayers that morning I was up at 3
or 4 a.m. that’s how nervous I was and I
prayed to God right I said God please
let there be a miracle today please let
things go smoothly let the good and
people prevail so I get to the prayer
protest and it’s a bigger crowd there’s
more Muslims there to join the prayer
and you can you know you can feel the
tension Ali starts the prayer boys get
into formation and the prayer starts and
sure enough I see our friend from the
protest last time right when he’s
walking up and this time he’s got some
friends with him and one of those
friends
is holding a baseball bat and I turned
over to the Public Safety Officer who’s
standing next to me and I say what do we
do and as I’m talking to him I watch him
walk right up to the boys and then
suddenly stop a few feet in front of
them and he turns over towards us and he
starts organizing his friends to stand
in this line and they create this kind
of barrier in front of the praying boys
and at this point I’m so confused and
frustrated I just go up to him and like
what are you doing and he looks almost
embarrassed and he says to me look I
hear there might be some trouble coming
your way and I think it’s my fault and I
just want to make it right so we’re
gonna stand here right now and make sure
that nobody can disrupt their prayer and
that they can finish their prayer this
time and I stood there stunned so moved
my aunt my prayers had been answered
right I just witnessed the miracle I had
asked for man I totally should have
asked for a million dollars instead I
later had the chance to talk to that boy
whose name was Blake I learned and I
went up to Blake and I said look can you
tell me what changed and this is the
first time I see him smile and he looks
at me and says well I kind of owe it to
this huge crybaby
I saw speak the other day but through
her snots and sniffles I realized that
she was hurting the same way I am
hurting exactly the same way I am but
carrying a bigger burden than me and
then he bows his head in shame he says
you know I suck as a Christian I’m
supposed to help those in pain and
lighten their burden and the other day
I’m the one who caused it to you and
your friends and I know that and I am so
sorry I don’t know what came over me but
I’m just so angry and
then I can see the tears well up in his
eyes he’s fighting them back and I think
Oh Blake you’re a little bit of a
crybaby too but that was one of the
moments on this campus that shaped my
entire path forward I learned the power
of a simple conversation and that when
we force ourselves to listen and learn
about another’s perspective even when it
makes us uncomfortable it’s critical to
our own well-being
I learned that true leadership means
that sometimes you see the fruits of
your labor and sometimes you don’t but
you keep laboring those were profound
lessons at the age of 18 and they serve
as a great reminder for me today five
years ago when I got to this campus as
an adjunct instructor everything had
changed right this campus is bigger the
programs have grown the buildings and
everything is just bigger right but our
problems since then have grown bigger
too as a community the extent and nature
of our bigotry are discrimination our
prejudices our Islamophobia our
xenophobia take your pick those have
grown too our communication has become
much more digital instead of
interpersonal and the only thing getting
more personal are our politics 15 years
ago I was a clear Muslim other today all
of you are some kind of other now this
isn’t to suggest that having simple
conversations are going to solve all of
our problems in fact when I start to
think about how I’m going to help my
students find their path forward in a
world like this it feels so daunting but
then I walk through these hallways and
I’m reminded of a time that felt just as
daunting you see the thing is when you
have history with
place and you know where it’s been and
what it’s seen it just makes you crazy
convicted about what today should feel
and look like and what tomorrow needs to
offer and tomorrow needs to offer a
stronger better campus not a bigger
campus but a more unified empowered
inclusive campus a wise provost once
told me that you can tell how strong our
campus is by the goals that they set so
let’s set a goal today together at
Harper’s 75th anniversary we are going
to be giving TED talks on how we became
the model campus for inclusiveness we’re
going to be talking about how we became
trendsetters in empowering vulnerable
and marginalized students so that when
they walk out of these hallways they are
neither of those two things idealistic
sure overwhelming absolutely impossible
no way and when you start to think it is
remember this face because this face is
living proof of that when you help just
one student and support and empower one
student on this campus yesterday she can
stand in front of you today with
confidence with experience with plans
and a vision and a commitment to a
stronger tomorrow I want to share one
last thing with you as I wrap up just
last week I accepted a position a job
offer here at Harper College as a full
time tenured track journalism faculty
and with that job comes the
responsibility of reviving our school
newspaper the Harbinger which has seen a
lot of hardships in the last few years
and I cannot tell you how excited I am
to be able to do that and to finally
tell all of your stories and to create a
platform that documents the
Collective narrative of this campus but
I got to tell you every time I sit down
to think about it
I keep saying the F word again and again
future future future the whole reason I
wanted to share my story with you today
especially all of these students is to
get you to start thinking about your
stories the ones you’ve already started
here at Harper the world is always going
to be full of conflict and problems with
the other but in the grand narrative of
conflict and cooperation problems and
solutions I want to ask you what role
will you play what headline will you
give me what stories will you tell tomorrow just something to think about
news I was going to Harper College while
the rest of my friends would be
exploring their freedom in the
cornfields of southern Illinois in Iowa
I would be stuck at home and I was
really bummed about this but someone had
given me some advice he said get
involved at Harper and it’ll make things
fun so I took that advice I joined the
speech team and I revived a pretty
dormant Muslim Student Association you
see I had grew up in a pretty
traditional Muslim American family but I
was very private about my identity in
high school I didn’t have any Muslim
friends I don’t even know if my most my
friends knew I was a Muslim so I knew I
wanted to explore this part of my
identity even more in college and I
wanted to make more Muslim friends so I
figured the best way to do that is to
appoint myself president of the Muslim
Student Association and it worked out
great I even recruited some friends and
we were having a great time and then the
unimaginable and the unexpected happens
September 11 2001 and I was on this
campus coincidentally in building L
huddled in a corner with my classmates
and my teacher watching the world
unravel on the television it was a
transformative moment I think we knew
the world would never be the same and
neither would I I watched this campus go
into panic mode in the days and the
weeks that followed I myself became
fixated obsessed with the identity of
the terrorists how could I share any
kind of identity with these monsters
right how could they claim to do this in
the name of my faith everything I had
ever studied and known and learned none
of that could remotely justify
happened on 9/11 so how could they it
basically led me to rediscover my entire
belief system which was a good thing
because it turns out a lot of people on
this campus had similar questions about
my faith so as the leader of the local
Muslim group I had to you know speak all
over campus
I found myself giving presentations on
the Islamic fundamentals and I found
myself defending my faith a lot tensions
were high on campus so a couple of
students in the MSA decided they wanted
to hold a prayer protest they would hope
they were hoping that this would
accomplish two things first by praying
in the middle of building ell which was
a very high traffic area they could
remind people that we all enjoy the
freedom of worship and freedom of
religion and that all faiths should be
respected but they had also hoped it
would show people that if they could
just see you know the prayer ritual
which is not subtle but if they could
see the humble submissive nature of it
they would see that you know by by the
very definition is anything but violent
and aggressive and hostile
so that would offer some insight so the
day of the prayer protest comes and you
know there’s a little bit of a crowd
seven or eight boys get into formation
Ali is the one leading the prayer he
sounds off he starts and some people you
know they watch a couple people yell
things as they walk by but there’s this
one boy in particular that catches my
attention you can tell that he does not
like what he’s seeing he’s angry his
nostrils are flaring his arms are
crossed he is glaring at the scene in
front of him and suddenly he decides to
walk up to the boys get a little closer
and as the praying boys go into
prostration mode which literally means
their forehead is touching the floor he
walks up
to ally and stands at the tip of his
head and mutters something along the
lines of know your place dog and I’m
watching this and I’m thinking oh my god
he’s going to kick him in the head and I
think Ally felt it too because he up
roughly ends the prayer he stands up and
now they’re staring at each other nose
to nose you know total testosterone
throw down and public safety quickly
interjects words were had we decide all
right it’s enough for today and just as
I’m thanking God for dodging a bullet
Elise says we have to do this again
right we can’t leave it like this it
defeats the whole purpose they win and
I’m actually arguing with them and I
think well this isn’t about winning and
losing times are sensitive and we’re
arguing and we come to a compromise and
we say all right we’ll do it again but
we’re gonna wait a couple of weeks let
people cool off a couple of days after
this incident I agree to hold a group
discussion with the inner varsity
Christian group on campus their
president was a friend of mine from our
world religions class and she said look
mahom I’m hearing some things I don’t
like it I want you to come in maybe help
dispel some misconceptions and I’m like
of course I will right this is what I’ve
been doing all a couple of months now
but I’ll never forget this meeting I
wasn’t expecting the 40 or 50 people
that showed up and I got some really
tough questions during the Q&A questions
that I think would be hard for anyone to
answer let alone an 18 year old right
and the one that I remember this girl
asked me why did this happen I want to
know why you as a Muslim think this
happened and I don’t know if it was the
stress from the prayer protest days
earlier or from the grueling Q&A that I
just had or four months of feeling like
I had to prove an innocence but that is
the moment I broke right I could feel
the burning sensation in my throat
the tears are in my eyes and I lose it
they just start to come out and I am
bawling in front of 40 people mortified
and all I can say to her is I don’t know
I don’t know why this happens I don’t
know why they claim to be Muslims and I
am terrified that this is gonna happen
again and again and people like you are
always gonna hate people like me and I
walked out of that meeting feeling
completely defeated not my best hour and
just when I think things can’t get any
worse it’s time for round 2 of the
prayer protest and we you know word on
the street is is that we might have a
bigger confrontation waiting for us so
I’m really really nervous the morning of
the prayer and I decided to pray now I
don’t know if you know this but Muslims
they you know they can pray up to five
times a day but there’s an earliest
prayer is at the crack of dawn but
there’s a prayer that’s actually earlier
than that I’m talking like three four
a.m. and the idea the point is that if
you’re really stressed out about
something you can wake up you just break
your sweet slumber and prayed about it
and as a Muslim who never caught her
five prayers that morning I was up at 3
or 4 a.m. that’s how nervous I was and I
prayed to God right I said God please
let there be a miracle today please let
things go smoothly let the good and
people prevail so I get to the prayer
protest and it’s a bigger crowd there’s
more Muslims there to join the prayer
and you can you know you can feel the
tension Ali starts the prayer boys get
into formation and the prayer starts and
sure enough I see our friend from the
protest last time right when he’s
walking up and this time he’s got some
friends with him and one of those
friends
is holding a baseball bat and I turned
over to the Public Safety Officer who’s
standing next to me and I say what do we
do and as I’m talking to him I watch him
walk right up to the boys and then
suddenly stop a few feet in front of
them and he turns over towards us and he
starts organizing his friends to stand
in this line and they create this kind
of barrier in front of the praying boys
and at this point I’m so confused and
frustrated I just go up to him and like
what are you doing and he looks almost
embarrassed and he says to me look I
hear there might be some trouble coming
your way and I think it’s my fault and I
just want to make it right so we’re
gonna stand here right now and make sure
that nobody can disrupt their prayer and
that they can finish their prayer this
time and I stood there stunned so moved
my aunt my prayers had been answered
right I just witnessed the miracle I had
asked for man I totally should have
asked for a million dollars instead I
later had the chance to talk to that boy
whose name was Blake I learned and I
went up to Blake and I said look can you
tell me what changed and this is the
first time I see him smile and he looks
at me and says well I kind of owe it to
this huge crybaby
I saw speak the other day but through
her snots and sniffles I realized that
she was hurting the same way I am
hurting exactly the same way I am but
carrying a bigger burden than me and
then he bows his head in shame he says
you know I suck as a Christian I’m
supposed to help those in pain and
lighten their burden and the other day
I’m the one who caused it to you and
your friends and I know that and I am so
sorry I don’t know what came over me but
I’m just so angry and
then I can see the tears well up in his
eyes he’s fighting them back and I think
Oh Blake you’re a little bit of a
crybaby too but that was one of the
moments on this campus that shaped my
entire path forward I learned the power
of a simple conversation and that when
we force ourselves to listen and learn
about another’s perspective even when it
makes us uncomfortable it’s critical to
our own well-being
I learned that true leadership means
that sometimes you see the fruits of
your labor and sometimes you don’t but
you keep laboring those were profound
lessons at the age of 18 and they serve
as a great reminder for me today five
years ago when I got to this campus as
an adjunct instructor everything had
changed right this campus is bigger the
programs have grown the buildings and
everything is just bigger right but our
problems since then have grown bigger
too as a community the extent and nature
of our bigotry are discrimination our
prejudices our Islamophobia our
xenophobia take your pick those have
grown too our communication has become
much more digital instead of
interpersonal and the only thing getting
more personal are our politics 15 years
ago I was a clear Muslim other today all
of you are some kind of other now this
isn’t to suggest that having simple
conversations are going to solve all of
our problems in fact when I start to
think about how I’m going to help my
students find their path forward in a
world like this it feels so daunting but
then I walk through these hallways and
I’m reminded of a time that felt just as
daunting you see the thing is when you
have history with
place and you know where it’s been and
what it’s seen it just makes you crazy
convicted about what today should feel
and look like and what tomorrow needs to
offer and tomorrow needs to offer a
stronger better campus not a bigger
campus but a more unified empowered
inclusive campus a wise provost once
told me that you can tell how strong our
campus is by the goals that they set so
let’s set a goal today together at
Harper’s 75th anniversary we are going
to be giving TED talks on how we became
the model campus for inclusiveness we’re
going to be talking about how we became
trendsetters in empowering vulnerable
and marginalized students so that when
they walk out of these hallways they are
neither of those two things idealistic
sure overwhelming absolutely impossible
no way and when you start to think it is
remember this face because this face is
living proof of that when you help just
one student and support and empower one
student on this campus yesterday she can
stand in front of you today with
confidence with experience with plans
and a vision and a commitment to a
stronger tomorrow I want to share one
last thing with you as I wrap up just
last week I accepted a position a job
offer here at Harper College as a full
time tenured track journalism faculty
and with that job comes the
responsibility of reviving our school
newspaper the Harbinger which has seen a
lot of hardships in the last few years
and I cannot tell you how excited I am
to be able to do that and to finally
tell all of your stories and to create a
platform that documents the
Collective narrative of this campus but
I got to tell you every time I sit down
to think about it
I keep saying the F word again and again
future future future the whole reason I
wanted to share my story with you today
especially all of these students is to
get you to start thinking about your
stories the ones you’ve already started
here at Harper the world is always going
to be full of conflict and problems with
the other but in the grand narrative of
conflict and cooperation problems and
solutions I want to ask you what role
will you play what headline will you
give me what stories will you tell tomorrow just something to think about
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