Tom Facchine – How Muslims Should Deal With Systemic Harassment

			How do Muslims deal with systemic harassment? Well, the first thing is that we need to have
realistic expectations because Allah subhanaw taala told us in the Quran that this was coming our
way, right? He says at the very beginning of sort of anchor boots, that you're not going to be left
alone to say that you believe or not, you're not going to be tested. And Allah said, I believe in
Surah Al Imran that you're going to find other right, you're going to find harm from people who
don't share your faith. And then to be patient in the face of that is mean as middle mode. It's it's
one of the it's it's perseverance, right? It's something that's a very, very good thing to have. And
		

			so first of all, this a certain degree of it is divinely willed for our own virtue and morality and
moral development. We need to be prepared for it. We can't imagine or be so allergic to it, that we
just wherever we go, we expect that we're not going to get this sort of treatment, no, we expect
that this sort of thing is going to happen. So then if we expect it, how is our orientation? Or what
should our orientation be towards it? Our orientation, first and foremost, should be to conduct
ourselves with dignity, right? Because we have a lot of sort of things that are happening in our
society these days, where as a quote, unquote, sort of minority or a quote unquote, sort of
		

			oppressed population that we can be tempted to pursue a type of justice that is predicated upon
trading in our dignity for that justice. And that's also not okay. Right. So we can't be groveling,
right and saying that, okay, well, oh, well, you know, we're getting treated this way. And that way,
and this isn't fair. And so we want you to do this and do that. Some of that's necessary, we need to
advocate for ourselves, we need to advocate for ourselves upon principles that are going to ensure
that everybody gets fair treatment. But let's say to illustrate what I'm talking about, there are
certain lobbies and movements that are demanding not just tolerance, not just equal treatment, but
		

			deliberate recognition, right? If you don't go out of your way to fly this flag, or to say that this
is okay. Or to say that you support this, right, we have someone on our community that was asked to
change their zoom background to to a rainbow flag during the month of June. They said, No, I don't
want to do that. That's against my faith, right? We shouldn't be going around telling people that
well, for the month of August or July, you're gonna change your zoom background to a star and
crescent, that's what I'm talking about. That would be an undignified level of pursuing justice in a
way that I don't think is based in Islam, right, we don't go to the point where we're shoving it
		

			down people's throats in that sort of way. We're not demanding that level of groveling and
accommodation from other people. However, however, we demand fair treatment, if you're going to
claim that you appreciate toleration and tolerance, and you're going to claim that everybody has the
right to be treated equally. And we have the right to hold you to that claim, right. And we not just
hold you to that claim, in a superficial sense, like, oh, this person has a hijab, you have your
token hijab over here, and you have your token brown person over here, we're talking about ethical
diversity, right? We're talking about people who have different beliefs, okay, you need to be able
		

			to tolerate us and our beliefs, if someone doesn't want to give pronouns if someone doesn't want to
support homosexual marriage, or somebody doesn't want to support any sort of the litany of issues
that kind of aligned with the left and the progressive politics that are kind of have some momentum
at this point in law, right? You need to be willing to tolerate that if you if a place of employment
or a school or anything, if their idea of diversity is only masks is only appearances. It's only a
PR stunt. And they're not really willing to tolerate actual diversity of beliefs, of thought of
morals of ethics, then that's something that we need to advocate for we are we want real toleration,
		

			we want real diversity, not just PR stunts, not just optics, not just the image, right? And so yes,
I mean, we should if people need to be prepared, you know, you have your principles, don't barter
away your principles for keeping your job or anything like this, right. It's better to as we say,
it's better to live up to die on your feet than live on your knees, right? If you're going to be put
in a position where you have to grovel, or you have to give up what makes you special as a Muslim,
your beliefs and your your sort of worldview. In order to keep your position or to whatever, then
sometimes we need to be prepared to leave our jobs. And I've you know, this is not something that I
		

			say as someone who's out of touch I've been in jobs like that I've been in jobs. I've worked a lot
of different types of jobs in my life. I've had the struggle to ask employers to pray. I've had
employers react in a negative way to asking asking for accommodation for prayer for people who made
comments when I was praying or people who looked at me in a funny way, right? At a certain point,
you have to be willing to say either I get this, this that and that I get this type of recognition
or I'm going right and once we start living according to these sorts of principles and advocating
for ourselves on people I think will have a higher respect for us.