PBS Independent Lens "Wild Hogs and Saffron"

The website of the United States's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) allows you to watch the short documentary film Wild Hogs and Saffron. This is the film's page at the website of the director and one of the subjects of the film, Andy Sarjahani. You can read an interview with the director about the film (archive.org).

Can person-to-person interaction promote world peace and reduce ethno-nationalist chauvanism? Can it be done "at scale" in order to prevent humanity from destroying itself? If we answer "no" to these questions, what is the alternative?

Trailer on YouTube

Recommendation: India in the West: South Asians in America by Ronald Takaki

 

I remember attending an Asian Students Association meeting at the University of Virginia to hear from the guest lecturer Ronald Takaki, whom I had known about because of his book condemning the United States's use of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The students' excitement was as if a diety had entered the room, and it was really the first time I remember considering ethnicity and identity to be important. Professor Takaki was a leading figure in the movement for multiculturalism in education. India in the West: South Asians in America was published in 1995 as part of a series of books designed for young adult readers. It is adapted and reprinted from his 1989 classic Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans.

Review: Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet

I first heard about Jennine Capó Crucet's Make Your Home Among Strangers when students at Georgia Southern University burned it after she spoke there about white privilege in the Fall of 2019.

The novel deals with many vital themes, but I recommend it especially for students in high school & college who may have mixed feelings about stretching their wings for personal achievement.

Review: "The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America" by Ray Suarez

The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America by Ray Suarez is a good introduction to policy discussions with religious claims in the United States in 2006, the time of the book's publication. Some of those issues have waned and new ones have arisen, and, if you've read other books I've reviewed on this blog under the tag Establishment Clause, you may not find these chapters exciting.

Mr. Suarez's style, in this age of bombastic partisanship, is frustratingly documentarian. He includes lengthy quotes from people whose positions he opposes. He avoids snarky rejoinders. Maybe his long years at the United States Public Broadcasting System, which depends on funding from the government and thus must garner support from many diverse sectors of our nation, have increased his ability to listen respectfully to others beyond that of those who publish in ideological Internet news sites, corporate media and crazy, egotistical bloggers like myself!

"We Need Diverse Books" Campaign

Had a great time on my local NPR station @wabenews chatting about Written in the Stars & @diversebooks! http://t.co/GrkfIZZUDa

— Aisha Saeed (@aishacs) June 27, 2015

This interview is worth listening to, and try to find the books the We Need Diverse Books campaign promotes at your bookstores and libraries!

Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality by Martha Craven Nussbaum

Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality by Martha Craven Nussbaum

I earlier published a review of Professor Nussbaum's The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age. That book skims through arguments she fleshed out in greater detail and with different historical examples in Liberty of Conscience.

I want to reproduce a few passages which described some aspects of U.S. history which I'd never heard.

Review: The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age by Martha C. Nussbaum

The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age by Martha C. Nussbaum (Belknap Press, Hardcover, 9780674065901, 304pp.) Publication Date: April 2012

How can the industrialized, formally democratic societies of Europe and North America increase religious pluralism? European nations "have understood the root of nationhood to lie first and foremost in characteristics that are difficult if not impossible for new immigrants to share. Strongly influenced by romanticism, these nations have seen blood, soil, ethnolinguistic peoplehood, and religion as necessary or at least central elements of a national identity." (p. 13) Other nations, such as the United States and India, define "nationhood in terms of political ideals and struggles," thus somewhat opening the door. (p. 16)

Teacher Confronts Islamophobia with "The Garden of My Imaan" by Farhana Zia

"You mean a Muslim is coming here?!” http://t.co/OBr5Hpqvbu pic.twitter.com/gnIakR3qaf
— Teaching Tolerance (@Tolerance_org) March 19, 2015

Amy Vatne Bitliff used Farhana Zia's The Garden of My Imaan in her public middle school.

Then two days prior to Zia’s visit, one of my students who had really been pushing against the text said, “You mean a Muslim is coming here?! They chop people’s heads off. If she’s coming here, I’m not coming to school." ... read more ...

The level of fear and prejudice that fell from my student's mouths this week as we read a book about a Muslim American girl was staggering.
— Amy Vatne Bintliff (@amybintliff) October 16, 2014

As an anti-bias educator, preparing for Farhana Zia's visit has propelled students to explore anti-Muslim fear. We have all grown so much!
— Amy Vatne Bintliff (@amybintliff) October 16, 2014

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim Podcast

Who's a 'good' Muslim & who's a 'bad' Muslim? And who gets to define? They try. http://t.co/8Ax9KBnbCy pic.twitter.com/4edyIa2bsU
— David Beard (@dabeard) January 19, 2015

Review: Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn't Give You the Right to Tell Other People What to Do by Robert Boston

I am a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Robert Boston (Twitter) is the latter organization's Director of Communications, and he is the author of numerous books. His latest is Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn't Give You the Right to Tell Other People What to Do. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a talk he gave in Augusta, GA, and I enjoyed his company at lunch before the talk.

Börgen Episode 23 "The Right Shade of Brown" and the Issue of "Integration"

Adam Price surrounded by the cast of his political drama Borgen

I watch Börgen on Link TV. In season 3, the series's protagonist Birgitte Nyborg decides to leave her party, The Moderates, because it agreed to support a law which would allow the government to deport immigrants for minor offenses. In episode 23, "The Right Shade of Brown," the founders of her new party, The New Democrats, are discussing who should represent The New Democrats in a TV forum on immigration. They decide they want an actual immigrant to represent them. The first condition they place is that the immigrant must be a Muslim, not an Inuit from Greenland, since Muslims are the problem in immigration/integration. Then they decide it can't be an Indonesian or an Ugandan, because they don't look "Muslim."

Interview with Maud S. Mandel, author of "Muslims and Jews in France: History of a Conflict"

Joseph Richard Preville conducted an interview with Professor Maud S Mandel on her book Muslims and Jews in France: History of a Conflict, and it was published in IslamiCommentary.org on March 31, 2014. You can also listen to an interview from March 21, 2014 from a Memphis, Tennessee radio station. I have not read the book.

Review: "The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs" by Andrew Hussey

Princeton University Professor David Avrom Bell (Twitter) reviewed The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs by Andrew Hussey in The Guardian.

My take on Andrew Hussey's "The French Intifada" http://t.co/KKTGJYUGPM
— David A. Bell (@DavidAvromBell) March 1, 2014

I have not read the book.

Updated: Interview with the author published June 27, 2014.

Interview with Mark Cohen, Contributor to A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations

Joseph Richard Preville conducted an interview with Professor Mark R. Cohen, and it was published in IslamiCommentary.org on January 28, 2014.

Jews and Muslims have been intertwined for fourteen centuries. Their long relationship is the subject of A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day (Princeton University Press, 2013). read more

Professor Cohen is one of the contributors to the book. I have not read the book.

Film "David" Examines Boundaries of Interfairth/Interethnic Relations in Brooklyn

Thanks to Augusta, Georgia's Morris Museum of Art (Twitter) (Facebook) and the Southern Circuit 2013-2014 Tour of Independent Filmmakers, I was able to watch David (Twitter) (Facebook) and meet its director and producer Joel Fendelman. It premiered in 2010 at the Brooklyn Film Festival, and you can read the synopsis there.

David (2011) - Trailer from Joel Fendelman on Vimeo.

Religious War is Not So Bad: Modern Defenses of the Crusades

I was flipping through the TV yesterday and hit upon EWTN ON LOCATION - RETHINKING HOLY WARS: THE CRUSADES AND CATHOLIC DEVOTION IN THE MIDDLE AGES. It featured a lecture by Dr. Thomas F. Madden, of Saint Louis University, on "Rethinking Holy War: The Crusades and Catholic Devotion in the Middle Ages" delivered at the Catholic Vision of History Conference at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia. The full lecture is available in audio and visual format through iTunes University.

Review: Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq by Michael Scheuer

Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq by Michael Scheuer (Twitter)


As I was listening to this abridged book on CD, I pictured its author Michael Scheuer as a combination of Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now and Cersei in Game of Thrones. His commitment to no principle other than the cohesiveness of the United States and his view that ultra-violence is a necessary tool to preserve that cohesiveness made it difficult for me, a proponent of non-violence and globalism (his term is antinationalist), to keep an open mind to his ideas. Yet I'm glad I did persevere and finish the book, and there is some value in it.

Which book would you recommend to your friend's Islamophobic friend?

A friend requested my recommendation for a book she could recommend to her Islamophobic friend.

My friend discovered her friend was Islamophobic through a conversation that went something like this:

Between a Mormon and a Muslim, I wish the Mormon had won. I know some Muslims. The ones I know are pretty good. You don't know that Muslims believe such-and-such and are commanded to do such-and-such? If I gave you a book, would you read it? Yea, maybe.

Akbar Ahmed's Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam

Akbar Ahmed's book Journey Into America: The Challenge of Islam is also a documentary movie. It has a YouTube Channel, a Flickr stream and a blog.

There's an article adapted from the book in the Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Islamic Horizons, which should be posted soon either here or here.

I haven't read the book or seen the movie.

PBS's Need to Know Visits Clarkston, GA - Multiculturalism in the US South

I had reviewed a book about refugees in Clarkston, GA. Maria Hinojosa presented a Need to Know episode on the continued transition from a nearly one-hundred percent white town to a town where more than one-third of the residents are foreign-born.