3 lessons on starting a movement from a self-defense trailblazer

At 16, Rana Abdelhamid started teaching self-defense to women and girls in her neighborhood. Almost 10 years later, these community classes have grown into Malikah: a global grassroots network creating safety, power and solidarity for all women. How did she do it? Abdelhamid shares three ingredients for building a movement from the ground up.

So my story starts on July 4, 1992,

the day my mother followed
her college sweetheart

to New York City from Egypt.

As fireworks exploded behind the skyline,

my father looked
at my mother jokingly and said,

"Look, habibti,

Americans are celebrating your arrival."

(Laughter)

Unfortunately, it didn't feel
much like a celebration

when, growing up, my mother and I
would wander past Queens

into New York City streets,

and my mother with her hijab
and long flowy dresses

would tighten her hand
around my small fingers

as she stood up
against weathered comments like,

"Go back to where you came from,"

"Learn English,"

"Stupid immigrant."

These words were meant
to make us feel unsafe, insecure

in our own neighborhoods, in our own skin.

But it was these same streets

that made me fall in love with New York.

Queens is one of the most
diverse places in the world,

with immigrant parents
holding stories that always start

with something between three
and 15 dollars in a pocket,

a voyage across a vast sea

and a cash-only hustle

sheltering families
in jam-packed, busted apartments.

And it was these same families

that worked so hard to make sure
that we had safe microcommunities --

we, as immigrant children,

to feel affirmed and loved
in our identities.

But it was mostly the women.

And these women are the reason why,

regardless of these statements
that my mom faced,

she remained unapologetic.

And these women were
some of the most powerful women

I have ever met in my entire life.

I mean, they had networks for everything.

They had rotations
for who watched whose kids when,

for saving extra cash,

for throwing belly dance parties

and memorizing Koran and learning English.

And they would collect small gold tokens

to fundraise for the local mosque.

And it was these same women,

when I decided to wear my hijab,

who supported me through it.

And when I was bullied for being Muslim,

I always felt like I had an army
of unapologetic North African aunties

who had my back.

And so every morning at 15,

I would wake up
and stand in front of a mirror,

and wrap beautiful
bright silk around my head

the way my mother does
and my grandmother did.

And one day that summer 2009,

I stepped out into
the streets of New York City

on my way to volunteer
at a domestic violence organization

that a woman in
my neighborhood had started.

And I remember at that moment
I felt a yank at the back of my head.

Then someone pulled and grabbed me,

trying to remove my hijab
from off of my head.

I turned around
to a tall, broad-shouldered man,

pure hate in his eyes.

I struggled and fought back,

and finally was able to get away,

hid myself in the bathroom
of that organization and cried and cried.

I kept thinking to myself,

"Why does he hate me?

He doesn't even know me."

Hate crimes against Muslims in the US

increased by 1,600 percent post-9/11,

and one in every four women in the US

will suffer some form of gender violence.

And it may not seem like it,

but Islamophobia and anti-Muslim violence

is a form of gender violence,

given the visibility
of Muslim women in our hijabs.

And so I was not alone,

and that horrified me.

It made me want to do something.

It made me want to go out there
and make sure that no one I loved,

that no woman would have to feel
this insecure in her own skin.

So I started to think about
how the women in my own neighborhood

were able to build
community for themselves,

and how they were able to use
the very little resources they had

to actually offer something.

And I began to think
about what I could potentially offer

to build safety and power for women.

And through this journey,

I learned a couple of things,

and this is what I want to share
with you today, some of these lessons.

So lesson number one:

start with what you know.

At the time, I had been doing
Shotokan karate

for as long as I could remember,

and so I had a black belt.

Yeah. And so, I thought -- surprise.

(Laughter)

I thought that maybe
I should go out into my neighborhood

and teach self-defense to young girls.

And so I actually went out
and knocked on doors,

spoke to community leaders,
to parents, to young women,

and finally was able to secure
a free community center basement

and convince enough young women
that they should come to my class.

And it actually all worked out,

because when I pitched the idea,

most of the responses were, like,

"All right, cute,

this 5'1" hijabi girl who knows karate.

How nice."

But in reality, I became the Queens,
New York version of Mr. Miyagi

at 16 years old,

and I started teaching 13 young women
in that community center basement

self-defense.

And with every single self-defense move,

for eight sessions
over the course of that summer,

we began to understand
the power of our bodies,

and we began to share our experiences

about our identities.

And sometimes there were
shocking realizations,

and other times there were tears,

but mostly it was laughs.

And I ended that summer
with this incredible sisterhood,

and I began to feel
much safer in my own skin.

And it was because of these women
that we just kept teaching.

I never thought that I would continue,
but we just kept teaching.

And today, nine years, 17 cities,

12 countries, 760 courses

and thousands of women and girls later,

I'm still teaching.

And what started as a self-defense course

in the basement of a community center

is now an international
grassroots organization

focused on building safety and power
for women around the world:

Malikah.

(Applause)

Now, for lesson number two:

start with who you know.

Oftentimes, it could be quite exciting,

especially if you're
an expert in something

and you want to have impact,

to swoop into a community
and think you have the magic recipe.

But very early on I learned

that, as esteemed philosopher
Kendrick Lamar once said,

it's really important
to be humble and to sit down.

So, basically, at 15 years old,

the only community that I had
any business doing work with

were the 14-year-old girls
in my neighborhood,

and that's because
I was friends with them.

Other than that, I didn't know
what it meant to be a child

of Bengali immigrants in Brooklyn

or to be Senegalese in the Bronx.

But I did know young women
who were connected to those communities,

and it was quite remarkable
how they already had

these layers of trust and awareness
and relationship with their communities.

So like my mother
and the women in her neighborhood,

they had these really strong
social networks,

and it was about providing capacity

and believing in other women's
definition of safety.

Even though I was
a self-defense instructor,

I couldn't come into a community

and define safety for any other woman

who was not part of my own community.

And it was because,
as our network expanded,

I learned that self-defense
is not just physical.

It's actually really emotional work.

I mean, we would do
a 60-minute self-defense class,

and then we'd have 30 minutes reserved
for just talking and healing.

And in those 30 minutes,

women would share what brought them
to the class to begin with

but also various other
experiences with violence.

And, as an example,
one time in one of those classes,

one woman actually started
to talk about the fact

that she had been in a domestic violence
relationship for over 30 years,

and it was her first time
being able to articulate that

because we had established
that safe space for her.

So it's powerful work,

but it only happens when we believe
in women's agency to define

what safety and what power
looks like for themselves.

All right, for lesson number three --

and this was the hardest thing for me --

the most important thing about this work
is to start with the joy.

When I started doing this work,
I was reacting to a hate-based attack,

so I was feeling insecure
and anxious and overwhelmed.

I was really afraid.

And it makes sense,
because if you take a step back,

and I can imagine that a lot of women
in this room can probably relate to this,

the feeling, an overwhelming
feeling of insecurity,

is oftentimes with us constantly.

I mean, imagine this:

walking home late at night,
hearing footsteps behind you.

You wonder if you should walk faster
or if you should slow down.

You keep your keys in your hand
in case you need to use them.

You say, "Text me when you get home.
I want to make sure you are safe."

And we mean those words.

We're afraid to put down our drinks.

We're afraid to speak
too much or too little in a meeting.

And imagine being woman and black
and trans and queer and Latinx

and undocumented and poor and immigrant,

and you could then only imagine
how overwhelming this work can be,

especially within the context
of personal safety.

However, when I took a step to reflect

on what brought me
to this work to begin with,

I began to realize it was actually
the love that I had

for women in my community.

It was the way I saw them gather,

their ability to build for each other,

that inspired me to keep doing this work

day in and day out.

So whether I was in
a refugee camp in Jordan

or a community center in Dallas, Texas

or a corporate office in Silicon Valley,

women gathered in beautifully magical ways

and they built together
and supported each other

in ways that shifted culture

to empower and build safety for women.

And that is how the change happens.

It was through those relationships
we built together.

That's why we don't
just teach self-defense,

but we also throw dance parties

and host potlucks

and write love notes to each other

and sing songs together.

And it's really about the friendship,

and it's been so, so fun.

So the last thing I want to leave you with

is that the key takeaway for me in
teaching self-defense all of these years

is that I actually don't want women,
as cool as the self-defense moves are,

to go out and use
these self-defense techniques.

I don't want any woman to have to
de-escalate any violent situation.

But for that to happen,

the violence shouldn't happen,

and for the violence not to happen,

the systems and the cultures

that allow for this violence
to take place to begin with needs to stop.

And for that to happen,
we need all hands on deck.

So I've given you my secret recipe,

and now it's up to you.

To start with what you know,
to start with who you know

and to start with joy. But just start.

Thank you so much.

(Applause)