The Muslim on the airplane | Amal Kassir | TEDxMileHighWomen

Watching the news, it seems like ethnic divides are ever-deepening. But how can we solve these complicated problems when each side lives in fear of the other? The answer is simple, argues Syrian-American poet Amal Kassir - it starts with, “What’s your name?”

Amal, a young Muslim-American and native Coloradan, found a platform for her voice growing up working in her family's restaurant. She has been writing poetry since she was a child and has performed in eight countries, sharing her verse everywhere from youth prisons to orphanages to refugee camps.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Whenever I travel,

I carry a little metal box
of Altoids mints

because after a four-hour,
7 AM flight, everyone has bad breath,

so almost anyone
is willing to take the mint

from the Muslim on the airplane.

(Laughter)

And I know I've been successful
when my neighbor turns and asks,

"So, what's your name?"

You see, even if there was
an elephant in the room,

I'm still the elephant in the room.

(Cheer) Yeah!

When an elephant
offers you mints on an airplane,

I'm fully aware that
it's not always easy to accept,

so when the courageously curious
do pop the what's-your-name question,

I try to make it worth their while.

(Laughter)

My name is Amal.

It means 'hope' in Arabic.

Most days my name is waitress
at my family's Damascus restaurant,

full-time university student
and then some,

pre-law, world traveler, 11 countries.

My name is I've performed poetry
in eight of those countries.

(Cheers) (Applause)

International spoken word poet,
unapologetic Muslim woman.

Syrian, American, hijabi,
activist, social justice advocate.

My name is writer, teacher,
Colorado-born Mile High baby!

(Laughter)

(Applause)

But at the airport,
my name is random search.

(Laughter)

And on the street, it's terrorist,

sand nigger, raghead, oppressed,

and on the news, it's ISIS,

jihadi,

suspect,

radical.

My name is, "Could your Muslim
neighbor be an extremist?"

My mama, who wears the hijab,
the Islamic headdress,

is often referred to as
"Go back to you country,"

but she's from Iowa!

(Laughter)

And her nickname is Lisa Pizza.

(Laughter)

And it does not take more
than a couple questions

to figure out that her country
is the Council Bluffs cornfields.

(Laughter)

But, how would someone
know this without asking?

They say the shortest distance
between two people is a story.

Well, I elaborate on that to say
that the greatest distance you can travel

in the shortest amount of time,
is by asking someone their name.

The way we name ourselves
is a reflection of who we are,

our declarations, family histories,
the things we believe,

the morals we abide by,
our homes, cultures, transformations.

Like a Mohammed turned Mo,
or a Lisa Pizza turned Iman.

And how we name others, and how,
if, we allow others to name themselves

is a reflection of our own declarations,

of our courage, and our fear.

The malleability of a person's story
must be self-determined,

coming from the lips of the storyteller,

not the anchorman, not the megaphone,

not even the scarf on her head
or the melanin in his skin,

because no one can speak
the names of billions in one breath,

unless it's in prayer,

and oftentimes when we generalize,
it isn't because we're praying.

And when we don't ask someone their name,
we're not asking for their story.

In the world of mass media
and rampant misinformation,

it is hard for anyone, including myself,

to deconstruct all these
terrifying stories that we hear.

Sometimes, instead of isolating them,
individualizing them,

we tend to paint a group of people
with a broad brush,

until suddenly, everyone with a hijab on
is a raghead that needs liberating,

or everyone with white skin
is a racist cracker,

or everyone with black skin
is a fatherless nigger,

or everybody who looks like my father
is going to blow up the airplane,

or if the killer had a light complexion,
he's just a mentally fragile lone wolf.

And we come to this point

where we feel like we don't even need
to ask people their names

because we already gave it to them.

In Europe right now,
a monumental name change is taking place

that has completely transformed
a humanitarian responsibility.

Countries are deporting refugees,

but when you watch news coverage,

these refugees
are being referred to as migrants.

Because let's face it, deporting migrants
sounds way more reasonable

than deporting individuals
who have been forced to flee their country

because of persecution,
war, and violence -

the United Nations definition of refugee.

(Applause)

And in naming these people this way,

we've attributed to them a choice
instead of a circumstance,

some economic gain instead
of a desperation to flee a war zone.

These little ones
are refugees, not migrants.

I took this photo last year
at a refugee camp

on the Syrian-Turkish border,
and contrary to popular belief,

they aren't poisons.

They're not here to steal our democracy
or to take over our neighborhoods.

They're people,

families who wish that they could go home

but have had to make
that home somewhere else.

And we've come to this point,
where the word 'migrant'

essentially means piles of brown,
foreign-speaking people,

and we end up forgetting
that there was a point where some people

would've considered
those who looked like this

to be migrants as well.

(Applause)

Right, though?

(Applause)

And it is in this forgetfulness
that we assume,

monopolize on people's stories,
attribute their race, social class,

religions, clothing to the names
that we chose for them.

Terrorism is a fine
modern-day example, unfortunately.

In the past few years,

so much violence
has just spread across our country,

but when you watch the news,
there's always a specification

as to whether or not
terrorism was involved,

which I think we all know
means the killer looked like this.

[Arab dude]

Which...

(Laughter)

He's a babe!

Which must mean...

(Laughter)

Which must mean that the killer,
of course, pledges his allegiance to this.

[ISIS]

Right?

But correct me if I'm wrong, news coverage
does in fact tend to be a little different

when the terrorist looks like this.

[Robert Dear, Planned Parenthood Shooter]

(Applause)

And it ultimately
has us forgetting that terrorism,

by definition of terrorism,

has always come in all shapes

[Ku Klux Klan]

and colors.

[Timothy McVeigh, Oklahoma City Bomber]

(Cheers) (Applause)

And what happens when we confine
certain names with certain depictions,

wrongfully excluding some
and including others,

we end up caging masses of people
under a name that says 'dangerous,'

even if they're nowhere near it.

Like when we say 'thug'
instead of 17-year-old black child.

[Trayvon Martin]

When we say 'alien'
instead of 'immigrant.'

When we say 'lazy poor people'
instead of 'unequal wealth distribution.'

When we say 'bomb' instead of 'clock.'

[Ahmed Mohammad, clock inventor]

(Applause) (Cheers)

This man's name is Craig Hicks.

He's often referred to
as a parking dispute,

but his real name is a man who shot
and killed three Americans in their homes,

in their heads, execution style
because they were Muslim.

His name is hate crime.

Their names are Deah, Yusor, and Razan,

a 23 year old, 21, and 19.

Deah and Yusor were just named
husband and wife, newlyweds,

and the three were known
by their loved ones

as sons and daughters, brothers,
sisters, students, activists,

Instagrammers, tax payers, Americans.

But now, their names
are too young to have been taken,

their names are rest in peace,
Allah Yerhamo.

Hicks did not ask them their name.

He assigned it to them
when he assigned them each a bullet,

named them a threat to his America,
and as a result, took their lives.

This is a photo
on Dia and Yusor's wedding day.

It's so beautiful.

They were killed
before they could even see this.

Studies show that during
breaking news coverage,

the first story is the one
that sticks, even if it isn't true.

Like during the Paris attacks,

when there was talk
that refugees were dangerous

because they found a passport,

only to later confirm that there were
no Syrians or refugees involved.

But when we have such
a huge habit of misnaming people,

it's easy to overlook
these kinds of mistakes.

And this is exemplary
of what happens in a culture of fear.

In a society that doesn't ask
one another their names,

you end up with the mouth of an anchorman

or the mouth of a gun
doing all the talking.

On September 11th, 2001,

I attended a private K-8 Islamic school,

and within the first hours of the tragedy,

my school received two bomb threats.

The word 'terrorist'
was not on my spelling list,

but all of us kids picked it up
pretty soon after.

And in naming us terrorists
amidst this mass tragedy

that affected us as Americans too,

in the words of Dalia Mogahed,

we were not just mourners,
but we were suspects as well.

But, a few months ago,

me and my very handsome,
white-boy-looking brother named Usama

were at the museum
buying planetarium tickets,

and an elderly white man
walked up to me and said,

"I'm sorry about everything
you must be going through right now.

I want you to know that not all Americans
believe what these buffoons are saying."

(Applause)

"Yeah, he used the word 'buffoons!'"

(Applause)

And he said, "I want you to know
that we stand by you."

Now, had I not been wearing
a little piece of my identity on my head,

he wouldn't have known to tell me this.

And even though he didn't ask me
what my name was,

he instead told me his.

I have learned from experience
that when someone really wants to know,

they will be willing to cross
that threshold of fear

and find out that my name means hope.

And then, they'll have the courage
to ask the much more important questions

that probably only I can answer, like,

"What's that thing on your head?

Were you forced to wear it?

Are all Muslims really violent people?

Does the Quran
really say to kill all of us?

Can you please tell me
what's up with ISIS?"

And these questions,
though seemingly uncomfortable,

are how I know that I have been humanized,

and are how the courageously curious
know that really,

I'm only as scary
as the silence fear festers in.

Upon meeting someone new,
we ask their names.

We do not assign it to them.

And with that name, we are given ancestry,

bloodlines and dialects, books and poems,

perspectives, wars, struggles,
and survival stories.

"What's your name?"
is such a short distance to cross,

but when you ask me, oh, buddy!

I will take you from Kuala Lumpur
to Barcelona to Beirut.

We're going to go to Damascus,
to Sydney, to Trinidad and Tobago.

I will show you Mecca,

my closet with 70-plus
international scarves,

the graves of my 31 family members
who've been killed in Syria,

the coffee shop that I hang out at
and do my homework.

But we must have the courage
to claim our curiosity,

to go beyond anything we ever knew,
anything we ever feared.

But it takes two:

the elephant who offers the mint

and the one who takes it.

(Applause)

(Cheers)