For the last few years, I got paid to play with toys. I was able to put a philosophy of Star Trek’s Vulcans into practice, and live as a Jedi. Comics littered my work space, and Dr. Who’s TARDIS traveled with me through space and time. All I was missing was a Buffy or Firefly fix. All of this was possible because I was working on religious literacy and global citizenship.
Here is a Wall Street Journal article on the exhibit America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far, at The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, for which I was the lead academic advisor. Alas, the piece is behind a paywall.
The show is the fourth in the Upper West Side museum’s Global Cultural Exhibition Series, intended — as the name suggests — to create global citizens. And I can attest, from both observation and ancient personal experience, that the best way to broaden horizons isn’t by lecturing kids about being better people but by letting them climb into, over and through things.
I am proud to announce the opening of the exhibit America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near and Far at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. I served as the lead academic advisor the exhibit, and it is stunning. Below is a link to my Flickr album of the space, which I will continue update as the exhibit goes on for the year.
Stop Islamophobia? Know that #BlackLivesMatter — Medium.
Islamophobia is yet another ongoing manifestation of our inability as a nation to recognize that Black Lives Matter. We accept that there are, in practice, gradations of being American, and as long as we can easily penalize a people based on the color of their skin, we can do so to anyone we find different than what we perceive as American.
An American Muslim’s prayer: Forget love, let’s just be civil (COMMENTARY) – The Washington Post.
Love is a nice sentiment. Real love, though, is work. I can have love in my heart, but to love someone is to know that person. It means having compassion and empathy, and being engaged. You and the person you love have to commit to each other.
But I do not know you enough to love you, and I do not want to have to get to know you that well. It is too much work.
I do appreciate the idea. I know it is coming from a good place. It just makes me carry the pressure of fixing someone else’s problem. It tires me.
Hussein