You are, according to the FBI, more likely to die as the result of faulty furniture
than by an Islamic terrorist.
So, you should really be scared of your La-Z-Boy.
For a very long time, really the only Muslims that you saw on TV were the Muslim villain
who would scream, “Allahu akbar!”
and then blow himself up.
[Clip] “Allahu akbar!”
And then there was, like, the “good Muslim”.
So you have that great movie “Body of Lies",
and you’re like “Oh, look it’s a Muslim
guy who’s good, he’s, like, with the CIA!”
No! He’s dead.
Like, three minutes into the movie.
He’s done.
In the 1980s, being Muslim in America was like being Martian.
I grew up in a predominantly Mexican community.
So I just told everybody I was Mexican.
I didn’t really know that much Spanish.
I knew, like,“Órale!” and I just, like, would throw that out every
once in a while.
“Órale!”
And people would be like, “Oh, you’re obviously Mexican”.
It was very important that we kept the whole
Muslim and Iranian thing on the down-low as much as possible.
I was longing for a way to express myself spiritually.
And so, I started reading about Islam,
I started reading the Quran.
The more I read, the more I realized
this is what I already believe, I just didn’t know there was a word for it.
[Clip] “Please welcome back to the program,
Reza Aslan.”
[Clip 1] “Reza Aslan.”
[Clip 2] “Reza Aslan.”
[Clip] “Reza, let me start with you.”
The hardest part for me when I’m being interviewed,
is to tamp down my astonishment.
[Clip] “The question at the bottom of the screen that everyone is looking at:
does Islam promote violence?"
The thing that’s mostly going through
my mind is “calm down, calm down”.
[Clip] “The justice system in Muslim countries,
you don’t think, is somehow more primitive”
[Clip] “or subjugates women more than in
other countries?”
[Clip] “Did you hear what you just said?
You said ‘in Muslim countries’.”
Please don’t generalize about 1.7 billion people in the world.
[Clip] “You’re a Muslim, so why did you
write a book about the founder of Christianity?”
[Clip] “Well, to be clear, I am a scholar
of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament and fluency
in biblical Greek.”
The Fox News video, that one really touched a nerve.
I woke up the next day and realized I had
ten thousand new followers.
I mean, everybody was talking about it.
I got a lot of positive comments from people.
Muslims who were saying, you know, for the first time,
"Okay, now we have proof
of how we are being dealt with all the time.
This is what it’s like to be Muslim in America."
The negative stuff, however, was much, much louder.
I’ve got an entire file folder of just death threats.
After about ten years of being cable news’ favorite Muslim,
I’ve come to the realization that I don’t think it’s doing any good.
Bigotry is not a result of ignorance, it’s a result of fear.
And fear is impervious to data, fear is impervious to information.
The only way that you’re gonna dissipate that fear
is by getting people to know someone that they’re afraid of.
In this country, we went from overwhelming
majorities who were against same-sex marriage
to overwhelming majorities supporting
same-sex marriage within the span of a couple of years.
What changed peoples’ minds was “Will and Grace”,
was “Modern Family”.
Was watching people who were gay,
on television, being, you know, normal.
They’re struggling with the same issues
that you’re struggling with.
They are human beings.
And so for the last few years I’ve decided
that what I’m gonna do is try to change peoples’ minds
through pop culture, through film and television.
Stories have the power to break through the
walls that separate us
into different ethnicities, different cultures,
different nationalities, different races,
different religions.
Because they hit us at the human level.