These two guys were standing behind us, and I'm clearly pregnant, and we've got our two-year-old,
and this guy was like, "Uh, I wonder what she's hiding under there."
"I wish I could rip that f****** thing off her f****** head."
You know, knowing that I could hear him.
When Mona and I met, it was 2012.
I mean it's, it's hard not to be corny and sentimental, but,
you know, for me, it was really love at first sight.
Islamophobia just wasn't the thing that it is today.
I don't know if I would've converted as readily or as publicly, um, now as I did then.
I kind of experience these two different, like, cities when I go out now.
Like, I spend most of the day with Safi, and the world is just this kind of, like, friendly,
you know, great place.
And going out with Mona, people are not shy about staring.
Sebastian's like, "Oh, this is my wife, Mona."
People are like, "Oh. Nice to meet you, like, Muslim lady."
(laughs)
[Clip] "The FBI now believes the massacre in San Bernardino"
[Clip] "was an act of foreign-inspired terrorism."
[Clip] "Shootings in Paris in two or three locations."
After San Bernardino and the Paris attacks, it was really intense.
As soon as we heard about the event, there was hardly time to mourn
before it was, like, bracing for the backlash.
There was a significant rise in Islamophobic hate crimes.
[Clip] "Just this afternoon, there was a fire at a Mosque in southern California."
[Clip] "It is the latest in a string of violence directed at Muslims."
We didn't leave the house for, I think, two or three weeks.
I had this sense of this kind of blanket of dread.
We just, we felt like we had to do something to, like,
you know, replace some of that trauma with love and connection.
We were like, "How do we get people to talk to us?"
And so it was like, "We bribe them with donuts."
I kind of had this idea of, like, Lucy and her, like, lemonade stand.
The psychiatrist thing, this very homemade thing.
We took our son with us.
We took my mom's dog with us,
like, three big boxes of coffee and three dozen donuts.
So many people were like, "Don't do it, you're basically putting a bullseye on yourselves."
We set up, and there was kind of this little inhale of, you know, "What’s gonna happen?"
[Clip] "Do you guys want some donuts?"
The very first person, this kid walked up, and he said, um, "I just want you to know I'm Muslim,"
"and I think what you're doing is really cool."
You know, and I just felt this, like, this kind of tingle.
And the very next woman walked up to us with eyes full of tears saying,
"I'm so sorry for what your community is having to suffer through right now."
[Clip] "I'll give you a hug."
A lot of people, they'd come up, and they'd say,
"I don't, I don't really know what to ask..."
"but, um, can I have a donut?"
I was like, "Yeah, you can have a donut, you know."
Some people really asked you, like, "Where's the-?" "Where's the Muslim? I want to talk--"
I'm like, "Oh, yeah. Right here. Yeah."
"What should I ask you?"
Like, "Well, ask us about our son. We're trying to potty-train him. Ask us about potty-training."
"Ask us about, you know, the Red Sox."
That exchange meant everything.
[Clip] "Nice talking to you guys!"
It was a lot of curiosity and a lot of joy.
After that very first day that we went out, I posted just a picture of us
standing in front of the signs that said, "Keep your heads up, Muslims of America."
Friends kept sharing it, and then their friends shared it, and eventually, it just went crazy viral.
NPR was calling me and, like, the Boston Globe and Huffington Post
and People Magazine and Al Jazeera.
[Clip] "Mona Haydar wants to fight fear with free donuts and dialogue."
The #AskAMuslim, it's still going on.
On college campuses and at functions and events all over the country,
you know, people will just set up Ask a Muslim.
It's that magic connection that I want to be the lasting thing from Ask a Muslim.
[Clip] "That's your dog?"
[Clip] "Yeah, that’s Ben-Ben."
[Clip] "Oh, that's sweet."
[Clip] "Yeah."