Meet Yassir
Interviewed by Johns Hopkins University students supervised by Dr. Homayra Ziad
Interviewers: Naba, Nicholas, Sophie, Maiss
About the Interview
Yassir is an 85-year old Iraqi man living in Virginia. His interview took place on November 30th, 2021. The conversation largely centered around Yassir’s past experiences with discrimination from a variety of people and institutions, ranging from the CIA to the media to neighborhood teens. The questions were asked with this in mind, focusing the conversation on specific instances of Islamophobia and Yassir’s attitude and feelings towards them.
The influence of state violence and institutional Islamophobia was prevalent throughout the interview. Yassir discussed talking with various government officials (from the Department of Commerce and the CIA) that scrutinized his financial and familial connections, and he also emphasized instances where he was denied security clearances and searched at airports due to his faith, heritage, and appearance. He also noted the influence of the media on widespread Islamophobia within society; Yassir commented that he believed that the media and political rhetoric was a major influencer in American Islamophobia, making people otherwise friendly towards Muslims hateful and ignorant, perpetuating Islamophobia at an interpersonal level.
Guiding Questions
Yassir pinpoints the media as a major cause of the Islamophobia he experienced. To what extent can reforming the media change the Islamophobia within mainstream society today?
Can changing narratives around Islam and Muslims combat the Islamophobia found in institutions, such as federal departments and law enforcement?
“When some official came into our house to question me before the second Gulf War in the Middle East. That also scared me since I heard similar incidents happened to an Iraqi family in Philadelphia, where somebody claimed to be an official of the government. They went inside the house and they killed the person, the Iraqi guy. And they couldn’t find who did it. So hearing things like this, as severely as it is, made us worry and scared.”
“It seems many governments like to demonize a group to show their citizens the reason why they are not doing their job is because there are some bad people against them. So, in the United States, reading from the news I found out, first they scare the people with the ‘Russians are coming, the Russians are coming’ in the 50s and 60s. And it was wrong, the Russians were not coming. But they used it as an excuse, first to show the people that they are not doing the job that they are supposed to do. And second, there is danger they put an emphasis on to face that danger, And later on Russia was demolished.
So they had to look for another group to demonize, and they couldn’t find anything else except Muslims and Islam. And that’s why they are doing it. Muslims and their religion are definitely against any harm being done to any person, regardless whether or not they are Muslim or non Muslims. People should read the history, but people maybe don’t have enough time to read their history. Some people only listen to the TV and to the paper, which is controlled by special interest people. And also there are lobbies in the United States that influence the content, control the media, and control even some officials from the government”
“It happened after that Iraqi was killed in his house in Philadelphia. That scared me. Because two guys came and they wanted to get into the house. I refuse. Because I didn’t I was kept similar incident might happen because I didn’t know actually they are CIA and they said that but when they insisted on talking to me I said okay, I’ll talk with you but not inside the house. So we went to a coffee house in Great Falls center and they and their cars I in separate car and my own car that because if I wanted if something happened to me to happen, it will happen with other people around and we went to the coffee house and they questioned me and I answered and eventually they left and I heard from other Iraqis they were also contacted by the CIA people. Of course that things scares me. I mean, we hear all about the bad things happening for anything that involved with the CIA or FBI
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