Race and Rights Podcast

What legal and extra-legal challenges did Ottoman Syrian Muslim immigrants face when they immigrated to the American Midwest before World War I? What opportunities did they have? Join our host Sahar Aziz in her discussion with Professor Edward Curtis to learn how these Midwesterners built their communal power, creating a life that was American, Arab, and Muslim all at the same time.  #Muslims #Isl...

Drawing on a global and comparative ethnography, Professor Heba Gowayed explores how Syrian men and women seeking refuge in a moment of unprecedented global displacement are received by countries of resettlement and asylum—the U.S., Canada, and Germany. It shows that human capital, typically examined as the skills immigrants bring with them that shape their potential, is actually created, transfor...

The U.S. Supreme Court's overruling of Roe v. Wade has rightfully triggered a national debate about the role of religion in lawmaking, women's rights to control their reproductive health, and the racially disparate impact of state prohibitions on abortion. Join our host Sahar Aziz and legal scholars Asifa Quraishi-Landes , and Cynthia Soohoo on the legal, political, and social implicatio...

Since the early 1960s, incarcerated Muslims have used legal action to establish their rights to religious freedom and improve their conditions behind bars – ultimately safeguarding the civil rights not only of imprisoned Muslims but all people who are confined in a carceral setting.  In this episode, University of Pittsburgh School of Law Professor SpearIt discusses his book “ Muslim Prisoner Liti...

It is possible for a historically marginalized group to experience discrimination and to also be discriminatory. Understanding the hard truth of Latino anti-Black bias is critical for fostering a multiracial democracy. Host Sahar Aziz discusses these issues with “ Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality ” author and Fordham School of Law Professor Tanya Kat...

Academic freedom, equity, Islamophobia, and the commercialization of higher education offer challenges to faculty nationwide. In a telling incident, Black Muslim students of Hamline University complained of Islamophobic incidents on campus while also taking offense at the showing of a famous Persian painting of the Prophet Mohammed in a global art history class. Host Sahar Aziz discusses these iss...

Racialized disparities continue to persist in the United States and are unlikely to be effectively alleviated by the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. A recent book provides a functional analysis linking disparate forms of oppression and makes the case that structural racism will be more effectively dismantled by contesting ongoing settler colonization and supporting the right of...

American anxieties about intolerance, misogyny, and tyranny are projected onto Islam as part of the broader European use of Islam as a foil in Western liberalism. A recent book contextualizes this trend within recent efforts by the western world to proselytize liberalism as the only valid and sane worldview to Muslim-majority nations and references a rich historical record of Christian and liberal...

Muslims have long been central in America’s political discourse, policy debates and popular culture. Yet most Americans say they don’t even know a Muslim and more than 80% of media coverage of Islam and Muslims in the United States is negative. This week’s episode discusses the myriad ways in which Muslims contribute to economic development, medicine, philanthropy, arts, entertainment, sports, and...

Christianity has wielded significant influence on the American experiment from before the founding of the republic to the social movements of today. A recent book, “ White Christian Privilege : The Illusion of Religious Equality in America,” maps centuries of slavery, westward expansion, immigration, and citizenship laws to show how Christianity in the United States has always been entangled with...

Religious bigotry in the U.S. racializes Muslims and Arabs – particularly those in immigrant communities. This week’s episode tackles an ongoing trend where racism quashes religious freedom. Host Sahar Aziz and longtime war correspondent and Princeton journalism Professor Deborah Amos discuss the groundbreaking phenomenon of “ The Racial Muslim : When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom” through an h...

This episode delves into one hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, while backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. Host Sahar Aziz and this week’s guest, historian and distinguished Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi , will discuss the origins and consequences of this non stop aggression against...

The political manipulation of coded racism, also known as dog whistle politics, has evolved in the aftermath of the Trump presidency. Host Sahar Aziz and Berkeley Law Professor Ian Haney López discuss how merging the struggles for racial justice and for shared economic prosperity builds solidarity across racial lines necessary for winning elections – which is also the subject of his latest book: &...

Host Sahar Aziz and Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law Professor Khaled Beydoun discuss the latest legal and political developments in the troubling rise of global Islamophobia in India, China, and other Asian countries. The conversation is informed by Professor Beydoun’s new book The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims . #Islamophobia #Asia #Chin...

Civil liberties are vulnerable to infringement in large part due to the post-9/11 expansion of a government surveillance apparatus. Join us as we examine the threats to civil liberties and rights posed by Fusion Centers, as highlighted in the Center for Security, Race and Rights’ groundbreaking report Shining a Light on New Jersey's Secret Intelligence System . Host Sahar Aziz addresses these...

Although the Biden administration talks about supporting democracy and human rights, it has maintained unconditional US support for Israel even as human rights organizations label it an apartheid state. What are the political and ideological foundations of America’s hostility to Palestinian freedom? And what would it take to change them? Does the US’s unconditional support for Israel serve America...

Scholar Marc Lamont Hill and Israel-Palestine expert Mitchell Plitnick spotlight how holding fast to one-sided and unwaveringly pro-Israel policies reflects the truth-bending grip of authoritarianism on both Israel and the United States. 'Except for Palestine' deftly argues that progressives and liberals who oppose regressive policies on immigration, racial justice, gender equality, LGBT...