The Straight Path Blog

It’s a $170 Billion Market, Why Aren’t You Targeting It?

Posted by Michael Hastings-Black on 11.10.08 @ 10:25 AM

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from the white paper “American-Muslim Identity: Advertising, Mass Media & New Media.” A longer version can be found at Desedo Films’ blog.

“i’ve seen plenty of things making fun of us. … We would love to be part of a general marketing campaign if the media world would accept Muslims as a common part of the North American diaspora.” — Amethyst, creator of Ninjabi

Advertising in the U.S. has often influenced the pop-culture identities of religious and ethnic minorities. To be targeted by marketers serves as an invitation to join in the national narrative of capitalism. To shop is to be an American.

In the coming years, the U.S. market will likely begin to recognize and court the $170 billion purchasing power of American Muslims. To date, pop-culture representations of Islam are either cloaked in evil or infused with pathos. But as Hallmark, Wal-Mart and 20th Century Fox begin creating content engaging this demographic, it will slowly help to show that American Muslims are, as Farid Senzai said, “as boring as the rest of us.”

For the complete article, click here.

by Muhammad Sahimi
Posted November 9, 2008 | 01:34 PM (EST

Ever since President-Elect Barack Obama became a serious candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency, the right and the ultraright, the Fox News, and the ill-informed segment of the population which follows Fox’s “fair and balanced” news and analysis used Mr. Obama’s middle name and the fact that his grandfather was a Muslim against him. In such propaganda, being a Muslim is tantamount to being evil, having ill will towards the United States, and someone who could not be trusted, especially with the highest office of the land.

As a supporter of Mr. Obama, I was often disappointed that he did not confront such bigotry. His standard reaction to the accusation of being a Muslim - one also enforced by his camp - was always, “I am a Christian; I have never been a Muslim.” It really bothered me and people like me when, for example, last June Mr. Obama’s aids removed from the front row of a rally in Detroit a few Muslim women with their Islamic hejab - cover for their hair - because they did want them to be seen in photos with Mr. Obama.

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By: Maryellen Apelquist, Town Crier Staff
11/10/2008

About 800 Muslims, Jews and Christians came together Sept. 7 for a “Taste of Ramadan” in the Newington High School cafeteria - and learned they had more in common than they previously had thought.

Presented by the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut, the event focused not only on spirituality, education and awareness, but also on finding common ground and building friendships among followers of different faiths.

“We hope that visitors … got a flavor of the spirituality of the month of fasting, where Muslims fast from dawn to sunset to learn self-restraint and God consciousness. It is also the month in which the Qur’an was revealed through arch-angel Gabriel to prophet Muhammad,”

said Aida Mansoor, community services coordinator for the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut.

“Muslims, likewise, believe in revelation that was sent down prior to prophet Muhammad, through Moses in the Torah and through Jesus in the Gospel, and through all of this we try to show the commonality [among] our faiths. We also wanted, through having food together, to show our hospitality and outreach to non-Muslims who are eager to find out [about] and befriend Muslims,”

Mansoor said.

For the complete article, click here.

American Muslims overwhelmingly voted Democratic.
By Lorraine Ali | NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 7, 2008

For the past few months, not a day went by without the words “Muslim” and “Obama” being mentioned in the same sentence. From the divisive shouts and jeers at McCain rallies to the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times to an interview with Colin Powell on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Muslims—or at least the mention of them—have been more prevalent this campaign year than “Joe the Plumber.”

But beyond the use of the term Muslim as a pejorative, and accusations by the far right that Obama was himself a secret follower of the Quran, what did real Muslim-Americans think of the Chicago senator? And how did they vote? The American Muslim Task Force on Civil Rights and Elections released a poll today of over 600 Muslims from more than 10 states, including Florida and Pennsylvania, and it revealed that 89 percent of respondents voted for Obama, while only 2 percent voted for McCain. It also indicated that 95 percent of Muslims polled cast a ballot in this year’s presidential election—the highest turnout in a U.S. election ever—and 14 percent of those were first-time voters. The Gallup Center for Muslim studies estimates that U.S. Muslims favored Obama in greater numbers than did Hispanics (67 percent of whom voted for Obama) and nearly matched that of African-Americans, 93 percent of whom voted for Obama. More than two thirds who were polled said the economy was the most important issue affecting their decision on Nov. 4th, while 16 percent said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan informed their vote—numbers that put Muslims roughly on a par with the general population.

For the complete article, click here.

Complete Poll Results:
American Muslims & the 2008 Election

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By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Catholic and Muslim leaders at unprecedented Vatican meetings vowed on Thursday to jointly combat violence committed in God’s name, to defend religious freedom and to foster equal rights for minority faith groups.

After three days of meetings, the 58 scholars and leaders — 29 from each faith — issued a joint declaration that also appealed for respect for religious figures and symbols.

The meetings came two years after the pope gave a speech hinting Islam was violent and irrational, sparking angry protests in the Middle East. The Muslim participants formed a group to challenge that and seek better mutual understanding.

The joint manifesto, A Common Word, called for dialogue based on shared principles of love of God and neighbor.

For the complete article, click here.

by Martina Guzman

Rashida Tlaib is poised to make history. The Palestinian attorney overwhelmingly beat eight other candidates in Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Detroit, and appears on her way to becoming the only Arab-Muslim woman in the Michigan House of Representatives. The majority-Latino neighborhood where she campaigned borders the largest concentrated Arab community in the US.

For the complete article, click here.

‘Change has come to America,’ first African-American leader tells country

By Alex Johnson
Reporter
msnbc.com

Barack Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, shattered more than 200 years of history Tuesday night by winning election as the first African-American president of the United States.

For the complete article, click here.

Related Articles:
All Over but the Crying: How Barack Obama Won!
God Bless America
American Muslims quick to congratulate Obama
Assalamu aleikum, Mr. President: Obama prevailed. So will we

By JEFF ISRAELY Tuesday, Nov. 04, 2008

Pope Benedict’s provocative 2006 University of Regensburg speech about faith and violence concluded with a warm and heady encouragement for Muslims to partake “in the dialogue of cultures.”

But rather than a grand theologian’s invitation to tea, Muslims around the world took the Pope’s discourse — a probing and sometimes blunt analysis of reason’s role in religion that included a denigrating historical reference to Mohammed — as a monumental slap in the face. The Pope’s defenders argued that some of the more radical reactions to the speech, including church burnings in the West Bank and the murder of a nun in Somalia, were themselves proof that Benedict was right to delve deeply into the question of violence in Islam. All agreed that more than tea would be needed to repair the damage.

Two years and two months after the most highly charged episode of his papacy, Benedict’s invitation to Muslims to a new, more “frank” inter-faith dialogue finally has a time and a place. An unprecedented three-day Catholic-Muslim summit begins Tuesday at the Vatican, with leaders of both religions hoping not only to heal the wounds of Regensburg and its aftermath, but also to bring about a deeper understanding between the world’s two biggest religions.

Related Articles:
Landmark Catholic-Muslim meeting opens in Rome

What do you want to know about the way Muslim women dress, the headscarf, and the hijab? Beliefnet answers your questions here.

BY: Dilshad D. Ali, Islam Editor

The hijab, or headscarf, is one of the most noticeable and misunderstood badges of Muslim women. But there’s much more to the Islamic dress code for women than the hijab. It’s a total package that deals with clothing, behavior, and demeanor. For some hijab means pairing a headscarf with Western-style clothes. For others it means wearing loose robes as well. Still others add a niqab, or face veil, to their ensembles.

What do Islam and the Qur’an exactly say about modest clothing for women? What does Islamic dress exactly entail? Why do some Muslim women cover up while others don’t? Are there any dress requirements for Muslim men? Check out our Muslim clothing FAQs for the answers to your burning questions.

For more, click here.