Big Tech: Anti-Muslim Racism, Surveillance, and Violence in the 20 Years since 9/11
Anti-Muslim racism and policing has been a facet of U.S. White supremacy since the dawn of the Atlantic slave trade. In the two decades following 9/11, anti-Muslim racism and state violence enacted on Muslims has been a core component of the U.S. security state and altered the very nature of surveillance and policing at home and abroad. And through it all, Big Tech has capitalized on war, incarceration, and violence enacted on Black and Brown bodies to amass power and substantial profit.
Watch our recent conversation–featuring Fatema Ahmad of Muslim Justice League, activist Linda Sarsour, and Ramah Kudaimi of the Crescendo project–reflecting on the past 20 years and envisioning a just and empowered way forward.
This webinar is the first of four in PRA’s ongoing series Subverting State Violence.
Watch the recording here.
For this roundtable discussion, we were joined by:
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Fatema Ahmad: Fatema (she/hers) is the Executive Director at Muslim Justice League, where she leads MJL’s efforts to dismantle the criminalization and policing of marginalized communities under national security pretexts. She joined as Deputy Director in 2017 and increased MJL’s focus on organizing within and collaborating across impacted communities to resist and subvert surveillance. Fatema leads the national StopCVE network and organizes with local partners on abolitionist campaigns. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Political Research Associates.
Linda Sarsour: Linda is an award-winning racial justice and civil rights activist, seasoned community organizer, mother of three, and a Palestinian Muslim American born and raised in Brooklyn. She is the former Executive Director of the Arab American Association of New York, co-chair of the Women’s March on Washington, and co-founder of the first Muslim online organizing platform, MPower Change.
Ramah Kudaimi: Ramah is Deputy Campaign Director of the Crescendo project at the Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE), which focuses on corporate complicity in Islamophobia and anti-Muslim violence. She was previously the Deputy Director at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, where for nine years she led and supported BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) campaigns in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom, justice, and equality. She has been a member of the National Committee of the War Resisters League and also organizes with the Syrian Solidarity Collective.
Read the full transcript here.
Watch the recording here.