It's 'Meet a Muslim Monday!' That's the name of a new social media series, launched with the goal of chipping away at 'Islamophobia.'
The videos are created right here in North Texas, starring people from across the area.
“As-Salaam-Alaikum, my name is Hammad Fazlani. I was born in New York in 1997,” said Fazlani, the first to be featured.
He's lived in Plano for 12 years and will soon be a UT-Dallas graduate.
But hitting the books, isn't the only thing this software engineer to-be is into.
“I've always enjoyed playing sports. Basketball, football, sand volleyball. Sand specifically, because not sand kind of hurts,” Fazlani said.
Showing he's more than his religion, is the goal of this new video series. His video debuted on CAIR-DFW’s Facebook Page on Oct. 1. A new one was unveiled Monday, Oct. 8.
“I'm Zara Khan. I'm an American Muslim and I'm also a writer,” said Khan, who stars in the second installment.
She studies classical Arabic in Arlington, but she has other passions too.
“Over the summer I worked as a youth reporter at WUNC, North Carolina Public Radio which is an affiliation with NPR,” Khan said.
John Janney hopes meeting them, will help eliminate bias.
“I'm hoping that they will see Muslims as humans,” Janney said.
He’s the executive director for the DFW chapter of the Council on American-Islamic relations. Janney said a new civil rights report from his national organization shows a 15 percent spike in anti-muslim hate crimes from 2016 to 2017. Of those, 15 percent of cases happened in Texas. Janney is putting these videos together, targeting change.
“It's all about breaking down those barriers. It's all about showing community members individually for the diverse group of people that we are,” he said.
CAIR plans to profile a new Muslim on Facebook each Monday, showing their different backgrounds and what makes us all the same.
