Transcript of “Racism in Education”
A speech by Mahmoud El-Kati
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0389
Description: Mahmoud El-Kati (then known as Milton Williams), Director of the Creative
Education Center at The Way in Minneapolis, delivered a speech on May 15, 1968 as
pa... Show more
Transcript of “Racism in Education”
A speech by Mahmoud El-Kati
Date: 1968-05-15
Identifier: SC 05.1.4.2013.01.0389
Description: Mahmoud El-Kati (then known as Milton Williams), Director of the Creative
Education Center at The Way in Minneapolis, delivered a speech on May 15, 1968 as
part of “One Day in May” at Augsburg College (now Augsburg University). Students,
faculty, and administration canceled class to invite leaders of Minneapolis’ Black
community to speak about system racism and related issues.
Duration: 00:50:09
Collection: 13 “One Day in May” sessions were recorded and have been digitized.
They are available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp3IfZjFdUQJMy9uNoEADuy9KPltsIF-9
[transcription note: the recording cut off a small part of the introduction, including the
name of the person introducing El-Kati]
00:00:01
[Inaudible] who holds degrees in sociology and history from Wilberforce
University in Ohio has also spent three summers at the Institute of
behavioral science in the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Mr. Williams
has spent five years in the field of social welfare with public welfare
departments in New York and Cleveland, and has worked for three and a
half years as a vocational counselor with the St. Paul Rehabilitation
Center.
00:00:29
He is currently Director of the Creative Education Program at the Way
Center. Although he is basically oriented toward social problems, Mr.
Williams has devoted a great deal of energy during the past eight years
teaching and writing on Afro-American heritage and culture. He has
conducted seminars, workshops, and lecture series in the metropolitan
area for the past four years. I'm pleased to welcome Mr. Milton Williams.
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 1
00:00:53
[The audience applauds]
00:01:08
[Mahmoud El-Kati] Thank you. I would like to just make a few at random
comments reflecting some of my visions on what we call education, before
we get to the nitty-gritty. I don't think one has to be a world traveler to
learn that there's an extraordinary degree of human nature which is pretty
much the same all over this country, and this is especially true in our
colleges and universities, I think. What we seem to be turning out is if,
through a kind of mold, a type of human being whose chief interest in life
is to find security, and it becomes somebody important, but I have a good
time with as little thought is possible.
00:02:20
Thus conventional education, I think, becomes extremely difficult, where
independent thinking is concerned. Conformity leads to mediocrity. To be
different from the group or to resist environment is not easy and is often
risky as long as we worship success, in my opinion. The urge to be
successful, which is the pursuit of reward whether in the material or in the
so-called spiritual sphere. The search for inward or outward security, the
desire for comfort, this whole process smothers discontent, puts an end to
spontaneity, and breeds fear, and fear blocks the intelligent understanding
of life.With increasing age, dullness of mind, and heart sets in.
00:03:10
In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a
minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.
This fear of life, this fear of struggle and of new experience kills in us the
spirit of invention, adventure. Our whole upbringing in education has made
us afraid to be different from our neighbor, afraid to think contrary to the
established pattern of society, falsely respectful of authority and tradition.
00:03:41
Fortunately, there are a few of us who are earnest who are willing to
examine our human problems without prejudice to the right or to the left,
but in the vast majority of us there is no real spirit of discontent, of revolt.
When we yield uncomprehendingly to environment any spirit of revolt that
we may have had dies down and our responsibilities soon put to an end.
00:04:16
Revolt is of two kinds: there's the obvious violent revolt which is mere
reaction without understanding against the existing order, and then there
is a deep psychological revolt of intelligence. There are many who revolt
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 2
against the established orthodoxies only to fall into new orthodoxies.
Further illusions and conceal self indulgences. What generally happens is
that we break away from run group a set of ideals and join another group,
take up other ideals thus creating a new pattern of thought against which
we will again have to revolt. Reaction only breeds opposition and reform
needs further reform.
00:05:00
But there is an intelligent revolt which is not reaction and which comes
with self-knowledge through the awareness of one's own thought and
feeling. It is only when we face experience as it comes and do not avoid
disturbance that we keep intelligence highly awakened and intelligence
highly awakened is intuition which is the only true guide in life.
00:05:34
Now what is the significance of life? What is the significance of education
to life? What are we living and struggling for if we are being educated
merely to achieve distinction, to get a better job, to be more efficient, to
have wider domination over others, then our lives will be shallow and
empty.
00:05:46
If we are being educated only to be scientists, to be scholars wedded to
books, a specialist addicted to knowledge, then we shall be contributing to
the destruction and misery of the world. Though there's a high and wider
significance to life, of what value is our education if we never discover it?
We may be highly educated, but if we are without deep integration of
thought and feeling our lives are incomplete, contradictory and torn with
many fears and as long as education does not cultivate an integrated
outlook on life it has very little significance.
00:06:24
In our present civilization we have divided life into so many departments
that education has very little meaning, except in learning a particular
technique or profession. Instead of awakening the integrated intelligence
of the individual, education is encouraging him to conform to a pattern,
and so as hindering his comprehension of himself as a total process. To
attempt the song the many problems of existence at their respective
levels, separated as they are into various categories indicates another
lack of comprehension. The individual is made up of different entities, but
to emphasize the differences and to encourage the development of a
definite type leads to many complexities and contradictions.
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 3
00:07:06
Education should bring about the integration of these separate entities for
without integration life becomes a series of conflicts and sorrows. Of what
value is it to be trained as a lawyer if we perpetuate litigation? Of what
values knowledge if we continue in our confusion? What significance has
technical and industrial capacity if we use it to destroy one another? What
is the point of our existence if it leads to violence and utter misery?
Though we may have money, or are capable of learning it, though we
have our pleasures and our organized religions, we are in endless conflict.
00:07:48
We must distinguish between the personal and the individual. The
personal is the accidental, and by the accidental I mean the circumstances
of birth, the environment in which we happen to have been brought up,
with its nationalism, superstitions, class distinction, and prejudices. The
personal or accidental is but momentary thought. The personal or
accidental is but momentary, though that moment may last a lifetime and
as the present system of education is based on the personal, the
accidental, the momentary, it leads to the perversion of thought and the
invocation of self defensive fears. All of us have been trained by education
and environment to seek personal gain and security and to fight for
ourselves, though we covered over with pleasant phrases, and have been
educated for various professions within a system which is based on
exploitation and acquisitive fear.
00:08:52
Such a training is, must inevitably bring confusion and misery to ourselves
and to the world, for it creates in each individual the psychological barriers
through which separate and hold him apart from others, his fellow man.
Education is not merely a matter of training the mind, training makes for
efficiency, but it does not bring about completeness. A mind that has
merely been trained is the confrontation of the past, continuation of the
past, and such a man can never discover the new.
00:09:22
That is why to find out what is right education, we will have to inquire into
the whole significance of living. To most of us the meaning of life as a
whole is not of primary importance. In our education emphasizes
secondary values merely making us proficient in some branch of
knowledge, though knowledge and efficiency are necessary, to lay chief
emphasis on them only leads to conflict and confusion. There is an
efficiency inspired by love, I'm sorry I mention that word. Love, yeah,
which goes far beyond, and is much greater than the efficiency of
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 4
ambition, and without love, which brings an integrated understanding life,
efficiency breeds ruthlessness.
00:10:05
Is this not what is actually taking place all over the country today? Our
present education is geared to industrialization and war. I don't think that
can be denied its principal aim being developed toward efficiency, and we
are caught in this machine of ruthless competition and mutual destruction.
If education leads to war, if it teaches us to destroy or to be destroyed, has
it not utterly failed? To bring about right education we must obviously
understanding the meaning of life as a whole, and for that we have to be
able to think not consistently and directly and truly a consistent thinker is
thoughtless.
00:10:47
He's a thoughtless person because he conforms to a pattern. He repeats
phrases and thinks in a groove. We cannot understand existence
abstractly or theoretically. To understand life is to understand ourselves
and that is both the meaning, the beginning, and the end of education.
Education is not merely acquiring knowledge, gathering, and in correlating
facts. It is to see the significance of life as a whole, but the whole cannot
be approached through the part, which is what governments, organized
religions, and authoritarian parties are attempting to do.
00:11:27
The function of education is to create, is to create human beings who are
integrated and therefore intelligent. We may take degrees and be
mechanically efficient without being intelligent. Intelligence is not mere
information, it is not derived from books, nor does it consist of clever
self-defensive responses, and aggressive ambitions, assertions. One who
has not studied may be more intelligent than to learned.
00:11:54
We have made examinations and degrees the criterion of intelligence and
have developed cunning minds that avoid vital issues in our lives.
Intelligence is the capacity to perceive the essential, the what is, and to
awaken the capacity in oneself and in others. That's education. Education
should help us to discover lasting values so that we do not merely cling to
formulas or repeat slogans. It should help us to break down our national
and social barriers instead of emphasizing them, for they breed
antagonism between man and man.
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 5
Unfortunately the present system of education is making us subservient, mechanical,
and deeply thoughtless, though it awakens us intellectually inwardly it
leaves us incomplete, stultified, and uncreative. Without an integrated
understanding of life our individual and collective problems will only
deepen and extend. The purpose of Education is not to produce mere
scholars, and technicians, and job hunters, but integrated men and
women who are free from fear. For only between such human beings can
there be enduring peace. It is in the understanding of ourselves that fear
comes to an end.
00:13:15
If the individual is to grapple with life from moment to moment, if he used
to face its intricacies, its miseries, and sudden demands, he must be
infinitely pliable and therefore free of theories in particular patterns of
thought. Education should not encourage the individual to conform to
society but to be negatively harmonious with it and help him to discover
the true values which come with unbiased investigation and
self-awareness. When there is no self knowledge, self-expression
becomes self assertion. With all its aggressive and ambitious conflicts,
education should awaken the capacity to be self-aware, and not merely
indulge in the gratifying self-expression.
00:14:01
What is the good of learning if in the process of living we are destroying
ourselves. As we are having a series of devastating wars, one right after
another, there's obviously something radically wrong with the way we
bring up our children. I think most of us are aware of this, but we do not
know how to deal with it or to heal it. Systems, whether educational or
political, are not changed mysteriously. They are transformed when there
is a fundamental change in ourselves.
00:14:35
The individual is of the first importance, not the system, and as long as the
individual does not understand the total process of himself, no system
whether of the left or the right can bring order and peace to the world. I
don't generally do this, you see, but I had to make sure I said some things
that I thought had significance to you. I don't generally do anything by
plan. I follow my instincts, spontaneity, my discontent, but you can only do
that with the kind of people that I deal with.
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 6
00:15:13
So then, you must understand my predicament. I'm used to dealing with
the cream of the crap instead of the cream of the crop, so you are the
cream of the crap--crop--I'm sorry! [Laughter and Applause]
00:15:39
I thought we'd get that out of the way real quick, like I'm not an
academician and I don't try to be one. My whole interest in history, and
other things is social, if you stretch the point you might say that I'm a
social historian. I only use it insofar that it has relevance to being useful
tools in human relations. I'm not interested in dates and seeing how many
chronologies I can run down. I just wanted to have relevance to you and to
me so it can create intelligent revolt.
00:16:14
Intelligent action instead of violent revolt. This is very significant. I am in a
deep psychological revolt against American society. I'm trying to be
intelligent, you see. That's my revolt. There's a lot of revolts going on
simultaneously in this country. In my revolt, sit-ins on education primarily,
because I do believe that education must teach one how to deal with the
process of living all of the things that the human being must confront be
confronted with in order to exist. Poverty, and pain, and ugliness, and
beauty, and love. I think education should teach one how to deal with
these things as he goes through life.
00:17:10
I've heard it said that education should be the art and science of making
human beings of teaching responsibility of teaching, responsibility to
oneself for oneself and to others. I think that's the essence of it. It teaches
us how to live together. Theoretically, this is true, but unfortunately when
the folks set up the educational system in this country, it was not based on
the recognition of humanity, of the complexity of humanity, and so I think
that most people in this country today be he black or white, Mexican,
Indian, whoever is not being educated.
00:17:50
You're not educated if you don't understand what it means to relate to
another human being and most of us do not. We emphasize the opposite,
the differences between ourselves. Ostensibly in this country it is racism.
Racism is in the educational institutions of this country from top to bottom,
inside out, upside down, any way you want to look at it. It's a racist
oriented educational system. It is dehumanized. Nearly thirty million black
people in this country, five million Mexicans, a million Indians, and all of
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 7
the shades in between, because in this process of education, the
humanity of these people is not recognized.
00:18:39
It's racist and you can't begin to understand anything about what's going
on until you understand the human weight and complexity behind what
you see today, this violent revolt, reaction, they're reactionaries. That's
what it all is. These are demonstrations, but revolt and revolutions begins
with ideas. We're nowhere near revolution, so don't sweat. Not that way,
but something significant is taking place on the cultural level and we insist
that we're gonna have a cultural revolution all over black America. We're
gonna have one with or without white folks.
00:19:23
We'd like for you you feel something of the human spirit to join us but if
you're gonna have all these hangups, fear of the unknown, of the new, of
adventure, of new experience then we're going for ourselves, but our
revolution is a basic appeal for the expansion of humanity. That's what it
is.
00:19:46
We want for the new rebirth of mankind worked out to its ultimate logic.
This is what we're talking about, but we must begin with ourselves and
we'll begin by revolting against the educational system of this country
which fails to recognize the humanity of black people. In spite of the fact
that we've been at 14 generally generations we're nearly 100%
native-born, we fought in all of these glorious wars and you refuse to see
us. You go through the twelve, fourteen, sixteen, sometimes twenty year
experience of education and you don't see me in the Revolutionary War,
at the Battle of New Orleans in 1812, at the Alamo, in the Civil War where
were of my antecedents participated, put the flag up on San Juan Hill,
broke through the Rhine in World War I, World War II all over the Pacific,
in Italy, Pork Chop Hill, that's an interesting word, I'd like to get into that
sometime, and this thing, whatever you want to call it, now that's going on
in Southeast Asia.
00:21:15
A nonentity in American life. When we examine the human interaction of
the people in this country, historically, I don't exist so you can't know me,
and Ralph Ellison was quite right that we're invisible people. It's said to
have beating hearts and living affections but you refused to see me, and
you cannot. You haven't had a chance, you see.
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 8
00:21:40
You got to understand what racism means. Let me tell you what I think it
is. It's a philosophic disease. It's a part and parcel of the warp and woof of
American life institutional life. And racism is of two kinds: individualized
racism and institutionalized racism. Most of the racism in the society is
promoted through institutions. Most white people are unconscious racists,
they're not even aware of it. An example of individualized racism would be
some individual or several of them throwing a bomb in a building like this,
full of black people, if you were black. That's individualized racism, but
when you have 50,000 black babies in the Mississippi Delta dying literally
from starvation because they cannot get proper medical facilities or proper
welfare attention, that's institutionalized racism.
00:22:41
Men make the human condition. They create it, and that's where we are.
Education is one of the basic institutions in any societies, it's a balance
wheel of social machinery. That's it, it's the most basic institution next to
the first institution that is the family unit, that the human being comes
through to be socialized, so to speak, to be humanized, to understand
what it means to be humane and to have wants and all of these things that
we are born with, but they didn't remain underdeveloped, and dominant,
and perverted, and so you can't relate to people who are unlike you with
respect to their peculiar and beautiful humanity, so you haven't had a
chance, and what we're trying to do in this country today is to create a new
frame of reference in which all people can fit.
00:23:37
We're interested in creating a human society, to hell with the great society,
we already got that America is indeed a great country. Technology,
proficiency, efficiency. You already had that. No need to make
pronouncements about its greatness in this area, but in terms of people
living and appreciating one another in this pluralistic culture, it hasn't
happened. The melting pot hasn't melted among white folks, let alone
black folks. We haven't even gotten into the pot so we don't even talk
about melting, but in Indians and folks like that, it's never melted and we
examine all of these things that we've taught in school.
00:24:28
The new concept of integration which is a kind of logical fallacy. It's a
sociological fallacy. There's no such thing as integration in this society that
I can see. So how in the hell are black people gonna integrate, what are
they going to integrate into? White folks are not integrated. This is a
pluralistic culture and it's organized pluralistically, pragmatically it is
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 9
organized via in groups, groups, cliques, and classes pragmatically
organized power groups balancing and negating the forces of one
another. That's integration, that's what you call the American creed among
white people. The political economy.
00:25:15,480
Everybody has a piece of pie, but in human relations white folks are
not integrated. When we were forced to examine this even surface with
the uneven body bottom we noticed some things, that people only
organized pragmatically, power groups. We noticed that Jew, white Jew, is
not particularly fond of his daughter marrying an Anglo-Saxon or an
Anglo-Saxon is not particularly fond of having his daughter marry an
Italian so like, who the hell am I going to integrate with if they can't make
it, you know, and we see that when individuals in this pragmatic society
says they're free, they say they're free because their groups are free, and
the white Jew says he's free, he's free because his group is free.
00:26:06
When the Anglo-Saxon says he's free is free because his group is free.
When the Roman Catholic says he's free is free because his group is free.
So then, if I want to participate in the society I have to do it as a group.
Well-organized with representation in the cultural apparatus of American
life, can do it no other way, we've been trying for years as individuals
being siphoned off one by one, that exceptional Negro, you know, with the
Phi Beta Kappa key and all the degrees you can name. That ain't where
it's that. We either come in as a group but we don't come in at all because
that's the way the society is organized. Now I don't want to hear people
talking about the Constitution and the inclusive [inaudible] such as the Bill
of Rights because it makes no provisions even for political parties but they
exist, you see.
00:27:00
The Constitution is a tremendous document but that's its limitations. It
protects only personal and individual liberties, it doesn't even deal with
groups. As a matter of fact the federalists a very entire political party as
some of you well know, you students of history. So this is a part of the
problem, that education should be taken care of, for instance. You should
not go through a twelve or sixteen year experience without knowing what
other people are really like, what the human condition was and is, that the
present really is the past, it's the child of the past. You can't divorce the
one from the other, and one can only secure his future through the
knowledge of the past, and so we have been unhistorical people in the
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 10
minds of many white folks and we've been here longer than nine-tenths
than most of you, and the institution which should do this and tell you
these things does not do it, so we have to go for ourselves.
00:28:05
We have to do it. We have to create out of this discontent something new.
This is the basis of creativity, is discontent and spontaneity, you better dig
that. It's very important for all people to know, that's what created America;
discontent and spontaneity. You cannot have newness, you cannot have
creativity, unless you have this and that's what we mean when we say
deep psychological revolt of the intelligence. You want to create
something out of this, that's legitimate, that's humane, that can be realized
in a human society, and hopefully can be extended to others who can
appreciate our experience.
00:28:48
But we must do it, we must do it as Albert Camus has pointed out that
man begins to exist as a free man when he says no to definitions, no to
prescriptions and limitations that have been placed on him by his
oppresses, and we consider white Americans our oppresses. They're
against the grain of the expansion of humanity. Every institution in
American life is against the grain of the expansion of humanity.
00:29:17
Every one of them. Be it political, economic, social, educational, or
otherwise. You wouldn't be sitting here, you wouldn't feel the way you did
if, as a child, you were taught the truth about American civilization, and if
you were given another frame of reference in terms of what it really means
to be human perhaps you could be towards other people, but you cannot
be humane because the whole relationship between black and white in
this country is based on an I-it rather than I-thou relationship and this is
the legacy of slavery. It's still with us.
00:29:53
In the mountains of books that you read in school, they haven't gotten
them straight in sociology yet. They're still creating terms: ghetto, culturally
deprived, and I never knew I was culturally deprived until I left Harlem.
Sociology professor told me that you don't have any culture. We're the
only human beings in the world without culture. It means you don't exist,
that's exactly what it means. Now I learned it everywhere else outside of
this society culture is defined as anything man made. It's a total
embodiment of a people's experience, that anything I make and create is
culture, is my peculiar experience as a human being and they tell you that
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 11
there are some culturally deprived people in the society who are called
Negros, and if anybody has created any culture of merit in this society, it's
black folk.
00:30:44
I can't think of anybody 00:30:44 else who's created anything that's
peculiarly American but black folk. So I didn't realize that I was culturally
deprived, I thought was rich in intangible culture. A lot of folks like that all
over the country feel that, then they go to college and they tell them, look
man you don't exist. That's real interesting. You know, and it comes out of
schools like this; Augsburg, University of Minnesota, Yale, Harvard.
They're making some adjustments over there now, but they do this, this is
a fact of American life that's why you can't deal with black people
emotionally.
00:31:23
You don't know anything about their emotional experience as human
beings so you can't understand it, you can't perceive it, except as its moral
through the gobbly goo of politicians, and those are the most dangerous
people in the world, in terms of articulating what the human equation is all
about. They are incapable of doing it because historically we have meant
so much to the political machinery of this country in terms of a football or
play with, you see, and so they can't be honest or earnest about dealing
with us as human beings, and they never have.
00:32:00
So I'd like to challenge young America, if you really believe in creating a
human society, I believe that you can do it, only you can do it. I think some
members of the older generations are incapable of doing it for a number of
reasons. They have too many moral hang-ups, they're responsible for all
the moral hang-ups that we have today. Some of you still have a chance
who have not been deeply infested with the racist concept of what it
means to live. There's a chance for you and I'm serious about this, and
folks, look at folks like me and thank you crazy you know because you see
there are two views of reality.
00:32:37
You have the bird's eye and I have the frog's eye, so we better meet at the
crossroads and find out what reality really is, but people have been taught
that they are secure and this security is really based on fear. Not breaking
out, not adventuring, not trying anything new, not discovering. That's what
all these institutions do. This is why we have no moral tone in the society
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 12
from religious life of the country because it's basically racist and it has an
educated function which it does not perform. It's as important as a school.
00:33:11
Reflect on that for a minute, that here are some people who are as
American as cherry pie in terms of the involvement of the American
society, and you know nothing about them. You can't understand them.
They won't even put us in the history books. There's no period in
American history in which you, that we haven't been involved in a
significant part of, it in every period in American history. You know, it really
sometimes want to make me cry when you really understand what history
is. I mean it's a human experience, and it's alright, we have a history of
political and territorial state and suppose it had to develop like that.
00:33:53
That's white nationalism, that's what you get and this tourist guide of
textbooks that you taught in high school, but I look at a part of American
history that perhaps is the most celebrated part in our nation's
background. I was reading some notes the other day, some old notes I
had from about five years ago in the cowboy movement in America, and
you know, celebrating the cowboy which is the most lionized movement of
our mythical past, you know, wasn't half so big as most folks think. It only
lasted three decades, last part of the nineteenth century.
00:34:28
Roughly 30,000 people and were involved in it, and an overwhelming
amount, disproportionate in terms of their relation to the population were
black folks, and I can remember about five years ago when Sammy Davis
played a TV role as a cowboy, folks were astounded. There can't be no
colored cowboy. That's not, that's very real they were over of them. They
won the West. The earliest Cowboys were black, from East Texas. Nearly
[Inaudible] Texas was a slave area. The early Bronco riders, you got the
bad man one of the most lyin eyes black Cowboys in history turns out to
be white. His name is Deadwood Dick. They made a lot of movies about
him, and Isaac [Inaudible] and Broncos Sam.
00:35:16
This, his is what we celebrate about American experience, but when
history became myths and legend, we disappeared completely. Now you
do have other remnants of other racial groups you even have the little
Chinese with the pigtail as always a cook who was out there, and the
Mexican and the gringo, and occasionally of course the Indian was still
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 13
killing him, you know, classic scene and all of this experience one of the
most renowned Cowboys in history just died in 1932.
00:35:44
His name was Billy Pickett. He rode with Will Rogers for 20 years. He put
the rodeo on the map in Europe and in Madison Square Garden the first
rodeo in Madison Square Garden, and there he was Billy Pickett stomped
to death by a horse and my old man 70 years old. We got pictures of
these folks, and you never knew they exist. Now that's human waiting
complexity the way America really is or really was and is today, but look
what people have done to it. Look how they've distorted reality in your
minds to make you think that cowboy means and this is the excerpt that
you take out from the classic scene of the West, this is John Wayne and
his two nieces you know, defending a wagon train against 5,000 charging
Indians, and they wipe them all out without reloading the guns. [Laughter
and Applause]
00:36:33,
I always say about you never know what to expect out of a Western now.
You know, any day now I look for Ben Cartwright [Inaudible] It could
happen the way they fix them up, you know. But look what happens and
it's distorts your concept of reality now this is something we all can relate
to the most lyin' eyes hero, folk hero, in American folklore is the cowboy. A
disproportionate number of them were black. As a matter of fact, there
was only one ethnic group larger than the black people and this was a
southern cracker. This is who made the cowboy movement from Texas,
that's where it started, and a black [Inaudible] you find the southern
cracker you find black folk, remember that, and that's who it was. It was
greater numbers and northern white's or even Mexicans or Indians in that
part the cowboy movement itself. But look what happens, and that was
only yesterday.
00:37:28
Not to mention serious things about the great political debates of this
country which you know nothing about historically. So it rules us out. So
we begin to see that we have to develop and interpret our own history
because we realize the importance of history, be it factual or romantic. It
has great deep psychological meaning to people. We realize that if you
give a man a history you must give him a personality, and if you extend to
him a personality, you must extend to him humanity, and if you recognize
your humanity that means you also recognize mine, and there's a limit to
what you can do to me and keep a clear conscience.
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 14
00:38:09
That's the importance of it so we aren't historic figures in the minds of
white people, so you cannot relate to us you can't begin to relate to chitlins
and hog maws and all these things that are part of our peculiar experience
you relate to it superficially when Tin Pan Alley and television and all these
folks get old to it, and tell you what we all about, and they don't even
understand it themselves the challenge to you is to begin right now if you
want a human society, to question the curriculum right here in this school
about what they're teaching you and you can extend it to anything not only
with black people, communism of Viet Cong or anything.
00:38:48
Tell me what these things are, really, I want to know. That's the beginning
of freedom, that's the beginning of justice and equality. There are a couple
of things I'd like to say before I close concerning something I read about
five or six years ago which really makes this very important comment on
the emotional life of America, in terms of the sickness, the disease of
racism of which all of us are victims.
00:39:28
I'm a victim of it to see my because my only frame of reference is race I
have no other alternative, you see, so one makes me racist in turn in
terms of reacting to racism. But really we're a sick society. Most of the
people in here are affected by it and black people mostly in terms of an
obvious way, but I think whites are in a more subtle in a more synthetic
way or perhaps more affected by racism than black people, and it grows
out of these things that I was alluding to the lack of recognition of one's
humanity.
00:40:06
About five or six years ago, a group of people very much like yourself who
happened to have been New York school teachers invited the Afro
American expatriate James Baldwin to come and talk to them. As Johnny
felt about the so-called Negro problem. How did he see it as a black artist
as opposed as a politician those are black politicians and all these people
who fight year in a year about civil rights bills and housing and all this
jazz? How do you feel about it Mr. Artist whose function it is to go beneath
the surface and deal with reality rather than just plain facts?
00:40:45
And Baldwin says something very interesting is it's very long text to these
school teachers in New York has about 55,000 school teachers, six
hundred of whom are black, so it gives you something of the genetic
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 15
composition of a crowd which attended its meeting about 5,000 were there
and he had a long text and a part of it really struck me and stuck with me
since that ever since I've read it, and it describes a lot of the way I feel
emotionally, if not intellectually about what this whole thing is, how I see
this illusion. It's a fantastical delusion which we mistake for reality.
00:41:23
He said a lot of things but among them and I should like to quote some of
the things that Baldwin said. For those of you are not familiar with Baldwin,
he's made a tremendous contribution in the area of provoking creativity
among certain white persons, namely the creative intellectual among white
people. He said, and I'm quoting a number of things, he said, "When I was
writing in Paris, I came to understand that the American white man has
long since lost his grip on reality. When I saw them over there buying
everything and insulting everybody, and the tragedy of it was that they
didn't even know that they were insulting people, and then I remember that
this was the way it was with me when they insulted me.
00:42:13
They didn't mean it, but they simply didn't recognize that I was human. I'm
still shocked by the fact that most white Americans sincerely believed that
the country was settled by Gary Cooper, and as far as I can tell they still
had like their political leaders based on how closely they resemble Gary
Cooper.
00:42:37
When I was very young I came to understand that some mistakes have
been made, some lies had been told. A lot of things that I was taught
about me simply was not true. For instance, I'm not happy and I never
touch watermelon for all sorts of reasons, and I'm not a n***** because if
I'm a n***** it means it says something basically wrong with you. You
created something you needed, and whatever a man creates is basically
an extension of himself. If you are compelled to lie about any aspect of
anybody's history therefore compelled to lie about it all and this means
that if I'm not what I've been told I am then you're not what you've been
told you are either.
00:43:13
If in some miraculous way the public school curriculum could be changed
tomorrow, and the real role of the American black man can be revealed
you would find that you'd not only be liberating the minds of black
Americans who know nothing about their history, but you'd also be
liberating the minds of white Americans who know nothing about their
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 16
history either. If I were teaching in the school where there were black kids
or any other school where there were black kids I would try to get them to
understand at the street that they live on, the house that they live in, the
jobs that their parents go to, the schools that they go to, and the
policeman on the corner was all a part of a criminal conspiracy to destroy
them.
00:43:55
But I would further try to get them to understand that the world is much
bigger, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything that they could
ever imagine but it's basically bigger and it's there for them to explore. So
where we are today is that you've got a whole country convinced that I'm a
n***** and they believe it and I don't now the battle is on.The real threat to
the destruction of America today is not Castro's Cuba, or Mao's China, or
Khrushchev's Russia, but sad and simple fact that Americans have
become victims of their own propaganda, their own brainwashing, their
own lies.
00:44:35
So then, if you have to convince yourself that I hold all that cotton in
Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi simply because I loved you, then
you've done something terrible to yourself. You're surely mad. You're
insane." Unquote. I believe that, that folks, when I was going out to lunch
they're crazy, collectively, that's what it means.
00:45:02
They cannot accept reality. In education, incidentally, it is the essence of
what is, not what ought to be. It's the substance of things. That's what's
supposed to be taught and that's a great and any educator out here would
argue, debate that with him, and let him dispute with me that the fact is
education based on what is not what ought to be, not what should be not
ideals but concepts. Ideals can be very dangerous.
00:45:31
So we want to spearhead a revolution in education in this country
beginning with ourselves. We want to educate ourselves. I have to know
myself. Self-knowledge is the beginning of that, understand what I'm all
about and extend my humanity to me to you.
00:45:52
We're gonna do this or die trying, we're gonna form it. The kind of activity
will shake up things so that we can make for creativity and bring about
newness and wholesomeness and a healthy viable human society and
you won't have to write laws and things and stuff like that. All you say,
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 17
what's a human being. He has a beating heart and living affections that's
enough for me. He has all the emotions from the tranquil to the
passionate, hostility, affections, loving you know the whole ball of wax.
That's what we're all about.
00:46:36
So we through the concept, the philosophical concept of black power
which is an extremely perverted word, gonna do that. If you knew history
you would know that this is not a new term. It's been in my vocabulary
since I was a sophomore in college. It was first pronounced at the National
Negro Convention in 1852 by Henry Highland Garnet. A great book work
on that by Richard Wright titled , "Black Power," great book, book 500
pages long. It was written just twenty years ago. They're very interesting.
So we're talking about the philosophical concept of black power, which
states in effect that we are talking about reclaiming our humanity,
self-realization self legitimization.
00:47:20
Stop being ashamed of being black because we realize that it's now
beautiful. It's peculiar and beautiful to our own experience. That's the kind
of black power we're talking about. We're talking about every experience
that we've gone through in this country, as human beings. So we're
making pronouncement to America as Langston Hughes did in the 1920s.
Poet laureate of Afro-American [Inaudibe] who recently died, the cultural
speaking voice of black 0 America during another period in our nation's
history when there was a great deal of cultural activity in America.
00:47:59
Great deal of creativity among black folks, that's the period your parents
know as roaring 20s, we call it the strolling twenties. Very interesting.
Created all that stuff that they celebrated that time in popular American
cultural store and Hughes was, if anybody knows anything about Langston
Hughes, the way he laments, there's always an air of hope of optimism
and whatever he pronounces no matter how sad it may seem on the
surface. There's like granite, feeling of optimism beneath it, and Hughes
said to America at that time, he said, you take on it as only as he could put
it in his inimitable folksy fashion.
00:48:44
So I'm gonna talk like folksy that's, language is a medium of one's culture
it's very important. Whether you say it like they do in New Jersey or in
Mississippi, it's still language. It tells you something about me as a human
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 18
being. I'm not worried about syntax and structure in this kind of stuff. This
is the way we talk that's the way Hughes wrote it.
00:49:00
He said to America:
“You've taken my blues and gone —
You sing 'em on Broadway
And you sing 'em in Hollywood Bowl,
And you mixed 'em up with symphonies
And you fixed 'em
So they don't sound like me.
Yep, you done taken my blues and gone.
You also took my spirituals and gone.
You put me in Macbeth and Carmen Jones
And all kinds of Swing Mikados
And in everything but what's about me —
But someday somebody'll
Stand up and talk about me,
And write about me —
Black and beautiful —
And sing about me,
And put on plays about me!
I reckon it'll be
Me myself!”
00:49:59
Thank you.
00:50:01
[Applause]
Mahmoud El-Kati, “Racism in Education” (transcript), page 19
Show less
May Kamsheh 0:01
Today is December 7 2019, and my name is May Kamsheh. This is for the
Muslims in Minnesota project for Augsburg University. I'm talking to
one of the Muslim citizens in the state of Minnesota. Her name is
Manal Hashw.
Manal Hashw 0:19
Good evening, Manal. How are you today?... Show more
May Kamsheh 0:01
Today is December 7 2019, and my name is May Kamsheh. This is for the
Muslims in Minnesota project for Augsburg University. I'm talking to
one of the Muslim citizens in the state of Minnesota. Her name is
Manal Hashw.
Manal Hashw 0:19
Good evening, Manal. How are you today?
Good evening, May. I'm good. Thank you.
May Kamsheh 0:25
Would you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you.
Manal Hashw 0:30
My name is Manal Hashw. I am a..um..my background is an Egyptian
originally, and I have three kids. Married for 29 years. And I live in
Eden Prairie Minnesota.
May Kamsheh 0:53
Okay, when and where were you born in what town did you grow up in?
Manal Hashw 0:58
I was born in Egypt. And I grew up in Egypt, went to college. And I
came to United States like 1990.
May Kamsheh 1:10
You went to college in Egypt?
Manal Hashw
Yes.
1:12
May Kamsheh 1:14
What college was it?
Manal Hashw 1:16
I went to the engineering school. And I graduated 1989.
May Kamsheh 1:24
Oh, nice. So you came after you graduated college?
Manal Hashw 1:28
Yeah, I met my husband and we came together.
May Kamsheh 1:33
So you got married and then came?
Manal Hashw
Yeah.
1:36
May Kamsheh 1:36
Nice. Um, so before you came here, what was your childhood like in
Egypt?
Manal Hashw 1:43
Egypt it was good. We were like middle class family. My dad died when
I was like 11 and my mom raised me and my brother and sisters. I
finished my college degree and that was decent and good childhood.
May Kamsheh 2:10
That's good. Did you have any like early memories you remember from
it?
Manal Hashw 2:16
Yeah, I have memories about because I was from Alexandria, Egypt and
Alexandria is on the Mediterranean. And all my memories is about the
beach and walking in a beach and you know, and I go with my friends
swim and all these memories still was me.
May Kamsheh 2:41
That's fun. So, who are your parents? Or what were your parents like?
Manal Hashw 2:49
My, as I said, my dad died when I was 11. He was a major in the army
in Egypt and he died when I was 11. My mom was a school teacher and
then school principal and they were like working middle class.
May Kamsheh 3:16
Okay. So do you have any brothers or sisters?
Manal Hashw 3:20
I have one brother and two sisters.
May Kamsheh 3:26
What what were they like?
Manal Hashw 3:31
My two sisters still living back in Egypt now. My brother lives here
in Minnesota. They're very good. I'm the oldest..
May Kamsheh 3:41
Okay, so they're younger?
Manal Hashw 3:43
..they are younger than me and we are connecting, you know, I always
visit my brother here in Minnesota. I go to Egypt once in a while to
see my sisters, come back. So we're good.
May Kamsheh 4:00
That's good. So you said you graduated in Egypt and your career path
was engineering? So when you came here did you work in that field
still?
Manal Hashw 4:12
Yes. When I came here, I, I took some classes in computer science
besides my engineering degree, and I worked as a software engineer for
like three years. And then I my kids, you know, my third, my third
daughter came and it becomes very hard to work with three kids in this
field. So I decided to stay home and you know take care of the kids.
May Kamsheh 4:51
So that you go to like the University of Minnesota?
Manal Hashw
For what?
4:54
May Kamsheh 4:55
For the classes.
Manal Hashw 4:56
No, I went to a Technical College.
May Kamsheh
Oh okay.
4:58
Manal Hashw 4:58
For the for the software classes, I just needed to add some more
information to what I have and know about the system. So and, you
know, learn English very well as I can. And after this I was hired at
Gelco Information Network. It's a company in Eden Prairie, and I
worked there for like, three or maybe four years. Yeah.
May Kamsheh 5:32
Did you like it there?
Manal Hashw 5:34
Yeah, I did. I like it so much. But as a programmer, it's, you know,
you can't keep track of time. And when you have three kids, it's
impossible to you know, to manage both. So I just decided to stay home
andtake care of the kids.
May Kamsheh 5:56
Did you get have your kids here in Minnesota?
Manal Hashw 5:59
Oh, yeah. They're all born here in Minnesota.
May Kamsheh 6:09
So how was that when you first came here? Did you first you came to
Minnesota was the only state you've lived in?
Manal Hashw 6:16
Yes, yes. However I visited everywhere in United States. But yeah,
when I came I came here. First I didn't know how much cold [laughs] my
husband didn't give me an idea about how much cold is it. So I came in
September. So September was okay and that's going to be cold as
September but October, November, snow start to come Decemeber and I
said, Oh my gosh, what I put myself into? [laughs] Because the weather
there in Alexandria, Egypt is like San Diego, California Yeah, it's
like, hot and you know, nice and, and we never wear jackets or boots
or hats or and I started to learn you know how to deal with the
weather, you know?
May Kamsheh 7:16
So you got used to it?
Manal Hashw 7:18
No [laughs] I'm still working on it! [laughs more]
May Kamsheh 7:24
Same! So when you came here did you know a lot of English or did you
learn more here?
Manal Hashw 7:33
I learned more here because in Egypt we didn't we didn't have a lot of
you know we know English but as like the British way.
May Kamsheh
Oh yeah..
7:44
Manal Hashw 7:45
So it was a problem in the beginning with the English and also we
didn't have enough so I was in the beginning like afraid to talk to
anybody like listening and understanding I don't want to speak because
I don't want people to make fun of me. But it came by the time in, you
know?
May Kamsheh 8:07
Yeah, that's good.
Manal Hashw 8:08
I am still learning. [laughs]
May Kamsheh 8:10
So your college was in English in you classes in Egypt?
Manal Hashw
Half half.
8:15
May Kamsheh
8:16
Oh okay.
Manal Hashw 8:16
So and also is still the scientific terms, you know, and it's totally
different than the conversation. And it's different than when you have
somebody say a joke, and you don't understand what's behind this joke
or what, what does that mean or so it took time because it's not just
the language it's the culture too. You know?
May Kamsheh 8:39
Okay, yeah. So into the next set of questions, how was being a Muslim
in Minnesota when you first came when you first came here like?
Manal Hashw 8:52
It didn't really matter at all because I didn't feel any different you
know? We came here people were nice we're good, you know? I asked
about if there is a mosque here in Minnesota and I knew that that
Islamic Center in Fridley so you we were going there and events and
see people and sometimes pray but actually we never have a problem you
know as Muslims here.
May Kamsheh 9:27
Was the community small when you came here at first?
Manal Hashw 9:32
Yeah actually it's it's yeah expanded now. It was small. We have like
some friends around I didn't know everybody but I was busy with the
kids and work and but I I think it was smaller then we're talking
about 29 years ago. It's a long time.
May Kamsheh 9:55
Yeah. Okay, so You said you had kids, how many kids you have again?
Manal Hashw 10:03
I have three kids. And I got my first in 1991, then my second 1993,
and my third is 1997.
May Kamsheh 10:19
Do your kids live here?
Manal Hashw 10:21
Yeah. My first son. Yeah. He's he's married now. And he lives in
Plymouth. And my second son, he graduated from the U of M engineering
school. Yeah. And my daughter she graduated from the engineering
school U of M too. And they both working. So, and my oldest graduate
from Carson, not Carson. St. Thomas University. Yeah, with a business
degree and he works at Medtronic.
May Kamsheh 11:01
So they are all engineers?
Manal Hashw 11:03
No, two engineers and one business.
May Kamsheh
Oh, okay.
11:05
Manal Hashw
Yeah.
11:05
May Kamsheh 11:08
That's nice.
Manal Hashw 11:09
Yeah. [laughs] I'm glad I was able to, you know, direct them
May Kamsheh
Yeah.
11:16
Manal Hashw 11:16
And lead them to, to achieve their goals.
May Kamsheh 11:20
Was your husband engineer too?
Manal Hashw 11:21
Yeah, he is. He's a manager at Medtronic. And he's a mechanical
engineer.
May Kamsheh 11:31
Okay, so how is handling a job and kids like? You said it was hard?
Manal Hashw 11:37
It was very hard for me because I, I wanted to because I have the
Egyptian culture. And I'm here in US and I wanted to get the two good
things from what I can say that I wanted to get the best from the two
cultures.
May Kamsheh
Yeah.
11:59
Manal Hashw 12:00
So to do that you have to guide your kids and you have to be around
and watch them and talk to them and follow school and and to do that
with three kids it's it's hard when you work full time. So I you know,
I after like four years I quit and I decided to stay home for a few
years until they grow up and then I go back.
May Kamsheh 12:29
Did you go back to engineering?
Manal Hashw 12:32
No, it ends up i when i was raising the kid they were very young. I
wanted them to learn the language and religion. So I decided to and
the Islamic Center was in Fridley, we live in Eden Prairie, it's far
away. And I don't want to drive on every day there and so I am was
thinking why we don't have a small Sunday school or charter school or
anything here in Eden Prairie. So here when I started the Sunday
school
May Kamsheh 13:15
Okay, that follows me into my next question is; When did you start the
opening of the Sunday school, Al-Manar?
Manal Hashw 13:22
I am, it was very easy. [laughs] We weren't we weren't really looking
for a school. I was just wanted to have my kids learn language, the
Arabic language and the culture, the culture. And I was talking to my
friends, and they said just start the project and we'll support you.
So I went to the Eden Prairie district, and I talked to them about
what I want to do and if they can give me a space to rent, and have
the kids come every Sunday to learn language and culture um and they
agree to do that and I they given me the CMS school, Central Middle
School in Eden Prairie, to use for three hours every Sunday. And when
I got the permission, I started to recruit teachers and assistants and
you know, and then we build the school and we have, we had like around
200 students in this school, learning language culture. We had also
like 15 teachers. So I started I became busy with the school and I
forgot about engineering so [laughs] and I schools started in 2001 and
stayed for 12 years. I've been the principal of this school for 12
years. And it was a volunteer work. I was just working with teachers,
ordering books, helping kids, to create curriculum to help them learn.
And we worked for 12 years at the school.
May Kamsheh 15:34
So were there any challenges that you faced running the school? Like
not enough kids like signed up or you didn't have?
Manal Hashw 15:45
No, actually when we started we had a lot of people come to enroll
their kids in the school, because it was the only one in the South
West. And everybody Well, want to have, you know, the school close to
their house. So we have a lot of people come and sign up and the
challenge was sometimes, you know, to satisfy everybody and there is
different ideas and different agendas and but we I tried from the
beginning to use the school only for education and have the kids come
to learn. I didn't want to make it as a community center or a place
for people to come and sit and do activities, no, it just was just a
school and that's what I wanted and so the challenge is how to
convince parents you know, that this place only for school. And um but
I was able to do that from the beginning, and it's, it was a very
successful project.
May Kamsheh 17:06
Was it kids from all ages?
Manal Hashw 17:08
Yes. All Ages, and we had also adult classes too. And we had many
nationalities, Americans, Indians, Europeans, they all wanted to learn
the Arabic language, and the culture and some of about the religion
history so we will be doing that all ages.
May Kamsheh 17:37
Nice. So did you teach a class as well?
Manal Hashw 17:41
I did. Yeah. In the beginning, I was teaching because we were in a
process to try to find the right teachers took time to do that. So I
was teaching myself and then when we found enough teachers, I was only
doing the principal job and work mostly in managing, recruiting, doing
activities for the kids, plays on the stage, and music sometimes,
order the books you know? Principal work.
May Kamsheh 18:20
Did you like being a principal?
Manal Hashw 18:22
Yes, I, I think my engineering background helped me a lot to work on
this because having a project like this and interact with people, you
have to be organized, you have to put priorities, you have to have
your brain set a certain way to deal with everybody. And yeah, I it
was it was fun.
May Kamsheh 18:50
That's good. So why did it end up closing?
Manal Hashw 18:53
Because after 12 years, I'm tired. [laughs]. I got you know, I I, my
kids grown, you know, went to college, I was happy about how much they
know about Arabic language and culture and religion. And I wanted to
do something else, another project, you know? Which is I'm doing right
now trying, you know, tutoring kids math and science. I wanted to do
something different. So I asked people, if somebody want to take over
and do what I'm doing, but I guess we couldn't find somebody who put
all the time I was putting and energy. So we end up like we said,
we're gonna take a break. And it's been now three years. It's closed,
and nobody want to go and take the responsibility again.
May Kamsheh 19:53
I'm sure someone will hopefully.
Manal Hashw 19:55
Yeah hopefully. I think what happened now is because there is a lot of
schools right now in the Twin Cities. So people are divided in
different schools. And everybody went to school that close to their
house. So and settled, you know, so so I think we did a good job. And
we're proud of this school and what offered to the community, the
Egyptian and the Arab community, and just give a chance to other
people to shine and do other projects.
May Kamsheh 20:35
So it was overall successful you think?
Manal Hashw 20:38
Yes, it was. You know, I, you know, it's enough for me that this was
the first Sunday school in Minnesota that I created to help the Arab
community you know, with language and so I'm so proud of this project
and from this school, a lot of schools, you know, came and start. So,
yeah, I'm satisfied about working on this school.
May Kamsheh 21:11
Yeah, you should be really proud. That's really cool. You did that.
Manal Hashw
Thank you.
21:15
May Kamsheh 21:16
So you mentioned your other project you're working on?
Manal Hashw 21:20
It wasn't a project, it was because I love teaching. So I was I went
to the district, Eden Prairie school district, and I worked as a
paraprofessional there at the high school. And I was also a study
skills class teacher, because I was hired to teach students how to
study. I believe that if the kids know how to study and how to
organize themselves and how to beat the test they it's it's really
important to give them the this technical, you know, tools to use.
They will be great, you know in math and science. So I worked two
years at Eden Prairie high schools and then program canceled for money
or whatever. So I went back home again and I decided to do private
tutoring.
Okay, what age was that?
The high school school. That was high school. That was, yeah. 18 and
19.
May Kamsheh 22:37
So now you do private tutoring?
Manal Hashw 22:39
I do. It's not like a business but like, my friends if their kids need
help. One of my neighbors need help. So it's just like.
May Kamsheh 22:51
Oh okay, that's nice. So you mentioned the do you go to one specific
mosque here around here is there a mosque close to you?
Manal Hashw 23:07
There is the mosque on Shady Oak Road Masjid..I forgot the name. Um
just we go you know in Eid and I don't go like often. I don't go like
every Friday and no but I go to events when we have our holidays. I go
there. If the community having an event, so yeah, a good one in Eden
Prairie.
May Kamsheh 23:46
Okay. Have you ever faced any difficulties being a Muslim here?
Manal Hashw 23:55
After see after 9/11, we had we were confused and everybody was
confused and we didn't know what happened. So it's it's the we had
some difficulty for people to understand that what happened is has
nothing to do with Islam. And I tried my best to explain to my
neighbors, my friends, my because I have a lot of American friends and
I have my neighbors and I can meet you know, I volunteer in schools. I
work with kids in schools and everything so I have we had to explain
that this people are have you know, they're not they have nothing to
do with Islam. And that was all political all all. whatever they're
doing, violence for, for for an agenda in their head but this is has
nothing to do with the religion itself. And I think by the time people
understand now that you know, a lot of Muslim people here in US are
successful and part of the community that gets born there here, they
become their country. So, but that was the time that we had difficulty
but after this and before, everything is good.
May Kamsheh 25:29
That's good. Have you ever given speeches about Islam to a large crowd
or group of people?
Manal Hashw 25:40
Um no, I didn't speak to a large crowd. However, I spoke to my
neighbors like group of three or four, to explain what Islam is, and
what's Muslim do, what's the difference between the religion of Islam,
Christianity, and Judaism, and so it was usually a group of 2, 3, 4 to
talk to them about Islam, but I never like talk to a big crowd before.
May Kamsheh 26:14
Okay, and these people you talk to were they supportive?
Manal Hashw
26:18
Yeah, because people the problem is some people listen to the media
only or they never read about the history of Islam. They listen to the
media or some they see some videos on YouTube or you know, and create
an idea in their head about Muslims. And some people not, some people
know, you know, they read, they ask questions, they figured out. But I
always you know, have to talk to those people who are confused and
they don't know, you know, who's Muslims? What they're doing here,
especially with having some violence and trouble, sometimes related or
associated with the Muslims or the Islam. So I had to explain to them
that we have like 1 billion Muslims in the world. So if some group of
Muslims are did something bad or have a certain thinking or that
doesn't mean that all Muslims are the same and give them examples and
talk to them but the history it's good for people to know. You know,
so they don't judge you. They don't judge you based on media or bad
information.
May Kamsheh 28:01
Yes, that's good. I agree. So how is being a Muslim in Minnesota now
different than it was when you first got here?
Manal Hashw 28:11
I think the new generation now are more knowledgeable about Islam and
about other religions and about accepting the others. And I think that
the gap that the big difference between when I come there was no
internet, no tools to find information about religions. So people were
confused about it. But now, I think the new generation everybody knows
about Muslims and Muslim history and so I think it's better now.
May Kamsheh 28:56
Okay, so how do you see the future of Islam Minnesota as in will it
keep growing you think?
Manal Hashw 29:04
Yeah, I think the community is getting together, they are more
connected they support each other. If in in their bad time or if
somebody needs help or for kids you know if things happen to the
parents or for any problem in the community, I think Muslims community
now help each other. Yeah, I can see and I noticed that there is a big
community now, it's more than before.
May Kamsheh 29:51
So you see the Muslim community future being expanded?
Manal Hashw 29:56
Yeah, it's expanding now. Because the third generation now is more
open and more connected with the with each other and with the
Americans, and so it's you can't miss it. I mean, it's there and it's
getting bigger.
May Kamsheh
30:22
Okay. Are you happy that you came here to the United States?
Manal Hashw 30:27
Yes, I am. Of course I am happy this is a land of opportunity. And we
came here in and we decided to be part of the country and become
Muslim Americans. And I think we, we did great, we are successful. We
have our kids are successful, they have good jobs. We are part of the
community. We volunteer, we help, we lived here, I think I lived here
more than I lived in my native country. So I'm so happy. I love people
here, I love the culture, I love being part of, of this country.
May Kamsheh 31:19
So it was a good decision overall?
Manal Hashw 31:21
Of course, I am Egyptian American, and I'm American citizen. And I
value my country here and I value Egypt too. And I think it's a good
decision. I'm, I'm happy to take this decision.
May Kamsheh 31:38
Is there anything else you'd like to say as your final words?
Manal Hashw 31:43
No, I'm so happy that there is about this project. I mean, people will
maybe get some idea about Muslim in, in America, and I think you
covered all the points. You did a great job.
May Kamsheh 32:00
Okay, thank you for your time and I really appreciate it.
Manal Hashw 32:04
You're welcome and good luck with your project. And thank you very
much.
May Kamsheh 32:09
Thank you. Hope to see you again soon.
Manal Hashw 32:11
Yep. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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May Kamsheh 0:01
Today is November 10 2019, and my name is May Kamsheh. This is for the
Muslims and Minnesota project for Oxford University. I'm talking to
one of the Muslim senior citizens in the Muslim community in the state
of Minnesota. His name is Dr. Mohammed Fathi Ibrahim Kamsheh.
Go... Show more
May Kamsheh 0:01
Today is November 10 2019, and my name is May Kamsheh. This is for the
Muslims and Minnesota project for Oxford University. I'm talking to
one of the Muslim senior citizens in the Muslim community in the state
of Minnesota. His name is Dr. Mohammed Fathi Ibrahim Kamsheh.
Good afternoon, Doctor, how are you today?
Mohammed 0:24
Good afternoon and fine. Thank you.
May Kamsheh 0:28
Would you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you?
Mohammed 0:33
Yes, of course. My name is Mohammed Fathi Ibrahim Kamsheh. I was born
in the city of Damascus in Syria in 1943. Grew up in Damascus and the
suburb of Damascus. I went to Elementary School in the city of
Damascus, and then to the middle school and then graduated from high
school in 1962. And then attended medical school at the University of
Damascus graduated in the year 1969. After graduation, I attended an
exam at the embassy at the American Embassy in Beirut because our
embassy was closed at that time we were in a state of war with one of
our neighbor country, namely Israel. So because of that, and because
of the The problem with the war the embassy was closed in Damascus.
That was in 1970, the spring of 1970. And then I apply to Postgraduate
School at the state of Minnesota University and came for specialty
training in July of 1970.
May Kamsheh 2:36
So are you the first person in your family to be a doctor?
Mohammed 2:41
Yes, I was the first physician before me was my older brother who
graduated four years before me from dental school. So he was ahead of
me in healthcare and he was practicing dentistry in the suburbs of
Damascus, then I working for a short period of time in the same
suburbs as a physician before coming to United States.
May Kamsheh 3:22
Did your brother come to the United States?
Mohammed 3:25
My brother came as a visitor close to retirement after he finished his
career. Before he retire, he came to visit me on a few different
occasions with my parents.
May Kamsheh 3:43
What were your parents like?
Mohammed 3:46
My dad was a very hard working man. He was a business man. And we come
from middle income families and my mother was a homemaker. Because of
the my unfortunate father's education was not completed because he
needed to work and earned the living. He was very concerned about our
future and he always encouraging us to achieve and advance in school.
May Kamsheh 4:29
Did you have any how many other siblings did you have?
Mohammed 4:32
I have four other brothers, two older than me and two younger than me.
I have two other sisters.
May Kamsheh 4:42
Are your sisters also younger?
Mohammed 4:45
I have two older sisters and one older one younger.
May Kamsheh 4:50
Okay. Are they still in Syria?
Mohammed 4:54
No, my older sister has passed on in Egypt after the war erupted in
Syria and Damascus, specifically in the suburbs, they were forced to
go to Egypt as a refugee. So she passed on two years ago. In Egypt, my
younger sister still live in Damascus with her husband and children
and grandchildren.
May Kamsheh 5:31
And your brothers?
Mohammed 5:33
My older brothers died seven years ago [short pause] to heart attack.
The other older brother died also [short pause], two years later. My
younger brother died with intracranial bleed. I'm sorry to say that as
a sad story, but we left with only one brother who lives now in Egypt.
So all other brothers and older sister have gone. [interupts May] Same
as my parents. Yeah.
May Kamsheh 6:16
I'm sorry to hear that. So when you came to Minnesota, were you
married?
Mohammed 6:25
Yeah. I got married just a year before graduation and we have our son,
who was born in December of 1969. When we came here, he was little bit
over seven months old, and we arrived in July of 1970. To attend. The
first hospital I attended was St. Luke's Hospital which is United
Hospital now and a year later, I started my specialty and postgraduate
training at Region Hospital used to be St. Paul Ramsey Hospital four
years and training after one year of internship. And then after I
passed my board, I worked as a obstetrician and gynecologist in the
Twin Cities with Group Health and then Health Partner for 35 years and
I have been retired now for almost 10 years.
May Kamsheh 7:42
And you enjoyed your job?
Mohammed 7:44
Very much so. I have a thank god very productive life. And I have four
children. The oldest, the one who came with us who, almost 50 years
old now he has four children. And he worked in pharmaceutical [short
pause] company [cough]. Ah the other ah children, I have a teacher who
is married and have two children. And then another very nice girl who
got married. And she lived in the suburbs of Chicago. And the younger
daughter, she decided to go into medicine and she has a degree in
neurology and subspecialty and sleep disorder. So she is neurologist
and sleep disorder specialist.
May Kamsheh 8:52
That's cool. So when you came to Minnesota, where did you did you live
in the city or in the suburbs?
Mohammed 9:01
Initially, I lived cross the street from St. Luke's Hospital, which is
United now in St. Paul. And then I lived in St. Paul for four more
years. After that, after I finished training, we move to the suburbs
of Minneapolis to Edine mainly because of the school system. And all
my children graduated from Edina High School.
May Kamsheh 9:33
Okay, so now going into how how was being a Muslim in Minnesota like
when you first came here?
Mohammed 9:43
Initially when we came here, the number of Muslims were very small,
basically some students who form Muslim Student Association. We used
to meet them at the Coffman Union at a University and there are a few
professors teaching at the University. So we used to use to gather in
the Coffman Union for Juma prayer between 1972-1973-74 and then we
were fortunate enough to have a small house on campus who converted to
a prayer place for Juma. After that 1979 we grew out of this place to
a town of Columbia height, where we're able to purchase a church
converted into a mosque in Columbia Heights and that place still now
functioning as a Muslim Muslim Worship place or Masjid. And then after
that we were able to purchase a school in Fridley. And we were able to
establish the first Islamic center of Minnesota and that school, and
we used to have a Sunday school and few years later, we were able to
establish a full time school teacher regular curriculum in addition to
Islamic history and Islamic study. And from there on, the population
grew up very much after the migration, and the refugee of the Somali
brothers and sisters. And we were fortunate to see them coming with
the knowledge of the Quran. Initially, they were 40 of them "hafez alQuran" (arabic), they were memorizing the Quran by heart and they were
able to establish many Masajid (mosques) to teach Quran and Islam and
Islam study. And later on shortly before I retired, two of our leaders
in the state of Minnesota were able to establish a small Islamic
school and it was called Islamic school [stutters] lslamic University
of Minnesota. They were teaching the Islamic Studies and they were
able to to graduate few students initially, and then the number grew
up to the point that they were very well attended. And many
organization came to the Twin Cities including MASS and and their
leaders were very active in promoting Islam and going on to present
slam to high school and to churches and they were very much active in
introduce Islam, the true Islam, to the communities in the Twin Cities
and Minnesota at large. And thank God To have some organization like
this, to let the people know that Islam is not what the media
sometimes project and not what the some people who claim that they are
Muslim with their bad behavior calling themselves Muslim, but they are
not projecting any of the Islamic manners and behavior.
May Kamsheh 14:30
So were you part of the organization that started the school and other
mosques around here?
Mohammed 14:37
I was fortunate to be able to teach on Sunday school, some of the
students in Columbia Hights and then at the school in Fridley. And I
was fortunate to continue teaching Islam and Quran and Islamic studies
for almost 30 years. During my career, mainly Saturday and Sunday, and
I was trying to do my best in addition to my practice in medicine, to
be helpful to other organization that they just trying to establish
themself in different Islamic centers and Masajids it in the Twin
Cities.
May Kamsheh 15:26
So how was it working, being a teacher and handling your life all here
all like?
Mohammed 15:34
Was very exciting. I was very happy to be able to practice my
profession efficiently and able to introduce my kids to Islam and take
them to Quranic studies every Friday night and to Sunday school, every
weekend, Saturday and Sunday. So it was it was very exciting and
productive life. I was fortunate.
May Kamsheh 16:01
That's good. So how old were the kids that you taught?
Mohammed 16:07
We taught kids from grade school to middle school to high school. Some
of the children who were in grade school, they are very productive
citizens now, in the Twin Cities and in the nation, some of them are
doctors and lawyers and engineers, and they were very good member of
the society.
May Kamsheh 16:38
Okay, so back to your childhood, have you so you memorize the Quran?
Mohammed 16:46
Well I memorize some of the small Suras in the Quran as growing up as
part of our teaching, but I wasn't able to memorize the whole course
until I retired, after I retired, I attended the Islamic University of
Minnesota and I was able to complete my study in Islamic Studies and
able to earn a master's degree. And after that I attended the faculty
at the Islamic University and thought some of the students there for a
few years.
May Kamsheh 17:29
Okay, so what was that like?
Mohammed 17:34
[Laughs] It was a very a very interesting, very challenging and thank
God for our leaders and their children. They were very helpful to help
us accomplish our mission. We were able to communicate well with other
leaders. leadership of other religions in the Twin Cities. I was
invited a few years ago to St. Thomas University to attend dialogue.
And between the Christian, the Jewish community, and the Muslims, and
this can discuss different aspect of subjects and was very interesting
and very enlightened by other communities leaders. And in addition to
that, you know, we presented Islam and throughout the years because
every time there is a conflict in the Middle East, we were invited to
different churches and different community to give a little bit
information about what's happening. Why The fighting is going on
between the Sunni and Shia, why the problem and the Middle East been
not stable for a number of years. We like to go back to basics go back
to the true Islam that our Muslim communities should present the true
spirit of the Quran and the true spirit of the tradition of life of
Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam which was based basically
on peace and justice and tranquility, not a war and terror and
terrorism has been projected by some people who know or know very
little levels of Islam or know nothing about Islam because of their
background.
May Kamsheh 20:04
Yeah, I agree. So after you did that, when did you become Imam?
Mohammed
20:13
[Laughs] It is interesting. I don't call myself Imam. I call myself a
student of Islam, a student of Quran. And I am shy to call myself a
man because I don't really feel that I have the quality and the
qualification to be Imam. Imam should be behaving and acting just like
what the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam did. So up until
now I consider myself the student of Quran and Islam and I still
attend sessions in studying the Quran and studying the tradition of
Mohammed sallallahu alaihi wasallam and studying the history of Islam
occasionally I'd been filling as Imam in some of the Masajids that we
don't have Imam in it yet and I deliver sometimes Juma prayer in
different Masajids in the Twin Cities.
May Kamsheh 21:29
Okay what's what's that like? You do that every Friday?
Mohammed 21:34
Yeah, we do that you know on the Friday congregational prayers, at
Duhr time which is noon time and it is very refreshing to see people
coming to the Masajid and every once in a while we see some of the new
Muslims come to declare Islam after a number of years of searching
about the true God and true religion, and they come from all facts of
life, to declare Islam and we hope that we will continue to help them
reach their goal, and then their new venture of life.
May Kamsheh 22:29
So have you been like a witness or helped someone convert in the
mosque to Islam?
Mohammed 22:36
I like to think so. I attended some of these ceremonies and I
participate in some of them. And I hope that God will help me to
continue to do that.
May Kamsheh 22:50
Okay. Have you have you ever written a book?
Mohammed 22:57
Yeah, I..As a part of my postgraduate study in the Islamic University,
my thesis was the practice of medicine in the light of Islamic
religion. So I was able to write my thesis and then I made it as a
bookwith the title, The Practice of Islam in the Light of ahh "The
Practice of Medicine in the Light of Islam", and it is about 200 pages
booklet and unfortunately, was in Arabic all in Arabic and I wasn't
able to translate it yet but hopefully time will come to translated
into English.
May Kamsheh 23:58
Okay, do you still do like sell that, sell the books to anyone or?
Mohammed
24:02
No, the book is is basically given to the Masajid to be distributed to
the people who are interested in knowing a little bit about medicine
and Islam and the books the book is free and was given to the Masajid
as a free some of the Masajid presented the book as for donation so
they can have the book with for little nominal donation to the Masjid.
May Kamsheh 24:40
Okay, nice. So how do you see the future of Islam in Minnesota?
Mohammed 24:55
I like to see the future of Islam in Minnesota to grow by doing more
of interfaith meeting with our Christians brothers and our cousins in
the Jewish community. I like to see us living in harmony and living in
peace, because all these sections of faith, believe in the same God
and like to live in peace and the raised children in peace and raise
their children as a Muslim as Christian as a Jewish with the value of
Christianity and Jewish and Islamic tradition. In addition to the
interfaith dialogue, I like to see more of our Muslim involved in the
Muslim community itself to branch out and reach out to the Christian
and Jewish population so they know Islam better and build the bridges
of communication so they will be able to achieve their goals in life.
May Kamsheh 26:33
How do you think that will be accomplished?
Mohammed 26:37
By basically knowing each other more the the more ignorance get into
our communities and not able to communicate well the worse it will get
and the more we communicate with each other and know each others will
be able to reach very productive, peaceful solution because we are all
in it together, we are all want to raise our family and live in peace
and harmony and be able to worship comfortably and freely. And we hope
that God Almighty will be with us all.
May Kamsheh 27:31
So looking back at when you first came to the United States, how how
is it different now? The Muslim community and your life in general.
Mohammed 27:42
It is obviously much better because we are in a bigger number. However
the big number is not doesn't really amount too much. I like with the
numbers increasing to have the awareness increase and the value
increase and the high moral conduct to be the one that we are after.
So, in the Twin Cities, we grew up from small numbers that you can
count them between 50 to 100 to almost 250,000 of member of the Muslim
communities in the state of Minnesota. And from one small house as
prayer place now to a 40 place to worship 40 Masjid in the Twin
Cities. The number has to be associated with production of moral and
production of good behavior and production of A good citizen of the
state and the United States.
May Kamsheh 29:05
So how do you see the Muslim community future in Minnesota?
Mohammed 29:11
I'm hoping that the Muslim community as they raise their children have
been holding tight on their principles and not to melt in the in the
general society without identity. I like the Muslim to hold on their
identity as the Muslims behave as a Muslim, to study the Quran and
study the tradition and the life of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam. I like the children growing up in a Muslim community
to be close to their religion because what I know from the Quran and
Islam and the the life of the Prophet Mohammed much more than my
children and they know more than their children. So I like to have
this awareness and this knowledge to be transmitted from us to the
children and from their to their children and to generation to come,
because we have a very rich religion in faith, in moral, and in good
behavior.
May Kamsheh 30:37
So do you expect it to keep growing over the years?
Mohammed 30:41
Why I sure hope so. I like to see Muslim communities get together,
unify their heart and mind and I like them to continue to communicate
with other part of the communities in this state and the United
States.
May Kamsheh 31:07
Dr. Mohammed, is there anything else you'd like to say as your final
words?
Mohammed 31:14
I like to thank you very much for the opportunity that you have given
me to speak about myself, and my community and my religion. And I hope
that God will help me to be a better person and to help my children to
learn and know Islam and Quran, and they do their job to teach their
children to know more about Islam and the men and the life of the
Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
May Kamsheh 31:54
Thank you for your time, Dr. Mohammed. I really appreciate it.
Mohammed 31:58
Thank you very much. Hope to see you again.
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