Don't feel sorry for refugees -- believe in them

I remember when I first found out

I was going to speak at a TED conference.

I ran across the hall
to one of my classrooms

to inform my students.

"Guess what, guys?

I've been asked to give a TED Talk."

The reaction wasn't one I quite expected.

The whole room went silent.

"A TED Talk? You mean, like the one
you made us watch on grit?

Or the one with the scientist that did
this really awesome thing with robots?"

Muhammad asked.

"Yes, just like that."

"But Coach, those people
are really important and smart."

(Laughter)

"I know that."

"But Coach, why are you speaking?
You hate public speaking."

"I do," I admitted,

"But it's important that I speak about us,
that I speak about your journeys,

about my journey.

People need to know."

The students at the all-refugee
school that I founded

decided to end with some
words of encouragement.

"Cool! It better be good, Coach."

(Laughter)

There are 65.3 million people
who have been forcibly displaced

from their homes because
of war or persecution.

The largest number,
11 million, are from Syria.

33,952 people flee their homes daily.

The vast majority remain in refugee camps,

whose conditions cannot be defined
as humane under anyone's definition.

We are participating
in the degradation of humans.

Never have we had numbers this high.

This is the highest number
of refugees since World War II.

Now, let me tell you why this issue
is so important to me.

I am an Arab. I am an immigrant.

I am a Muslim.

I've also spent the last 12 years
of my life working with refugees.

Oh -- and I'm also gay.

It makes me really popular these days.

(Laughter)

But I am the daughter of a refugee.

My grandmother fled Syria in 1964
during the first Assad regime.

She was three months pregnant
when she packed up a suitcase,

piled in her five children
and drove to neighboring Jordan,

not knowing what the future held
for her and her family.

My grandfather decided to stay,
not believing it was that bad.

He followed her a month later,
after his brothers were tortured

and his factory was taken over
by the government.

They rebuilt their lives
starting from scratch

and eventually became independently
wealthy Jordanian citizens.

I was born in Jordan 11 years later.

It was really important to my grandmother
for us to know our history

and our journey.

I was eight years old when she took me
to visit my first refugee camp.

I didn't understand why.

I didn't know why
it was so important to her

for us to go.

I remember walking into the camp
holding her hand,

and her saying, "Go play with the kids,"

while she visited
with the women in the camp.

I didn't want to.

These kids weren't like me.

They were poor. They lived in a camp.

I refused.

She knelt down beside me
and firmly said, "Go.

And don't come back until you've played.

Don't ever think people are beneath you

or that you have nothing
to learn from others."

I reluctantly went.

I never wanted to disappoint
my grandmother.

I returned a few hours later,

having spent some time playing soccer
with the kids in the camp.

We walked out of the camp,

and I was excitedly telling her
what a great time I had

and how fantastic the kids were.

"Haram!" I said in Arabic. "Poor them."

"Haram on us," she said,
using the word's different meaning,

that we were sinning.

"Don't feel sorry for them;
believe in them."

It wasn't until I left my country
of origin for the United States

that I realized the impact of her words.

After my college graduation, I applied for
and was granted political asylum,

based on being a member of a social group.

Some people may not realize this,

but you can still get the death penalty
in some countries for being gay.

I had to give up my Jordanian citizenship.

That was the hardest decision
I've ever had to make,

but I had no other choice.

The point is,

when you find yourself choosing
between home and survival,

the question "Where are you from?"
becomes very loaded.

A Syrian woman who I recently met
at a refugee camp in Greece

articulated it best,

when she recalled the exact moment
she realized she had to flee Aleppo.

"I looked out the window
and there was nothing.

It was all rubble.

There were no stores, no streets,
no schools. Everything was gone.

I had been in my apartment for months,

listening to bombs drop
and watching people die.

But I always thought it would get better,

that no one could force me to leave,

no one could take my home away from me.

And I don't know why it was that morning,
but when I looked outside,

I realized if I didn't leave,
my three young children would die.

And so we left.

We left because we had to,
not because we wanted to.

There was no choice," she said.

It's kind of hard to believe
that you belong

when you don't have a home,

when your country of origin rejects you
because of fear or persecution,

or the city that you grew up in
is completely destroyed.

I didn't feel like I had a home.

I was no longer a Jordanian citizen,

but I wasn't American, either.

I felt a kind of loneliness

that is still hard
to put into words today.

After college, I desperately needed
to find a place to call home.

I bounced around from state to state

and eventually ended up in North Carolina.

Kindhearted people who felt sorry for me

offered to pay rent

or buy me a meal or a suit
for my new interview.

It just made me feel
more isolated and incapable.

It wasn't until I met Miss Sarah,

a Southern Baptist who took me in
at my lowest and gave me a job,

that I started to believe in myself.

Miss Sarah owned a diner
in the mountains of North Carolina.

I assumed, because
of my privileged upbringing

and my Seven Sister education,

that she would ask me
to manage the restaurant.

I was wrong.

I started off washing dishes,

cleaning toilets and working the grill.

I was humbled; I was shown
the value of hard work.

But most importantly,
I felt valued and embraced.

I celebrated Christmas with her family,

and she attempted to observe
Ramadan with me.

I remember being very nervous
about coming out to her --

after all, she was a Southern Baptist.

I sat on the couch next to her

and I said, "Miss Sarah,
you know that I'm gay."

Her response is one
that I will never forget.

"That's fine, honey.
Just don't be a slut."

(Laughter)

(Applause)

I eventually moved to Atlanta,
still trying to find my home.

My journey took a strange turn
three years later,

after I met a group of refugee kids
playing soccer outside.

I'd made a wrong turn
into this apartment complex,

and I saw these kids
outside playing soccer.

They were playing barefoot
with a raggedy soccer ball

and rocks set up as goals.

I watched them for about an hour,

and after that I was smiling.

The boys reminded me of home.

They reminded me of the way
I grew up playing soccer

in the streets of Jordan,
with my brothers and cousins.

I eventually joined their game.

They were a little skeptical
about letting me join it,

because according to them,
girls don't know how to play.

But obviously I did.

I asked them if they had
ever played on a team.

They said they hadn't,
but that they would love to.

I gradually won them over,
and we formed our first team.

This group of kids would give me
a crash course in refugees, poverty

and humanity.

Three brothers from Afghanistan --
Roohullah, Noorullah and Zabiullah --

played a major role in that.

I showed up late to practice one day
to find the field completely deserted.

I was really worried.

My team loved to practice.

It wasn't like them to miss practice.

I got out of my car, and two kids
ran out from behind a dumpster,

waving their hands frantically.

"Coach, Rooh got beat up. He got jumped.

There was blood everywhere."

"What do you mean?
What do you mean he got beat up?"

"These bad kids came
and beat him up, Coach.

Everybody left. They were all scared."

We hopped into my car
and drove over to Rooh's apartment.

I knocked on the door, and Noor opened it.

"Where's Rooh? I need
to talk to him, see if he's OK."

"He's in his room, Coach.
He's refusing to come out."

I knocked on the door.

"Rooh, come on out. I need to talk to you.

I need to see if you're OK
or if we need to go to the hospital."

He came out.

He had a big gash on his head,
a split lip,

and he was physically shaken.

I was looking at him,

and I asked the boys
to call for their mom,

because I needed to go
to the hospital with him.

They called for their mom.

She came out.

I had my back turned to her,
and she started screaming in Farsi.

The boys fell to the ground laughing.

I was very confused,

because there was nothing
funny about this.

They explained to me that she said,

"You told me your coach
was a Muslim and a woman."

From behind, I didn't appear
to be either to her.

(Laughter)

"I am Muslim," I said, turning to her.

"Ašhadu ʾan lā ʾilāha ʾilla (A)llāh,"

reciting the Muslim declaration of faith.

Confused,

and perhaps maybe a little bit reassured,

she realized that yes,

I, this American-acting,
shorts-wearing, non-veiled woman,

was indeed a Muslim.

Their family had fled the Taliban.

Hundreds of people in their village

were murdered.

Their father was taken in by the Taliban,

only to return a few months later,
a shell of the man he once was.

The family escaped to Pakistan,

and the two older boys,
age eight and 10 at the time,

wove rugs for 10 hours a day
to provide for their family.

They were so excited when they found out
that they had been approved

to resettle in the United States,

making them the lucky 0.1 percent
who get to do that.

They had hit the jackpot.

Their story is not unique.

Every refugee family I have worked with
has had some version of this.

I work with kids

who have seen their mothers raped,
their fathers' fingers sliced off.

One kid saw a bullet
put in his grandmother's head,

because she refused to let the rebels
take him to be a child soldier.

Their journeys are haunting.

But what I get to see every day
is hope, resilience, determination,

a love of life

and appreciation for being able
to rebuild their lives.

I was at the boys' apartment one night,

when the mom came home
after cleaning 18 hotel rooms in one day.

She sat down, and Noor rubbed her feet,

saying that he was going to take care
of her once he graduated.

She smiled from exhaustion.

"God is good. Life is good.
We are lucky to be here."

In the last two years, we have seen
an escalating anti-refugee sentiment.

It's global.

The numbers continue to grow
because we do nothing to prevent it

and nothing to stop it.

The issue shouldn't be stopping refugees
from coming into our countries.

The issue should be
not forcing them to leave their own.

(Applause)

Sorry.

(Applause)

How much more suffering,

how much more suffering must we take?

How many more people need to be
forced out of their homes

before we say, "Enough!"?

A hundred million?

Not only do we shame,
blame and reject them

for atrocities that they had
absolutely nothing to do with,

we re-traumatize them,

when we're supposed to be welcoming
them into our countries.

We strip them of their dignity
and treat them like criminals.

I had a student in my office
a couple of weeks ago.

She's originally from Iraq.

She broke down crying.

"Why do they hate us?"

"Who hates you?"

"Everyone; everyone hates us
because we are refugees,

because we are Muslim."

In the past, I was able
to reassure my students

that the majority of the world
does not hate refugees.

But this time I couldn't.

I couldn't explain to her why someone
tried to rip off her mother's hijab

when they were grocery shopping,

or why a player on an opposing
team called her a terrorist

and told her to go back
where she came from.

I couldn't reassure her

that her father's ultimate life sacrifice

by serving in the United States
military as an interpreter

would make her more valued
as an American citizen.

We take in so few refugees worldwide.

We resettle less than 0.1 percent.

That 0.1 percent benefits us
more than them.

It dumbfounds me how the word "refugee"
is considered something to be dirty,

something to be ashamed of.

They have nothing to be ashamed of.

We have seen advances
in every aspect of our lives --

except our humanity.

There are 65.3 million people
who have been forced out of their homes

because of war --

the largest number in history.

We are the ones who should be ashamed.

Thank you.

(Applause)