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Last year,
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three of my family members
were gruesomely murdered
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in a hate crime.
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It goes without saying
that it's really difficult
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for me to be here today,
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but my brother Deah,
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his wife Yusor,
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and her sister Razan
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don't give me much of a choice.
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I'm hopeful that by the end
of this talk you will make a choice,
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and join me in standing up against hate.
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It's December 27, 2014:
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the morning of my brother's wedding day.
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He asks me to come over and comb his hair
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in preparation
for his wedding photo shoot.
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A 23-year-old, six-foot-three basketball,
particularly Steph Curry, fanatic --
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(Laughter)
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An American kid in dental school
ready to take on the world.
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When Deah and Yusor
have their first dance,
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I see the love in his eyes,
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her reciprocated joy,
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and my emotions begin to overwhelm me.
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I move to the back of the hall
and burst into tears.
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And the second the song finishes playing,
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he beelines towards me,
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buries me into his arms
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and rocks me back and forth.
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Even in that moment,
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when everything was so distracting,
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he was attuned to me.
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He cups my face and says,
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"Suzanne,
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I am who I am because of you.
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Thank you for everything.
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I love you."
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About a month later, I'm back home
in North Carolina for a short visit,
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and on the last evening,
I run upstairs to Deah's room,
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eager to find out how he's feeling
being a newly married man.
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With a big boyish smile he says,
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"I'm so happy. I love her.
She's an amazing girl."
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And she is.
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At just 21, she'd recently
been accepted to join Deah
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at UNC dental school.
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She shared his love for basketball,
and at her urging,
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they started their honeymoon off
attending their favorite team of the NBA,
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the LA Lakers.
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I mean, check out that form.
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(Laughter)
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I'll never forget that moment
sitting there with him --
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how free he was in his happiness.
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My littler brother,
a basketball-obsessed kid,
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had become and transformed
into an accomplished young man.
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He was at the top
of his dental school class,
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and alongside Yusor and Razan,
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was involved in local and international
community service projects
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dedicated to the homeless and refugees,
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including a dental relief trip
they were planning
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for Syrian refugees in Turkey.
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Razan, at just 19,
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used her creativity
as an architectural engineering student
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to serve those around her,
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making care packages
for the local homeless,
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among other projects.
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That is who they were.
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Standing there that night,
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I take a deep breath
and look at Deah and tell him,
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"I have never been more proud of you
than I am in this moment."
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He pulls me into his tall frame,
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hugs me goodnight,
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and I leave the next morning
without waking him
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to go back to San Francisco.
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That is the last time I ever hug him.
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Ten days later, I'm on call
at San Francisco General Hospital
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when I receive a barrage of vague
text messages expressing condolences.
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Confused, I call my father,
who calmly intones,
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"There's been a shooting
in Deah's neighborhood in Chapel Hill.
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It's on lock-down. That's all we know."
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I hang up and quickly Google,
"shooting in Chapel Hill."
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One hit comes up.
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Quote:
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"Three people were shot
in the back of the head
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and confirmed dead on the scene."
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Something in me just knows.
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I fling out of my chair and faint
onto the gritty hospital floor,
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wailing.
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I take the first red-eye
out of San Francisco,
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numb and disoriented.
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I walk into my childhood home
and faint into my parents' arms,
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sobbing.
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I then run up to Deah's room
as I did so many times before,
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just looking for him,
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only to find a void
that will never be filled.
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Investigation and autopsy reports
eventually revealed
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the sequence of events.
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Deah had just gotten
off the bus from class,
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Razan was visiting for dinner,
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already at home with Yusor.
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As they began to eat,
they heard a knock on the door.
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When Deah opened it,
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their neighbor proceeded
to fire multiple shots at him.
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According to 911 calls,
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the girls were heard screaming.
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The man turned towards the kitchen
and fired a single shot into Yusor's hip,
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immobilizing her.
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He then approached her from behind,
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pressed the barrel of his gun
against her head,
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and with a single bullet,
lacerated her midbrain.
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He then turned towards Razan,
who was screaming for her life,
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and, execution-style, with a single bullet
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to the back of the head,
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killed her.
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On his way out,
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he shot Deah one last time --
a bullet in the mouth --
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for a total of eight bullets:
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two lodged in the head,
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two in his chest
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and the rest in his extremities.
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Deah, Yusor and Razan were executed
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in a place that was meant
to be safe: their home.
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For months, this man
had been harassing them:
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knocking on their door,
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brandishing his gun
on a couple of occasions.
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His Facebook was cluttered
anti-religion posts.
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Yusor felt particularly threatened by him.
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As she was moving in,
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he told Yusor and her mom
that he didn't like the way they looked.
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In response, Yusor's mom told her
to be kind to her neighbor,
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that as he got to know them,
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he'd see them for who they were.
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I guess we've all become
so numb to the hatred
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that we couldn't have ever imagined
it turning into fatal violence.
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The man who murdered my brother
turned himself in to the police
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shortly after the murders,
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saying he killed three kids,
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execution-style,
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over a parking dispute.
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The police issued a premature
public statement that morning,
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echoing his claims
without bothering to question it
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or further investigate.
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It turns out there was no parking dispute.
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There was no argument.
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No violation.
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But the damage was already done.
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In a 24-hour media cycle,
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the words "parking dispute" had already
become the go-to sound bite.
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I sit on my brother's bed
and remember his words,
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the words he gave me
so freely and with so much love,
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"I am who I am because of you."
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That's what it takes for me
to climb through my crippling grief
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and speak out.
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I cannot let my family's deaths
be diminished to a segment
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that is barely discussed on local news.
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They were murdered by their neighbor
because of their faith,
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because of a piece of cloth
they chose to don on their heads,
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because they were visibly Muslim.
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Some of the rage I felt at the time
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was that if roles were reversed,
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and an Arab, Muslim
or Muslim-appearing person
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had killed three white American
college students execution-style,
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in their home,
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what would we have called it?
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A terrorist attack.
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When white men commit
acts of violence in the US,
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they're lone wolves,
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mentally ill
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or driven by a parking dispute.
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I know that I have to give
my family voice,
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and I do the only thing I know how:
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I send a Facebook message
to everyone I know in media.
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A couple of hours later,
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in the midst of a chaotic house
overflowing with friends and family,
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our neighbor Neil comes over,
sits down next to my parents
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and asks, "What can I do?"
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Neil had over two decades
of experience in journalism,
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but he makes it clear that he's not
there in his capacity as journalist,
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but as a neighbor who wants to help.
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I ask him what he thinks we should do,
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given the bombardment
of local media interview requests.
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He offers to set up a press conference
at a local community center.
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Even now I don't have
the words to thank him.
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"Just tell me when, and I'll have
all the news channels present," he said.
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He did for us what we
could not do for ourselves
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in a moment of devastation.
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I delivered the press statement,
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still wearing scrubs
from the previous night.
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And in under 24 hours from the murders,
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I'm on CNN being interviewed
by Anderson Cooper.
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The following day, major newspapers --
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including the New York Times,
Chicago Tribune --
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published stories about Deah,
Yusor and Razan,
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allowing us to reclaim the narrative
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and call attention the mainstreaming
of anti-Muslim hatred.
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These days,
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it feels like Islamophobia
is a socially acceptable form of bigotry.
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We just have to put up with it and smile.
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The nasty stares,
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the palpable fear when boarding a plane,
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the random pat downs at airports
that happen 99 percent of the time.
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It doesn't stop there.
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We have politicians reaping political
and financial gains off our backs.
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Here in the US,
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we have presidential candidates
like Donald Trump,
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casually calling to register
American Muslims,
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and ban Muslim immigrants and refugees
from entering this country.
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It is no coincidence that hate crimes rise
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in parallel with election cycles.
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Just a couple months ago, Khalid Jabara,
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a Lebanese-American Christian,
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was murdered in Oklahoma
by his neighbor --
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a man who called him a "filthy Arab."
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This man was previously jailed
for a mere 8 months,
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after attempting run over
Khalid's mother with his car.
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Chances are you haven't heard
Khalid's story,
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because it didn't make it
to national news.
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The least we can do is call it what it is:
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a hate crime.
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The least we can do is talk about it,
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because violence and hatred
doesn't just happen in a vacuum.
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Not long after coming back to work,
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I'm the senior on rounds in the hospital,
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when one of my patients
looks over at my colleague,
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gestures around her face
and says, "San Bernardino,"
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referencing a recent terrorist attack.
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Here I am having just lost three
family members to Islamophobia,
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having been a vocal advocate
within my program
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on how to deal with such microaggressions,
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and yet --
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silence.
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I was disheartened.
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Humiliated.
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Days later rounding on the same patient,
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she looks at me and says,
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"Your people are killing
people in Los Angeles."
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I look around expectantly.
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Again:
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silence.
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I realize that yet again,
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I have to speak up for myself.
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I sit on her bed and gently ask her,
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"Have I ever done anything
but treat you with respect and kindness?
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Have I done anything but give
you compassionate care?"
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She looks down and realizes
what she said was wrong,
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and in front of the entire team,
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she apologizes and says,
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"I should know better.
I'm Mexican-American.
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I receive this kind
of treatment all the time."
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Many of us experience
microaggressions on a daily basis.
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Odds are you may have experienced it,
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whether for your race,
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gender,
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sexuality
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or religious beliefs.
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We've all been in situations
where we've witnessed something wrong
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and didn't speak up.
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Maybe we weren't equipped
with the tools to respond in the moment.
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Maybe we weren't even aware
of our own implicit biases.
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We can all agree that bigotry
is unacceptable,
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but when we see it,
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we're silent,
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because it makes us uncomfortable.
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But stepping right into that discomfort
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means you are also stepping
into the ally zone.
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There may be over three million
Muslims in America.
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That's still just one percent
of the total population.
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Martin Luther King once said,
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"In the end,
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we will remember not
the words of our enemies,
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but the silence of our friends."
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So what made my neighbor
Neil's allyship so profound?
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A couple of things.
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He was there as a neighbor who cared,
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but he was also bringing in
his professional expertise and resources
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when the moment called for it.
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Others have done the same.
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Larycia Hawkins drew on her platform
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as the first tenured African-American
professor at Wheaton College
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to wear a hijab in solidarity
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with Muslim women who face
discrimination every day.
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As a result, she lost her job.
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Within a month,
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she joined the faculty
at the University of Virginia,
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where she now works on pluralism,
race, faith and culture.
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Reddit cofounder, Alexis Ohanian,
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demonstrated that not all active
allyship needs to be so serious.
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He stepped up to support
a 15-year-old Muslim girl's mission
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to introduce a hijab emoji.
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(Laughter)
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It's a simple gesture,
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but it has a significant
subconscious impact
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on normalizing and humanizing Muslims,
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including the community
as a part of an "us"
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instead of an "other."
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The editor in chief
of Women's Running magazine
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just put the first hijabi to ever be
on the cover of a US fitness magazine.
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These are all very different examples
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of people who drew upon
their platforms and resources
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in academia, tech and media,
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to actively express their allyship.
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What resources and expertise
do you bring to the table?
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Are you willing to step
into your discomfort
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and speak up when you witness
hateful bigotry?
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Will you be Neil?
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Many neighbors appeared in this story.
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And you, in your respective communities,
all have a Muslim neighbor,
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colleague
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or friend your child plays with at school.
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Reach out to them.
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Let them know you stand
with them in solidarity.
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It may feel really small,
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but I promise you it makes a difference.
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Nothing will ever bring back
Deah, Yusor and Razan.
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But when we raise our collective voices,
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that is when we stop the hate.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)