History Speaks EP 12 | Islamophobia, Zohran Mamdani, & US Muslims | Roshan Iqbal with Elliot Bazzano

[00:00:10] Speaker A: Salaam. And hi everyone, I'm Rosh Nikbal and you're listening to History Speaks. Today we are talking about Islamophobia, Zoran Mamdani, and what it all means for Muslims in the United States. My guest is Dr. Elliot Bazzano, Associate professor of Religious Studies at Lemoyne College. He teaches about Islam, comparative religion, and loves exploring how identity and learning shape each other. He's also co editor of Varieties of American Sufism and a fan of Sufi wisdom, plus coffee, which he swears is related. Most of all, he's inspired by his two daughters who keep him wondering about the universe. Elliot, I think the audience would love sort of to hear why you sort of got interested in Islamic studies, if you don't mind sharing a little bit about your journey with us. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Sure. As I, I grow older each day. I hit the big four two a few months ago. And so I continue to remain interested in Islamic studies, which is good for my professional interests, is that it's, it's never a boring topic. I got interested in undergrad and I took a world religions class and it was just kind of like mind blowing and stuff that I didn't learn about in high school. So I figured I would major in religious studies until I found something lucrative or more useful to do. But it turned out that things worked out well and I had lots of support and lots of really amazing professors and friends. And so I was able to get a graduate degree and traveled the world. I lived in Syria and Egypt, I studied Arabic in Yemen and Morocco and lived all around the United States, where of course, we met in the, in the boondocks in La Crosse, Wisconsin at a Persian language immersion camp. And so my own journey in Islamic studies has been very liberal artsy, where, you know, language and art and politics and friends and heated debates and awkward moments and, you know, all the things that I think any fulfilling career might elicit. And so, yeah, so it's been cool to know you, Rashan, over the years and to see each other at conferences and to follow each other's academic paths. And our discussion today about Zoharan Mandani, I think is a really interesting reflection on where we are politically. And sometimes I ask my students rhetorically, but also seriously, do you think, could a Muslim become President of the United States? And sometimes students will be like, well, yeah, there's no law that says they can't. But then maybe they dig a little bit deeper and then it's like, well, it's not just about whether it's legal. It's about the likelihood. And then that leads to conversations about Islamophobia and anti Muslim rhetoric and violence and all these things that contribute to what types of political leaders people might desire or tolerate in a country like the United States with a racist and colonial past. But hopefully, these are all good reasons to learn about religion in college and on podcasts. And there's. There's a lot to unpack by thinking about this political moment. So I'm excited to talk to you about the, hopefully, first Muslim mayor of New York City. [00:04:09] Speaker A: Absolutely. Inshallah. Yeah. I mean, when I sort of approached you, this is what I was thinking. That even though our expertise is not in the political, in political science or in contemporary, like, Muslim lives, but we teach a broad spectrum of things in our classroom. And I felt like Zoran Mamdani's case would be an amazing sort of case study to introduce students to several sort of ideas. And one of them being the idea of Islamophobia. What does it mean? The other being something that's an idea that's close to my heart, which is I hate to have people think that, you know, heroes are made in some vacuum, that there are no influences that help bring someone to their own greatness, that there is family and there is social structures and there are other people who have modeled that kind of behavior. So in thinking about Zoran Mamdani, I was thinking we would talk about his parents and we would also talk about other political figures right now in the U.S. but these two sort of were main ideas in my head. And so let me just then kind of go to a question that I've been thinking that maybe comes up in your classes. Do you have a definition for Islamophobia that you use in your classes for your students? [00:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's. Sorry. Like a lot of us, I think my definition of that term has evolved over the years and because, like, a phobia, you're, like, scared of something. So I feel like Islamophobia, the way it's embodied, strikes me more as, like, vitriol and like, malevolence more than, like, I'm phobia. Like, ooh, being I'm up, I'm claustrophobic, or I'm up high, that's making me nervous and it's giving me, like, than jitters. So I think. I think it's something much more sinister than what we might often think of as a phobia. But, like, a lot of words, a lot of loaded words, and I'll add terrorism in the mix because it's It's a word that's so loaded that it's not going to go away anytime soon. But is it actually a helpful word? And so, yeah, I struggle with how to use Islamophobia because it's part of our parlance. People have some idea of what it means. But I guess at the very least it can be a useful inroad to thinking about the problems and unpacking it and reflecting on the limitations of vocabulary and why it's important to have conversations about things instead of just throwing around buzzwords. So when I talk about the word Islamophobia, it's often in a very long winded way like that, where it's complicated. It depends. Let's try and unpack what people mean by it and the different sorts of definitions that it can have. And one thing I like to tell students about complicated words is it's not that there's no answer, it's that there's a lot of answers. [00:07:35] Speaker A: I'm somewhere like, you know, you started out with Islamophobia is kind of a misnomer. And so I tell my students it is a misnomer because like, a phobia is something that if you learn some more about a thing that you have a phobia about, maybe it would go away. So it's a misnomer in that sense. But what it really is, it's racism. And then like, we have to think about, like, what is racism? Racism is this idea where people are dehumanized because either for their skin color or their ethnicity or, you know, and then we have to ask ourselves the next question, like, why are people dehumanized? And like, I try to tell them it's to justify treating some people unfairly and to keeping power in the hands of a few. And then how does this happen? I tell my students, you don't kind of realize it, but racism is being beamed directly into your brain. And the US and the west in particular, and Hollywood is an expert at creating images and stories that shape how we see others. And these are not like innocuous images. They serve very powerful interests. So the way I have felt it as a Muslim practicing Muslim in the world and knowing other practicing Muslims, especially Muslim men, Islamophobia is really a kind of psychological warfare. It harms the people targeted, but it also hurts all of us by poisoning how we think and relate to each other. It's more like I tell my students, it's like a fish that doesn't know that it is swimming in water and that Water is so invisible to the fish. Because. Because this is what, like, how the media has created and shaped the way we experience our world. Which kind of brings me to sort of wanting to talk about the Islamophobia that Zoran Mamdani in particular experienced. So some of the statements that are coming to mind is how, like, people said, a good Muslim is a Muslim. That is a dead Muslim who. Or this other sort of tweet or I think someone left a message on his machine that said, wash my feet, you brown boy. Wash my white feet, you brown boy. And so many, like, you know, he got threats on his life. And like, every day, it has been insane amount of vitriol and Islamophobia, which I think might be sort of interesting to think and connect to the work of his parents, which is. I mean, I don't know if you sort of talk about Mahmoud Mamdani, Zorat Mamdani's father, and his book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim Ever in class, and how that could help us also understand what's happening with Islamophobia in the current moment. [00:10:42] Speaker B: And when I first learned about Zahra Mamdani and running for mayor, I actually didn't know that he had the. The family history of academics. And so, I mean, I found it a pleasant surprise. But I think sometimes, you know, academics, sometimes for good reasons, get a bad rap for, like, living in a bubble and, you know, being in, like, an ivory tower where they're just, like, talking past each other and can't connect to the real world or whatnot. But so when I did that, that was a book that I was familiar with. And so when I found out that that was his dad, I was like, oh, wow, that's. That's so cool. Here's like, a real life example of, you know, people using academic platforms to, you know, raise their children in meaningful ways so that someone like Zohan Mandani could be the first Muslim mayor of New York City, which is, like, a big deal. And, you know, like academia, like, any number of things, there's ways to be out of touch and ways to be in touch. And hopefully, you know, podcasts, for example, are a way to try and reach broader audiences and try to make our work more relevant. But, yeah, books, if people still read books. I hear. I hear some people. I hear some people still read books. Yeah, but podcasts do. And, you know, people are watching Mamdani's political speeches. So somehow or another, you know, the influences of his family is seeping into him and hopefully getting out into the world. And we can use platforms like this to try and complicate and unpack how knowledge is being disseminated in this moment as well. Squad, I was gonna say, can you. What was your. What was your impression when you. When you made the connection between Zoran Mandani as a political candidate and his family background in terms of their intellectual connections? [00:13:03] Speaker A: I have to say, like you, I was really surprised and then shocked and then pleasantly surprised. And then I was like, y. I mean, all of these things kind of matter. I do talk to my students about the Good Muslim. I don't have them read the book or anything, but I tell them that there is this idea. There's this whole book that's been written on this idea that there is a good Muslim and that there's a bad Muslim and that this book examines, sorry, the US political discourse after 9, 11, which divides Muslim into two categories where, like, quote, unquote, the good Muslim is one who aligns with Western political interests, cultural norms and appearances, and so totally trapped in sort of a Western way of being, while a bad Muslim is who resists assimilation and asserts cultural or political independence. And that. This is kind of really problematic. So even when, like, we talk about diversity, the only people, again, quote, unquote, good Muslims who are accepted are ones who appear and act like Westerners, whereas people who are actually practicing Muslims are not accepted. So our diversity is very sort of paper thin. And this is something that this book sort of examines in detail. So I talked to the students about that. But then, like, when I heard that Mira Nair was his mother, I just. I was like, oh, my God, this is too much, because I actually use Mira Nair's, one of her films in a class that I teach on film fiction and Neo Orientalism. [00:14:49] Speaker B: Could you tell us a little bit about his mother? Russian. I suspect that might not be an obvious name to many of our listeners, but she's obviously had a big impact on her and her son and you. [00:15:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So she is a film director from India, and she started out as an architect and then she went into film. So she studied as a film whatever. Film studies at Harvard, really. But she's born and raised in India, and she basically makes only art films. And her films have won many awards. I forget all the different awards that she's won so far, but the film that I show in my class is called Salaam Bombay. And I show that film. That film is where she kind of focuses her lens on looking at the slums in Bombay and what she ends up showing Is that the slums in Bombay are places where, like, intense community thrives. And these children in the Mumbai, like, slums help each other, are resilient, are creative. And I show this film as a contrast to the film Slumdog Millionaire, which is made by a British director, Bobby Dole, and where, like, he has. He has a completely different treatment of the slums in Bombay. And this film, for those who sort of look at films and criticize them, like, labels this film as poverty porn. That if you watch this film, all you have is like, oh, how terrible is their culture? How poor are these people? And in contrast, how good are we? And it's a very exploitative gaze on, like, the slums. Though I should say that recently Bobby Doyle came out and said that he should have never made that film. That he had no right to go into, like, as a British person, to go into India to make a film about something so particular and so unique to them. Like, what was he even thinking? But again, like, the white gaze was there. And he said, if I had to do such a project again, I would have Indian people do it. Maybe only fund the project, but, you know, you can sort of see both Meera's work and she's done many other interesting things. Films like Mississippi Masala and just one. Sorry, I won't go on for too long. But just one thing about Mississippi, Mississippi Masala, when she was making it, she couldn't find funding. And the reason why she couldn't find funding was because all her characters were brown or black. And people were like, you should have some white characters. How are we? Why would we fund such a film? She's like, well, the waiters are white, so I don't know what to tell you. But she did eventually get funding, and, you know, the film was very well received. So at least these were two really big influences on Duran Mamdani's life. Like, he saw his father's academic career, and I'm sure they had, like, discussions at home and then his mom's, like, artistic career. And I'm sure they had discussions at home on all the types of things that she discovered and thought about, like. [00:18:10] Speaker B: You and our chatting informally before we hit the record button about just the role of art and human life and how much it impacts us and can bring hope, but also sadness. And I guess people can try to live without art, but hopefully we all find art in our own ways, whether it's music or having cool conversations or, you know, watching the sunset. You know, I don't need to define art. For our audience. But I think just the point that you're making is that sometimes we might want to disconnect something, like politics and academia and art. But in Mamdani, we can see these things intersecting in, like, really complex and meaningful ways. And so I'm glad that we're able to connect those dots and try to paint fuller pictures of humans. We're missing that in a lot of political discourse. [00:19:10] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I think, you know, when we were talking before we started recording, I think the specific thing you said about art, and I actually wrote it down, it was like, art goes into the crevices of your soul that otherwise cannot be reached by other like means. And I found that to be so beautiful. And I really think that, you know, maybe Zoran Mamdani's beauty, and I'm going to say beauty in many ways. For example, you always see him smiling. Right. And he has such an energetic, effervescent personality. All of that, like, I think, comes from being exposed to art at very close quarters. But in the same vein, in, like, you know, I want to place his spirit in a larger tapestry, and I like to situate Zohran within the lineage of Muslim political figures in the US I'm thinking of, like, intellectuals and spiritual leaders like Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. Would you like to say something either about Muhammad Ali as a boxer? Not just as a boxer, but as a freedom fighter, and how that connects back to Zoran Mamdani or Malcolm X? And, like, did you kind of think about, like, oh, these were the elders, and then now we are here with this young, like, gorgeous being that is Zoran Mumdani? [00:20:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Me being a fanboy, I'm not hiding that. So I. Me neither. I own my bias about how much I hope he's the next mayor of New York City. I think Muhammad Ali is an interesting case as well, because he's one of the most famous athletes in the United States, certainly. And his name is Muhammad Ali. It's, like, the most Muslim name you could possibly have. But I think just, you know, just to, like, stereotype your average, like, sports fan. I'm not so sure people, like, really understand that he's Muslim or, like, what that means. They know that he has, like, a name. And, like, you know, his name's not, like, John Smith, so he's got, like, a exotic name or something like that. But I don't. I don't think his. His Muslim background and his narrative is necessarily something that sports fans are aware of. And, you know, I'm sure lots have been written on this. I don't, I don't want to go beyond my own sort of observations of expertise, but I think it's telling that you could be a fan of Muhammad Ali and see him as a great athlete and yet have very little awareness of his politics and why he changed his name from Cassius Clay and how, you know, his. His connection to Islam was, you know, a really big part of his personal identity. And then on top of. And then on top of it, I think this is. I can only imagine this caused some challenges behind the scenes, but when his funeral was broadcast on Fox News and it was like a Muslim burial service and like, what a fascinating political moment that that could even happen in, especially in the context of Fox News as being like a bastion of racism in general and anti Muslim racism in particular or all sorts of racism in particular. I don't need to sugarcoat anything about the racism of Fox News, but that Muhammad Ali would still have a platform. I think it gets at some of the complications of how Muslims are dealt with in political discourse and what's said and what's not said and what's covered up and what's broadcast and even the ways that Zohra and Mamdani is being smeared as an anti Semitic person just because he's Muslim, even though according to polls, he's polling better amongst Jewish Americans than any of the other candidates. And so it's like people are so selective in terms of which narratives they want to follow. And the anti Muslim narrative, you know, is a popular one, even if it doesn't hold out according to the polls. But I guess that's. That's why one of the reasons the world is horrible is that education and knowledge doesn't always lead to, you know, more sophisticated views on things. And I think Malcolm X too, even just thinking about, just like high school history class, like, I don't remember talking about Malcolm X that much. And it wasn't until later in life when I started getting interested in Islamic State studies and read parts of his biography and was able to see what a influential figure he was in civil rights and also in Muslim American identity. And so, yeah, I mean, Muhammad Ali and Malcolm Xar definitely fit into this narrative where we can plug in Zahra Al Madani in terms of how people are willing to understand and interested in understanding Muslim political identity. Like, beyond tropes. What do you, what do you. [00:25:00] Speaker A: What. [00:25:00] Speaker B: What do you think? Russian? Do you do either of any of the examples that I mentioned, like, click for you in particular ways? [00:25:08] Speaker A: Are there. [00:25:09] Speaker B: Are There gaps that I left out. You think that would be important to emphasize. [00:25:13] Speaker A: So I was, I was thinking more of India, the case of Muhammad Ali, the example of him refusing to go to Vietnam and he really got punished for it. And I don't remember the figures right now. And he got his title, heavyweight title taken away from him and he was not allowed to play in sports. And I know someone somewhere has written an article where this discussed the financial cost of him standing true to his moral values. And I see that in like Zoran Mamdani, in that he is like pro Palestinian where he could really, really, really be punished for it. But he refuses to like, you know, cater to this idea that just because he's pro Palestinian, he's. That means he's anti Semitic in any sense. And I sort of see that as a mirror image of Muhammad Ali. And then with Malcolm X. I think what was interesting about Malcolm X, especially later on in his life, is he really started to connect the sort of national or micro struggle to the global struggle. And I think again, the, the pro Palestinian stance, the sort of stance of like being a social democrat where like socialism in America is almost like a slur word, right? Like you say that you're already like writing your death certificate or something like that. But Duran Mamdani was like, no, this is who I am. I am like, I will not refuse. I refuse to present myself in any sort of light Muslim sense. I will appear as a Muslim. I will go to the mosque, I will go to the majlis, I will eat with my hands. I will wear my kurta. I will connect like struggles that people are having in New York, like where the need, like the transportation should be free, all families should have free daycare. They should be for food scarcity, we should have government funded supermarkets, all of these things. And it is also connected to justice for Palestine. It isn't. Outside of all these things, we are connected to each other. So I see sort of some aspects of Malcolm X in him and some aspects of Muhammad Ali in him. And it's just sort of fascinating. And again, like I said, it's really important to me to connect Zoran Mamdani to his parents and then also to the elders in the Muslim community that kind of have helped, like, have modeled examples that he can then lean into and be the Surah Mamdani that we all are fan girls and fanboys on. So yeah, that's how I would kind of. And then not to say that, you know, we have like kind of contemporary people in the political sphere. Right now, who are also his compatriots. Is that how you would say it? So, Ilhan Omar, Mehdi Hassan. We were talking about the name. Sorry, I'm like blanking on the names right now. [00:28:18] Speaker B: Rashida Tlaib. [00:28:19] Speaker A: Rashida Tlaib. And what's the other guy who's kind of a comedian but also has a podcast do, who's a political comment. [00:28:29] Speaker B: So many, there's so many up and coming wonderful Muslim comedians. There's Rami Yousef and Mo Amer and Hassan Minhaj. [00:28:40] Speaker A: Yes, Hasan Minhaj is what I was thinking about. Yeah, exactly. All these people who are kind of now giving us in quote unquote academic language, thick description of what it means to be Muslim, that it's complicated, it's nuanced, it isn't, you know, black or white. It has all these layers. And there are ways to sort of understand Muslimness, for lack of a better word, in the US right now and then in the world. [00:29:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think one thing that stands out to me about Zahra Mamdani too, like you were mentioning, is that he's not, he's not tiptoeing around his views. Like when he's asked questions directly, you know, do you think, does Israel have the right to exist? And instead of just like beating around the bush, his response is, I don't think apartheid has the right to exist anywhere, ever. And like, you know, and it's like, it's just such a straightforward thing to say, but the way you can see other like, sleazy politicians just trying to like, tiptoe around that and give these sort of like wishy washy answers. I think what the polling seems to be showing is that, you know, not that we should just judge people by their polling as opposed to like, their actual views, but even the polling, it seems like he's, he's impressing people because of his straightforwardness and not in spite of it. And I, you know, it's in just a world full of such horrible things that really is a breath of fresh air that he's able to have this platform like that. And it's gaining some traction and he's saying things that people are too scared to say and, you know, just more, more, more, more fanboy comments. [00:30:30] Speaker A: I would reiterate that his boldness and his courage cannot be overstated. I mean that, like, it's like what happened to Malcolm X? He was assassinated. Like, you know, like, and how like, sort of Islamophobic and racist the world is and how hard it is for a Muslim to get ahead. And he is taking that chance and he is being, like, true to his. That. I mean, it cannot be overstated the courage it takes and what he has been able to accomplish and what a model he is to young Muslims. Muslims, right? Finally, someone who can be unapologetically Muslim in all the Muslim trappings, which include, like, the way you dress, it includes the way you eat. Like, eating with his hands became a big thing. I don't know if, like, our audience has seen that video of him eating with his hands. And then people saying, like, some person, politician came out and said that, oh, him eating with his hands. And he should know that civilized people don't eat with their hands. And so, you know, like, it's everything. It's everything. If he sits too close to somebody, that's a problem. He sits too far from somebody, that's a problem. So the courage it takes cannot kind of be overstated. And the hit he could take on his career cannot also be overstated. [00:31:59] Speaker B: And I think there's no shortage of microaggressions and bold aggressions that people, you know, say about him. But I think that just in terms of, like, absurdity, like the eating with your hands thing, I was, I was reading, reading something that's like, what, like, have you never eaten a sandwich or, like, French fries? Like, it's not even. It's not even. I guess, you know, some people might get weirded out if you're, like, eating rice with your hands, which is a wonderful way to eat rice naturally, if you've never eaten rice with your hands, you're missing out and you should. But yeah, like, people eat with their hands. So it's like a non issue. But, you know, of course, that's how, you know, these societal sicknesses seep into us is that non issues are somehow made to be sinister and sources of suspicion. Even if it's something as simple or innocuous of like, eating with your hands, which like, people all around the world do constantly. [00:33:10] Speaker A: I mean, it's interesting that you say that, right? As I was driving to work today, I was thinking about this example and literally my mind was like, wanted to think of examples of where, like, we or people in the west eat with hands. But look, like, how defensive I have to get, like, how deep I have to dig to defend the humanity of a Muslim and a person who eats with his hand. It's like, let me look for examples where you eat with your hands. And it was, in its own way, it's so bizarre and kind of crazy. Making that I have to do that, but I guess I have to do that. Even you, on your own, kind of came up with examples where people eat with their hands. They eat sandwiches, they eat French fries, they eat other things with their hands. You're holding a cone of ice cream in your hand, like. But then it also goes to show, like, how facts and perceptions of those facts are two different things, right? And it goes to show that Islamophobia or racism is a real thing and that you can egg people on by telling them this person eats with his hand and needs to go back from to where they came from, unless they want to start eating like we eat. And what is that? What underlies that is that, oh, somehow the things we do are superior to the things you do. And, like, if you can't do things in quote unquote, the civilized way that we do them, which is not eat with our hands, which we do, but we don't, then go back to where you came from. It's insane. [00:34:42] Speaker B: As educators, where do you see the conversation going in terms of, like, some type of improvement or where you see hope? Do you see. Do you see education or college or Mamdani's political career? Are there any, like, rays of light that you see in terms of people growing and becoming less grotesque and maybe moving in a better direction? [00:35:11] Speaker A: So I kind of have schizophrenia about this. Part of me is like, you know, education can make a difference. Like a Muslim, like a cool Muslim guy, by the way, we didn't see talk about him being a rapper. Like, we need to talk about him being a rapper, but we can maybe circle back to that. A cool Muslim guy who is, like, you know, like, all over the streets in New York, who's friendly, who's smiling, who's so, so smart as a whip, right? And who's justice driven, can give an example to others and, like, shatter this image they have of, like, what a Muslim male looks like. But then there's another part of me that is just like, nothing is going to change and it's just going to get worse and worse and I don't know what about what to do about the world. And, you know, I don't know, like, I kind of go back and forth between these two sort of selves that one of whom sees hope and the other one kind of just feels devastated and broken. But I will say, like, okay, let me, like, say something at least positive. Even with the Islamophobic sort of language that is garnered against Muslims, like the word jihad, I recently, like, heard, I Was listening to something on npr, and I heard a friend of mine who's also a colleague of ours, Tahzeem, she sort of used it to say that there are people now who are like, white people, for example, have used the. Appropriated the word jihad to say jihad against landlords. You know, so it's like a little, like, sparkling bubble out there where like, yeah, you use the word jihad and terrorism against, like, Muslims, but now other people can take that word and make it mean something else. And so it will weaken, like, how you use it against them. But what do you, like, what are your. Where are you with. With this? Like, do you feel hopeful? Do you feel. [00:37:09] Speaker B: I'm probably similar to you as I. It's so easy to be cynical, but too much cynicism is going to just make me a less useful citizen in the world. And, you know, I have, like, daughters that I need to take care of and students and, you know, but I think it's like coming back to, like, art is, like, what is art? Art is. It's beauty, it's tragedy, it's loss, it's love, it's a sunset, it's death. And it's like, you know, so I think I see it as a privilege to be able to teach as a profession and draw connections between all sorts of things that students might not otherwise see. And I think that's a. That's. I think that's a useful human skill to have. And it, it takes practice. And I think, you know, if we apply the sorts of things that we learn about in our careers, you know, like writing and film and art and conversations and dad jokes and, like, all of it, I think it can potentially be a platform to try and do something useful. And so I, yeah, I like, I like to think of my career as an academic as it's a form of art and, you know, it's. It's a skill to be developed, and it's going to be full of mistakes. People are going to interpret it differently. But I think, like, being able to have conversations like this and talk with my friends on podcasts and have people come into my classes and guest lecture about all sorts of stuff. The classes that I've been teaching most lately are Islam, sex and gender, and another. Another course, religion, drugs and culture. And so I need to add rock and roll in there at some point. But I literally, I literally get to teach courses about drugs and sex and, like, so I feel like what a, what a lucky, you know, privilege I have that I'm actually getting paid to do. That. And on the whole, you know, these are topics people are interested in. So I feel lucky to be able to connect with people in ways that surprise them. And I teach at a Catholic institution also, so the students get a kick out of that also. And they're like, are you really? Do you get pushback for teaching these courses? So I think having fun is its own way of being subversive, I think, even if it's just a drop in the ocean. But what else can we do? [00:39:57] Speaker A: I mean, I love how you said that teaching is art. And I'm going to think about that, my own teaching as art moving forward. I think that was sort of really beautiful, beautifully put. And of course, I mean, this is a moment for Muslims and maybe everyone who is justice driven for us all to celebrate. But I will also say that we need a lot of ongoing work. And I'll end by saying that I don't think Zoran Mamdani's win is just about politics. It's about identity. It's about hope. It's about the possibilities for us Muslims and beyond. So on that note, a big thank you to you, Dr. Elliott, for sharing your insights with us today, and to all of you for listening and for being part of this conversation. Sam.