Torture on TV

My latest for Our Shared Future. What’s So Threatening About All-American Muslim?. What the show really is is a threat to the FFA. Here is a popular show that anyone can watch at any time, and it shows that Americans are Americans, regardless of their faith. It’s not very scary. The other option that makes the FFA’s case is to believe that hundreds, if not thousands, of people involved in the production of the show for TLC are complicit in a cover-up that millions of Americans who recognize their stories in the episodes are going along with.

My latest at Religion Dispatches. Muslims Helped Legitimize Lowes’ Decision to Pull Ads From All-American Muslim | Religion Dispatches. What many of these criticizers, not critics, fail to realize is that actions have consequences. I would love to see a second season of All-American Muslim (AAM) that comes to Jackson Heights in Queens to do South Asian Muslims, or to Chicago to cover African-American Muslims. So, what these criticizers did is to create a narrative that even Muslims don’t believe that this show represents Muslims. There was no positive or constructive criticism, just complaints that the critics themselves weren’t on…