The flight that changed my life | Samah Safi Bayazid | TEDxTysons

[Music] [Music] [Applause] let me tell you a personal story last July my life and work partner Muhammad and I decided to go on a vacation for the first time in five years of our marriage because we are workaholics we usually only travel for work fast forward to JFK Airport we were waiting for our flight of Frankfurt there was a white man in his thirties sitting nearby he did not stop staring at me in a suspicious way that scared me I received such uncomfortable stairs before but never like this Mohamed and I boarded the plane and took our seats holding hands with the - wrote prayer asking God to make this trip safe peaceful and joyful I kissed him on the cheek and laid my head on his shoulder ten minutes more to take off it seemed like it's going to be the best vacation ever until to airport security employees came to my seat and asked me respectfully please come with us with all your belongings I was shocked like why me after they already did the random secondary security screening on me so at that point I was really scared they refused Mohamed request to join me and they took me out of the plane worried I followed the security officer and many questions are running through my mind they took me to our room they inspected me and asked me questions and then I was feared we returned to the gate and the same guy who was staring at me stood up got so angry and started shouting in front of everyone there is no way you are going to let her back in are you crazy I told you she is dangerous I hope so confused embarrassed angry the security officer looked at me and said you have one minute to catch this flight so I left without arguing I remember I was walking with the jet bridge with my head down feeling so broken knowing now why I was taken out of the plane I arrived to the plane walked in the eyes trying to reach my seat trying to smile in the faces of all the people who are staring at me hating me for making their flight late always suspicious about me why they took me in the first place finally I reached my seat and sat next to Mohammed he asked me what's the problem dear I answered simply this wearing hijab is a personal choice I make every single day but at that moment I felt very vulnerable and thought maybe I would not make this decision tomorrow I couldn't sleep during that flight I kept thinking about that man why did he hate me maybe he just doesn't know me what happened to me at the airport was an incident of Islamophobia Islamophobia is real it is unfortunately skyrocketing in the United States and it's dangerous some might shout like that man are therefore dead and some might shoot and I'm not exaggerating these are all we're dia you sir and a van they were all one family they were also passionate about volunteering helping their community they were all under the age of 24 years old they were all American citizens and they were all tragically shot and killed execution-style in their house my dear neighbor this is the point when Islamophobia becomes not only a phenomena but an illness we can boldly blame the media and the United States for feeding the stereotypes and painting all Muslims with a broad brush but at the same time we cannot spare berbay and Isis the blame for feeding the media narrative in the past few years and igniting Islamophobia in the West all over again 90% of Isis victims are Muslims all Muslim leaders around the world are against Isis and the latest hit list issued by Isis had many of them slim leaders on it but if turrets are unfortunately succeeding in feeding the hatred between the East and the West Muslims and people from other religions they are succeeding in making the gap wider so because of that building bridges is my ultimate goal I've started to understand they have three different factors that helped me to achieve this goal being a filmmaker it's both a privilege and a responsibility at the same time the ability of reaching out to millions of viewers being a social-media influencer and having hundreds of thousands of followers on my social media platforms and the ability of reaching out to them as well and my mutual understanding of both the east and the west these three factors have helped me to tell different natives to break some stereotypes they helped me in building bridge between people and connecting them especially people from different cultures the incident that happened to me at the airport inspired me to spread awareness through my work as a filmmaker many people have never met a Muslim woman and even if they did many have misconceptions about us and some are even afraid what many people think Muslim women are forced to wear hijab or oppressed other thing Muslim women are ignorant or less educated and the list goes on I've been asked many questions like are you allowed to travel are you allowed to drive a car do you wear this in front of your family and husband do you sleep with the and shower with it as a filmmaker this was my answer let's watch together [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're just like you and they don't think a piece of fabric should create a barrier between us we produced the PSA video with modern ISA and in less than two weeks it reached over 3 million viewers across social media platforms another project that we did for the same purpose just wait for it for the same reference aesthetic awareness was Islamophobia and though Islamophobia is a very serious issue we decided to tackle it with the humor and comedy let's watch this together do you think your neighbour is a terrorist hey does your fear of Muslims get in the way of living a normal life yeah all right I didn't know I didn't know do you judge people by their outer appearance introducing Islamophobic now in an easy and convenient chewing gum starts working within five minutes to relieve bigotry and intolerance all your doctor if your Islamic phobia worsens or you have hallucinations that discrimination isn't real side effects include a fondness Brotherhood acceptance loss of bigotry increase in rationality and possible denouncement of superiority I didn't realize I had a problem but admitting is the first step Islamophobia worked for me ask your doctor is right for you that's why we went for comedy because comedy acts like a wooden sword it hits the point without harming anyone so the gun was reduced by care national and we produced a PSA along with Pizza house and this video got over 10 million viewers on social media platforms many people in the East have never traveled to the west and many people in the West have never traveled to the east so probably they never met each side have P judgments about each other and still types about each other so I'm not only trying to bring more understanding from the east to the west but also the other way around social media is a very powerful tool in connecting people through my social media platforms I shared many stories of amazing people in my life like that NYPD officer I remember his kindness very well when we were filming on set and when he saw me shivering he invited me to warm up in his police car I'm like the story of my amazing friend Yvonne who called me and suggested we go get some water and snipe for the volunteers at Washington Dulles Airport and then she volunteered as a lawyer and when I got tired and went home she stayed there helping people during the night hours these were only two stories out of many stories I have shared in my facebook these two kind people were American and through their kindness I tried to show the world how great the majority of Americans are hoping that this would help people to stop generalizing and to stop believing Co types like all Americans are racist well like all Arabs and Muslims are terrorists I want to show you another personal story that happened to me when I was in Italy I've always wanted to visit Rome and the Vatican City and learn more about history culture and art after I visited Saint Peter Basilica I was walking with my friends when we passed by two priests sitting nearby one of them called me and asked me if I were Muslim I answered him smiling yes thinking that this question was only an introduction for an interfaith conversation but that priest looked at me and spit at me and discussed and said yeah Muslim I was shocked I was expecting him to be more understanding not only as a human being but as a legit spiritual leader I decided to ignore the hate again and I walked away but I didn't hate all priests all Christians and they still loved my Christian friends they still love Jesus and for those who don't know I can't be Muslim without believing in and loving Jesus he wasn't a good priest but obviously I didn't ask anyone to apologize on his behalf because I know it's his individual behavior and his own responsibility you don't have to be an outstanding person to think this way you just need to be rational and to stop believing stereotype and to stop generalizing I have traveled so far to 15 different countries around the world and I'm so blessed I have many friends from all over the globe every single time I travel to a new country every single time I meet a new friend I realize how much more we are similar than we are different so if you believe in this - in our similarity as brothers and sisters in humanity and if you really want to do something you don't have to be a filmmaker or a social-media influencer you don't have to be an expert at interfaith and cultural conversation everyone can do something a cup of coffee with your neighbor from different background of religion or culture can be the first step in building these bridges if that man at the airport who reported me and called me dangerous had a converse with a Muslim woman in his community before my experience might have been different but if we work together building these bridges it would be a much more beautiful story in the future so take the first step take the lead and remember building a bridge takes two thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 756,518

Rating: 4.8431139 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Global Issues, Activism, Cause, Education, Film, Global issues, Immigration, Islam, Race, Reform, Religion, Social Change, Social Interaction

Id: NkQzEWkNrK8

Length: 14min 59sec (899 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 03 2017