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2719 - Firing Teachers For Speech; How White Feminism Harms Muslim Women w/ Shahed Ezaydi

August 27, 20260 comments♥ 0
00:00 You are listening to a free version of the Majority Report. Support this show at join the Majority Report.com and get an extra hour of content daily. Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Thursday, August 27, 2006. I'm Matthew Leck in for Emma Vigland, who would be in for Sam Cedar. And this is the five-time award-winning majority report. Broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Emma talked with Shahid Zadie, award-winning freelance writer, former editor at Bustle UK, and former staff writer at Silas magazine, about her book, The Othered Woman, How White Feminism Harms Muslim Women.
00:56 Also on the program today, hundreds and hundreds missing in Apoculip. scenes in Nepal as a collapsing glacier causes a landslide, avalanche, tidal wave, flood that swept down a valley. A Navy sailor, and also, who was also a 19-year-old and a father of a 3-year-old, who had jumped overboard on the USS Lincoln in an apparent suicide attempt, is to be charged with malingering. in other 19th century headlines Measles in malingering Yeah Other military news
01:39 West Point climate professor sues after being fired For teaching climate scientists More on that actually in the first segment here Amoronic Trade War with Canada continues U.S. faces surging toilet paper prices And an alcohol boycott The Trump Mail ballot order
01:57 advances despite chaos warnings and new legal challenges filed. This while the DHS admits that it, surprise, inflated, get this, inflated non-Zotor, non-citizen voter role numbers. The DHS is lying? The Department of Homeland Security doing lies? What, from zero to 11 million? Man.
02:22 Post officials warn that the Trump mail ballot plan will cause a 20 to 30% error rate. Is that bad for? Election? Main GOP nominee calls for ICE agents at polling places in unearthed audio. He's got a friend named Tom Homan, he says. The State Department designates pro-Palestinian
02:44 groups as terrorist organizations following the lead on a group like Palestine action that was set by the UK Court's Justice. Zuckerberg's Medis settles with 47 states for $17.1 billion over child social media addiction. A judge sides with Texas blocking Minnesota's extradition of an ice agent.
03:06 An Israel funded think tank, Israel has funded a think tank to manipulate AI chatbots with pro-Israel propaganda, basically creating a think tank that they could have AI language models used as a source. Student visas dropped 23% in 2025 under Trump immigration crackdown, and finally a state grand jury founded DeSantis administration misappropriated taxpayer, money when it diverted $10 million from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation in order to fund political activities. All that and more on today's Majority Report. It's another Max left with Matlack.
03:48 Majority Report, Emma's out at a wedding. Sam will have a pre-tape, I believe with Digby tomorrow. That's right. So look forward to that. And Emma will have the interview today. I do want to do a little bit of free speech moment here. First, and I didn't print out a sound sheet
04:07 so you can help me with the details of this Beverly Hills teacher here. But a Beverly Hills teacher has been fired for, I mean truth, I think, is that the James Daymore Google guy, what he said, like, you know, women can't work here. That was his truth. But maybe I don't mean to
04:26 mischaracterize that. but I think I got it right. Anyway, here is a Beverly Hills teacher talking about how her speech was suppressed by a administrator. It was an amazing 30 years, and I enjoyed almost every moment of it. Joni Garrett spent 30 years in the classroom, 15 of those years at Beverly Hills Unified. In November of 2024, she was at Beverly Hills High School as a substitute teacher, helping students prepare for the AP U.S. history exam. That's when things took a turn.
05:00 Certainly one of the most traumatic experiences of my life because I looked at my home at Beverly Hills Unified School District as my home away from home and you know where I had spent so many, you know, years and had so many wonderful memories. And now I'm persona non grata. It happened after this pro-Trump rally on campus the day after the 2024 presidential election. Students in Maga gear cheered and waved Trump signs. But Joni says some took it too far, harassing other students. This was extremely. intimidating to students of color and students who did not agree with them. And several of those students went to Jone Garrett's classroom and they confided in her, some teary-eyed. The next day, Joni took to her personal Facebook page. She accused those pro-Trump students of harassing their classmates and using racial slurs, blaming President Trump for the behavior. Six days later, an email from the district. It said posts, which appear to be from your personal account, have come to my attention.
05:59 please plan to meet with me tomorrow to discuss. Mr. Corvath told her, look, we don't want you here anymore. She goes, am I fired? Yeah, we don't want you coming back. Now nearly two years later, she's suing the district, arguing it punished her for expressing her political views on her own time and her own Facebook page. Garrett is now seeking unspecified damages and arguing the district violated both state labor law and her First Amendment rights. Her lawsuit even points to the district's own policy, which says in employees' personal political beliefs or activities cannot be grounds for discipline as long as they don't violate the law.
06:35 Free speech still exists in the United States of America. Freedom of speech is important and people should be able to express their opinions without fear of retaliation. Yeah, so this has long been something that I've maintained is that, well, frankly, I went to public school in North Dakota. It's turned out that a lot of my favorite professors also tend to be the ones that will say like my Instagram post to this day about Alex Prattie. And they have to, what do the kids say, hide their power levels? Because this sort of thing happens. This is really the suppression that goes on in this country. And there's a story here in the New York Times at the U.S. Military Academy, so not just in just in...
07:26 California schools here. West Point Climate Professor says he was fired for refusing to defy science. Dr. Adam Kalkstein is suing in the U.S. Military Academy, where he was a professor of geography and the only climate scientist. After being fired. After 17 years of teaching at West Point, Dr. Adam Kalkstein says he was suddenly ordered last year to cut from his curriculum information about the human causes of climate change,
07:53 according to a new lawsuit filed against the U.S. Military Academy. immoral and potentially illegal, Coxstein says. He told Brigadier General Shane R. Reeves, who at the time was Dean of West Point. Instead of upholding army values, Dr. Coxing said he felt like a liar and a fraud. General Reeves stormed out of the room. I do like that detail. Stormed out of the room when Coxstein declined a suggestion that he resign, according to a lawsuit. Six months later, the tenured professor was told his contract would not be renewed. filed in the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit accuses West Point of breaking the law by violating Dr. Coxon's First Amendment rights by forbidding him from teaching about human-driven climate change in order that required him to omit a massive fundamental essential component of the court and to defy science, according to the suit. Spokes him for the Pentagon West Point and the White House did not return request for comment.
08:48 These details are fascinating to me. Michael Sussman, the lawyer of Coxstein, says his client is a conservative Republican. who believes the military needs to be taught the true causes of climate change when it comes to national security. In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegesat, Dr. Kalkstein said, understand the causes of global warming was important not for social justice reasons, but for things like competing with the Russians in the Arctic and knowing why sea ice was melting. He's loyal to the cadets in the academy. Mr. Sussman said about the professor and to his perspective, edicts that he can't say what's true in a classroom is beyond his tolerance and totally
09:24 counterproductive. So yeah, we can't really be honest about why there might be more attention paid to the North Pole because it's all open sea now because we melted everything. This is, and I just think the detail of how both the administrator in this Beverly Hills case and this dean here at West Point, this Trump moment, we all think about it as Trump, but there are all these conservatives in all these institutions that have been waiting for this moment and they haven't been able to win based on their arguments because climate change is real and manmade, you idiots.
10:06 You're never going to win that without a big daddy and like, you know, those little deputy like Pete Hagsath coming through, they could have never won those arguments. And likewise, you see across newsrooms that have taken years to call a genocide a genocide. Congrats, or not congrats, commendations to New York Magazine,
10:29 editorial board for making their stance clear about that. But the truth is that all these news organizations, they have plenty of people. New York Times has plenty of people that knew that what's going on in Gaza would amount to genocide. They read the same scholars. In fact, sometimes they published op-eds by people that have the credibility on that.
10:50 They know that. There are people at the top, though, that want to enforce different understandings of the world, that are more open to domination by the most powerful forces in the entire planet. And they are using this moment everywhere, whether it's at a local school or whether it's in the National Institute of Health or the CDC or any bureaucracy, any bureaucracy, any, any, Even any corporation. This is the moment where conservatives get to punch their kid, get to be the kid, the bully at the schoolyard, who knows that their dad will step in case anyone punches back. But people do need to start punching back about this stuff.
11:39 And I hope those lawsuits are successful. We have no ads today, which is a big relief to me. But I would say regarding the climate change thing, I would direct people to Abby Martin's documentary Earths, greatest enemy. We interviewed her about that that she did with Mike Prysner, talking about the U.S. military being the world's largest polluter. Yes, a very good call. And actually, you mentioned Mike Prysner. He is cited in this article. I don't know if you saw on the pack today about the record number of folks saying, hey, I don't think I want to be in the military anymore.
12:10 It doesn't seem like we're doing, it doesn't seem like I'm helping the world. And that's sort of the idea that my teenage ass thought I'd be doing when I signed up for it. And instead I'm bombing the school in Iran. So there was record numbers. So Pete Hex he's touting these record recruitant numbers. There's also record numbers of, I'm forgetting the term for it, you would
12:33 know. Where you don't re-enlist? Or where you want to conscientiously object. Oh, conscious objecting. Yep. But yeah, and we can turn the tide back on all this stuff because the truth is, like, they can't win without this sort of
12:49 stupid force of you're fired because you blamed the president for the hate rally caused by him trying to take over the 2020 election. Do you know how demoralized this country has to be about the military? With the economy this bad, with college, this inaccessible. No future. Yeah. Like the complete poverty draft is, I mean, the poverty draft is failing now.
13:12 Yeah. And the time where everything is failing and everybody's suffering. That's actually even mentioned in the Shane Gillis thing that we'll talk about in the the fun half thing. where they're like talking about health care and they're like, but you know, like that's how we get people into the military. Sick. It's a pretty sick system we have set up.
13:31 And see, not sustainable to maybe try to appeal to some of the more corporately minded folks out there. But let's now get to this interview with Shahed Adi on the othered woman, how white feminism harms a Muslim. Go to a break briefly first. And then, yeah, we'll see you on the other side, folks. We are back and we are joined. now by Shahed-Ey, award-winning freelance writer, former editor at Bustle, UK, and staff writer at Stylist magazine, author of The Othered Woman, How White Feminism Harms Muslim Women. Shahhead, thanks so much for coming on the show today. Thank you so much for having me.
14:16 Of course. Can you define white feminism for our audience? Because it's not just about, you know, white women, right? It also intersects with liberal feminism and feminism under capitalism. How do you define it in your book? Yeah, so white feminism is this concept of a kind of a default womanhood that is concerned with the issues primarily of white middle class heterosexual women. And it focuses on them achieving equality for the specific group of women and, yeah, achieving equality for them and, you know, opening up the door for themselves and kind of telling other women, you know, if we open up the door for us, we can pull the ladder up later without ever actually pulling up the ladder up later for other women. So yeah, and it's connected to kind of this idea of capitalist feminism and carceral feminism and liberal feminism. But I wanted to include the term white in the title because I think it's important to name the problem of kind of the structure of white power and white privilege in Western society and how that connects to this idea of white womanhood as the default and how white feminism is concerned with protecting its own power structures, even if it's out the compromise of kind of supporting other marginalized women either in Western societies or in the global South. So, yeah, I thought I really wanted to kind of name that. And, you know, I was looking at reading other books and other kind of journal articles and academic articles who also kind of used white feminism.
15:36 I thought was, yeah, important to kind of, I guess, name the problem that we're dealing with. And what are the structures that white feminism protects? You mentioned them a little bit there. But I think what's in, it's when analyzing white feminism through a critical lens, it's also about analyzing Western imperialism through. critical lens. And that's super relevant when we're talking about Muslim women being excluded from white feminism. No, absolutely. It's why in the book there's a chapter on kind of global conflicts, because I think it's important to look at how white feminism isn't just harming, kind of on the individual or local level that's being used at the highest level, at the global
16:18 level, to either justify or, you know, excuse global conflicts. I use the example of Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. There's an author that nicknamed, not a nickname, but called Afghanistan the first feminist war because there was a lot of feminist organizations in America that kind of propelled how the US government managed to kind of get the US public on side and make Afghanistan and Iraq as well seem, I guess, more moralistic or palatable wars
16:44 when you concern them with women's rights and, oh, you know, those women over there, look at how they're dressed or look at the lives that they're living, we need to go and save them. Whereas, actually, you know, that isn't the case. You know, Western nations that want to go into other countries aren't always concerned with, you know, human rights or moralistic values.
17:01 It's more about kind of imperialism and expansion of foreign powers and material extraction. So, yeah, I think it's so important to think about white feminism at that really big global level because it isn't just about, you know, exclusion at the local level,
17:12 which is just as important, but also when it comes to kind of, yeah, war and conflict and those really, you know, the macro and the micro. What then is white feminism's relationship to Muslim women? I think the imperialism piece is important, but we're seeing these arguments deployed, even with Iran in the Iran war
17:33 right now and the U.S.'s involvement there about saving the people of Iran from the Islamist regime that runs Iran, but, you know, dropping bombs on girls' schools, not necessarily, I would say, a feminist action. No, and that's exactly it. It's using the rhetoric of white feminism to kind of you know, go into other nations or, you know, expand imperialist powers. But without actually, you know, you're saying that you're saving Muslim women. And that's such a big stereotype for white feminism is this idea that Muslim women are seen as so different and kind of, you know, the idea of them being like the big sister to their little sister and how, you know, Muslim is seen as kind of backwards and submissive and kind of inherently
18:19 unliberated compared to kind of Western women who are seen as, you know, liberated and living lives that we could never live because of our faith. So then, yeah, you've got the example of, you know, Iran and how that is also kind of playing on that stereotype of like we need to go in and save these women who need saving from this Islamist regime without ever thinking about the nuance or context of that
18:41 and also the fact that there are Iranian women on the ground who are fighting back against the Islamist regime and they are fighting back against so they've been doing it for centuries and decades but their voices and their agency get takeaway get taken away from the conversation because it's just seen as this type, this trope and this idea of, oh, the West needs to save, you know, the global South from this kind of violent religion that is Islam. It presents the white colonial powers as essentially liberators, as saviors, and that fits really nicely into an effort to sell a public on the goodness of an imperial war, essentially. Like there's, this is actually quite old when you look at colonial propaganda. Can you
19:30 talk about how these tropes have been used historically? Yeah, absolutely. One of the, as a couple, so I use an example of Algeria in the 1950s under the French colonial rule and the French in Algeria as a way to, I guess, enact colonial force onto the Algeria population. They did unveiling ceremonies and it became a ceremonial act of getting Muslim women onto, you know, either a stage or in public in front of an audience and kind of, you know, the act of removing the veil became the act
20:03 of kind of, you know, became this concept of freedom and liberation, which, you know, was hypocritical to the sense that this was, you know, the French colonial rule was saying that we are unveiling your Muslim women. So that becomes an act of freedom. But, you know, no women or men
20:19 were free under, you know, the French colonial rule. Same in Egypt in the late 1880s, when they were under the British colonial rule, and there was a man who was a British consul at the time called Lord Cromer, and he was famously like really anti-women misogynistic in the UK. When it came to Egypt, he used this kind of white feminist rhetoric of, oh, well, you know, you, you know, Islam and Egypt is, you know, demonising Muslim women, you're not letting them do X, Y and Z. So he
20:51 kind of pushed that propaganda and that rhetoric without actually being supportive of women because back home he was voting against a suffragette movement. So there's the idea of taking this white feminist rhetoric and making it work for, you know, the colonial powers and force or, you know, now with imperialist powers, making it work for you to make you look, I guess, like softer or more palatable or more moral. Because I think when it comes to like, say, you know, quote unquote saving women and children, like you said, it's a really easy sell to the public. And it also absolves white men because it portrays Muslim men as uniquely anti-feminist and violent in their treatment of women. Yeah.
21:33 And that's why I wanted to do a chapter on Muslim men and the stereotypes that exist around them. Because, yeah, the patriarchy that, you know, we all live under a patriarchy. But I guess the patriarchy that exists in Muslim communities is seen as kind of unique or exceptional. And the Muslim men in our communities are seen as inherently violent, you know, predators. And we're seeing it now in Europe. with kind of the migrant crisis and how the term migrant and Muslim has become quite interchangeable.
21:59 And so, you know, there's far right groups in the UK who are calling, you know, the small boats crisis. They're saying that, you know, Islam is being kind of forced onto the country and they're, you know, using Muslim men as kind of the examples of, oh, they're predators or they're rapists and they're bringing violence to the country. Whereas actually, I would say that the misogyny are Muslim men,
22:18 because I'm not saying that we don't have it in our communities, we absolutely do. but I don't think it's any different to the misogyny of other men and other communities. I think sometimes Muslim men use Islamic language or they co-opt policy in our faith to kind of further their misogyny. But at the heart of it, I think it is still that patriarchal violence and that misogyny that exists in all communities. Can you then expand a little bit more on some of the stereotypes that you lay out in your chapter on the efforts to to paint Muslim male misogyny as unique. Like, what are the tropes that are deployed to further that myth?
23:01 So the main one, I would say, is this trope of the terrorist or the predator. We see that obviously in kind of news and in kind of fictional media. You know, there's plenty of shows that kind of deploy this again and again. So that's the main one. But there is another one where it's this idea of kind of feminizing Muslim men and kind of removing, you know, desexualizing them, completely as an effort to dehumanize them further. I think in the Iraq War, they also kind of did the, you know, the U.S. and the Western allies
23:29 kind of did this, where they kind of feminized men in a way where it was, yeah, completely dehumanizing. So it's kind of two extremes. It's either they were completely ultra-violent or they were kind of feminized and dehumanized in that kind of way. What do you mean by that? I'm curious. It's, yeah, I think it's this idea that they're not real men.
23:51 so kind of looking at it from that kind of perspective. So yeah, this idea of, yeah, so you've got one side which is like the terrorist, the predator, which is kind of, you know, ultra-violent. And then the other side, which is, yeah, they are not seen as kind of, you know, quote-unquote real men. So then they are not treated, I guess, as a person. And so their humanity is kind of taken away.
24:13 But I think the more common one that we're seeing, I say in the last kind of decade, especially since 9-11, is this idea of the Muslim man as the terrorist. and the predator. Right. The feminizing one is more, it's almost like the orientalizing also making them into Muslim men
24:31 into kind of mystical beings as opposed to just men like every other man. Exactly. And it's this idea of they're not, yeah, I think both stereotypes, what they do is they don't just kind of just see them as like any other kind of man. They have to be seen as kind of, yeah, like exceptional in either two different ways. right um and i will say that like when you speak about this these are also many valid complaints about how black men are portrayed in our media whether it's you you have to be kind of um
25:09 providing entertainment clownish which is not how i would describe it but like in the most extreme examples um and they're sometimes feminizing there there have been criticisms of the impulse to for for sometimes black men to portray women and and how white comedy spaces did that. But also most perniciously, of course, is the violence, the protect your white woman from black men. I mean, this was used all across the country, obviously, most acutely in the Jim Crow South and in the even post-Gim Crow South as well. White women are under threat from this brown man or this black man.
25:51 And I think we're seeing this, I mean, not to say that the, that trip, you know, we're still seeing that with black men, but I think that kind of framework is now being applied to Muslim men as well. Palestinians most acutely right now, absolutely. Including in, you know, reporting about sexual violence, where we now have some very, there was very shoddy reporting by the New York Times screams without words that many holes have been poked into about like the proliferation of. sexual violence on October 7th, but the impulse to portray Palestinians as rapists is also a part of that propaganda effort. Absolutely. And we're still seeing it time and time again, even though, like you said, things have been proven, there's been fact, you know, people have found facts, you know, there's been human rights organizations that've said otherwise. But because these stereotypes are so powerful and I don't know, I guess, like, there's the idea of like click-page
26:46 journalism as well. There's people as, you know, media organizations are still running with them. It's so saddening to see that a few years on, well, not a few years on, but a few years on from October 7th were still seeing Palestinian men spoken about in this way and also not afforded any sort of victimhood either. As, you know, they're seen as, you know, complete terrorists and not seen as the kind of victims of a genocide, even though that is exactly what they are. Yes, exactly. Can you speak about then also how the fall. right plays into this and their politics because, you know, white feminism is deployed by Cheryl Sandberg and corporate white liberals and, you know, in a, in a work context, I would say. But it's also increasingly, like many liberal arguments, being absorbed into the right-wing ecosystem.
27:45 And the far right, they're essentially neo-Nazis, pretend or use. Muslim women as a tool to pretend like they care about them or to justify violence really against Muslim men because they're using women as an object for that purpose. Describe how that's being done, particularly within the far right in Europe where I think it's the most acute. Yeah, absolutely. So I think what the kind of tenants or the arguments of white feminism have been either with intent or without intent, which I guess doesn't really matter, but the far right, I've taken that and they've co-opted that kind of rhetoric to this idea of like saving women and girls, which is a big kind of phrase that we're seeing in the UK and Europe, especially in the UK, where we are seeing a rise of the far right with reform and Nigel Farage and also in Europe as well. And yeah, they take this idea of saving women and girls and also this idea of Muslim women need saving, like you said, to target Muslim men because for them, Islam is seen as kind of the biggest enemy. It's also that it's I think the easiest enemy to sell to people,
28:53 especially, I guess, in the West, because we are seen as so inherently different to Western life or British values, and so it's something that the far right have, I guess, picked up on in the last a few decades, but especially recently and have really run with it. And, you know, in Britain, the reform,
29:09 a lot of their policies do revolve around Islamophobia, around racism, they, you know, immigration as well. So, yeah, they, white feminism is really fed into that, even though, like you said, doesn't really, they don't really make sense. You know, white feminists is supposed to be seen this liberal argument and the far right, you know, like you said, is neo-Nazism as at this point and fascism.
29:30 But I think the far right have taken those arguments from white feminism and maybe even incorporated some white feminists into their ranks. And I think it's an easy way for them to defend themselves against misogyny, first and foremost. But also, it's easy for them to attract more people into their ranks, I think, and people to vote for them. because they can say that they support women's rights, but a very particular set of women's rights, which is kind of the white feminist kind of women's rights, which is we will protect, you know, you and your community and protect your position of power in society, and we will give you X, Y, and Z. And for some people, that works for them, and that's what they want. And so that's how their feminism works in kind of the Western imagination. And I imagine it's probably the same for America as well. Well, it also feeds into a narcissism that is inherent in this trope, which is the white savior complex, where you can support really odious, natalist, racist policies.
30:29 And yet, here's this prop of a Muslim woman that you're supposedly saving. And your racism is justified because this is the person you're saving from all of the other members of this faith or in this country. country that are repressing them. Exactly. It's also fascinating for me, like, you're saving Muslim women from something, but then they never really talked about what they're saving them to, because that part of the process isn't really that important. So you're, you know, they can, you know, far right can say, we want to save Muslim women.
31:02 And so, for example, say you've saved them, but where are you saving them too? And so that part never really gets talked about because that's not important to them. They just want to do the talking about like, oh, you know, life in the global South or in Muslim countries is violent, it's oppressive, look how their women are treated, they're not allowed to work, and they're not allowed to be in education, all these stereotypes that we've heard time and time again. But we do, you know, they don't really want to, they don't want to do anything about Muslim women in the West. They just want to focus on the stereotypes that exist. Well, in fact, they want them to not come to. Well, they want us to go back. Yeah, go back and
31:36 definitely don't immigrate here. Like, this also plays into kind of, I think, we have, fascist immigration policies here in the United States under Donald Trump, but that's more applied to those on our southern border, of course. But in Europe, you have a proximity to the Middle East that we do not. And so the anti-immigration nativism takes on an Islamophobic flavor that is even more pronounced than the United States. And we're pretty damn Islamophobic here. Yeah. I also think there is this idea of, like we were saying earlier about imperialism, You know, we have a lot of, you know, like you said, we have a lot of migrants coming from either the Middle East or from the global south, escaping, you know, God knows what, escaping war, violence, wanted to find a better life. And there's all these kind of far right groups complaining about, you know, oh, these migrants are coming over, whatever their complaints are, without ever really saying, like, what are they escaping from? Like, was it, you know, what was the context of their country? And, you know, a lot of the nations that we're seeing migration from had some sort of Western influence or Western, you know, power enacted onto it either in this century or the last century. But I think the Europe and
32:49 Britain are very good at kind of erasing the kind of their own role in that history. And we only kind of focus on the present without thinking about the historical context of migration as well. I wanted to ask you about how you look at whiteness as a portrayal of innocence, right? So the white savior mentality and the white feminism also allows for you to for there to be, for history to begin then, to your point, like we don't have to have context. This simplifies it for you. You're good. You're doing something good. And whiteness is good.
33:31 And that's how it sustains itself. this like morality without morality having to have any substance behind it. So whiteness equals moral, whiteness equals good. How much of that uplifts this, you know, horrifying stereotype about Muslim women? Completely. I think this idea of, yeah, whiteness or white women equal goodness or innocence also relies on the dehumanization of other women, specifically, I think in this case, Muslim women. because if that's kind of the innocent side of things,
34:09 then I think the other side of things is, oh, well, because I think Muslim women are seen as a need of saving, I think up until a point, as long as that Muslim woman is seen as, I guess, being like a quote unquote good Muslim, if she's seen as deviating from any kind of, I guess, like Western values or assimilation or anything like that, then she's seen as kind of deviating from that path,
34:31 and then the Saviour Complex doesn't always quite apply. I'm thinking of the case of Shemima Begham in the UK and how she went to Syria, like 2015. And in the UK, that was a really big case. And when she wanted to come, when she wanted to move back to Britain and had that famous interview in the camps in Syria, the Saviour Complex no longer applied to her because she started to occupy a different stereotype,
34:54 which was the stereotype of the female terrorist. So, yeah, I think that is also kind of connected to this idea of kind of whiteness equals innocence or whiteness equals goodness. I'm also thinking of like, I think they call like quote, and got Karen behavior, like the idea of like white tears as well
35:10 and how that kind of plays into the kind of protection of whiteness as innocence and playing onto that, onto the kind of that ideal as well. But yeah, I do think they are related and I think it really, they're both stereotypes
35:25 kind of play on each other and they both, that, yeah, Muslim women are de-heaval, humanized, I think, through this idea of kind of whiteness as innocence in a way. I also wanted to ask you about the face coverings and the veil and how the hijab and face coverings have become a political flashpoint in Europe, in particular, the state in different countries intervening to ban certain face coverings. Tell us a bit about that. Yeah, so we've seen a big rise in a lot of European nations banning the hijab, either in the workplace or in educational
36:03 settings, or now I think in France we're starting to see just kind of in general public settings. France did kick this off, I think, back in 2001. They were the first nation in Europe to ban the hijab in some way. But yeah, there's been a fair few nations now that have developed some sort of legal framework or policy when it comes to Muslimmen and how they wear the hijab or the nqab, which is the full face cover. in public. Yeah, I think there's like Austria that have had some framework come in. Switzerland have banned both hijab bans, but they've also banned the building of new mosques, so that's kind of come into it as well. I know there's a few far-right groups in the UK
36:44 who want to also ban hijabes. And yeah, I think it's become quite normalized for states and governments to start talking about Muslim women's bodies as either political, you know, pawns in a political game or, you know, just kind of objects where the context of their humanity and their agency is kind of removed from these discussions and they are just talked about as is just kind of this piece of clothing that's become really politicized now in Europe and I wouldn't be surprised really if we've seen more and more hijab bands as Islamophobia becomes even more normalized. And it's just amazing that in one breath of white feminists could say that an over-sexualization of women is anti-feminist
37:27 but then at the same time they can talk about a hijab or a face covering and as anti-feminist as well. It's almost like their definition of feminism isn't based in kind of any principle. It's about, you know, proximity to capitalism oftentimes. No, absolutely. Because, yeah, you talk about kind of agency and women being able to choose whatever they want to do in this idea of, because I think, you know, white feminists has also kind of got that choice feminism at the heart of it as well. Like, oh, women should be able
38:02 to do whatever they want to do, but not when it comes to Muslim women and, you know, choosing to wear the hijab or choosing to wear the full face covering or choosing to dress modestly. You know, I'm not saying there aren't women in the world who aren't forced to wear the hijab. That is completely, you know, there are some of course. Of course. But I would say
38:18 mostly, especially in the West, in Western nations, most Muslim women, if not the majority, are making the choice to wear the hijab. But when we have hijab bands or when white feminists start talking about hijab as a form of oppression or how can you you know, I've had settings where, I mean, I don't wear the hijab, but where I've been with my mother and someone has spoken to her and, you know, are like, oh, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're a doctor. That's amazing. And it's, there's kind of like
38:45 heavy assumption that it doesn't make sense for her to be like an educated woman with, with, with a job and have this voice or be loud or anything like that. She had, she doesn't quite fit the stereotype. So even, I think, well, me. meaning women or well-meaning anybody in society, still, I think that stereotype of, especially a veiled Muslim women is so deeply embedded, I think, in the Western imagination. And I think that has come from this white feminist rhetoric that has been reproduced time and time again. It's also not to say, as you mentioned, that women being forced into face coverings, particularly
39:20 in nations where there are Muslim theocracies or religious governments are. not being oppressed, it's to say that it's being selectively applied in the West for very specific purposes and to uphold really white supremacy and capitalism by making caricatures out of these women. Absolutely. And I think it is completely connected to capitalism. It's something that I probably wanted to go into the book a bit more, but I think opening up capitalism probably would have been a second book in itself. Because I think, you know, we all remember like the girl boss capitalism of kind of like, oh girl bus feminism of like 2016 and all the t-shirts with we are feminists on them. And I think maybe we've moved slightly away from that. But I think
40:04 capitalism is so deeply embedded in kind of white feminism that, yeah, equality is seen as kind of, you know, gain through employment or gain through economic means. I think that then, you know, we focus on like female CEOs and female billionaires. You know, having a female billionaire doesn't really achieve anything for anyone else apart from that one woman. you know, this idea of having like a moral female billionaire makes no sense to me. But yeah, I think it really focuses on individualism rather than kind of collective liberation. I think that also really sits at the heart of white feminism as like an argument. Can you talk about single issue oppression?
40:41 This is a framework that you write about, how Muslim women's lives are reduced to just their religion and their relationship with Islam. Yeah, so this is a chapter in the book where I think one of the big parts of white feminism and it's really, relationship to Muslim women is this idea that there is kind of a very one-way tunnel vision when it comes to how white feminists view Muslim women. And it is that they are viewed through the lens of faith and faith alone. So any other identity or intersection that a Muslim might occupy is neglected or ignored or just brushed aside. So the experiences of, for example, black Muslim women, they are only seen through the lens
41:19 of religion rather than the experiences of, you know, if a black Muslim woman comes forward and says she's experienced racism or she's experienced colourism or anything that may be related to her race, white feminism either doesn't quite, you know, doesn't really comprehend it as an issue or they link it back to it being an issue to do with their religious identity. Same with class, you know, if a working class Muslim woman or a poor Muslim woman
41:43 talks about maybe her experiences of growing up in poverty or experiences of not being able to access the workforce or anything that's maybe related to her economic identity, White feminism doesn't look at that as a issue of class or anything to do with an identity that isn't to do with her religion or faith. So yeah, it's this idea that we can only be oppressed by one aspect and that is always faith and everything else is seen, is not seen as neglected completely from that conversation or from that experience. the reduction and and we'll wrap shortly but the the reduction of of Muslim women to just that piece of them really I think also works in tandem with the attempt to portray Muslims as savages more broadly unenlightened not cosmopolitan like and then that's really just a replication of
42:40 capitalist inequality when you really think about it and using Islam phobia for that end. Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. I think it really does go back to, I think all of this can go back to capitalism in its essence. If you really paired white feminism back, I think you would just find capitalism inequality at the heart of it. Well, really appreciate your time today. People should definitely check out the book. Shahad Izadi, the book is called The Othered Woman, How White Feminism Harms Muslim Women. We will put the link down below in the video and episode descriptions. And at majority.fm,
43:20 Shahhead is also an award-winning freelance writer, former editor at Bustle, UK, and staff writer at Stylist Magazine. Thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me again. Of course. We are back, Matt Leck here with us, Brandon Sutton. Hey, Brandon.
44:59 Hi, Matt. How you doing? I'm doing pretty good, pretty good. good to be talking to you from the chair of authority here yeah look so tall i will say you look really tall in that chair emma never looks as tall as you do in that chair aOC was in studio here and i don't know if people have seen the picture i got with her on my instagram but i look about seven foot one like and i've never looked more corn fed in my entire life um very tall goofy guy but yeah i guess that's me um what's going on on the discourse. Oh yeah. Well, I mean, we just wrapped up our morning stream over on the
45:35 discourse with Brandon, YouTube, and Twitch account. Gosh, I don't even know what we did today other than cover all of the various ways in which Donald Trump is destroying America, the farming crisis, obviously. I know, you look surprised. Like Donald Trump destroying America? I thought he was making a great again. Well, did you see how he's actually going to demolish the Kennedy Center now because they won't let him change the name? That's great. It is. It's a shocking amount of work to basically have destroyed, like, parts of the White House. You're doing it. And also, you know, this whole bunker underneath the ballroom.
46:10 Yeah. For a while, I'm like, you know, I'm concerned. Whenever I hear continuity of government being talked about, that's a pretty scary concept. You can go down some rabbit holes about that sort of thing. Indeed, when there was a helicopter crash in the first month of the Trump administration, with that helicopter that was crossing over the Potomac. plane was landing. Oh, yeah.
46:32 That was continuity of government flights. And it's like, why is the, why are we planning for like emergency measures? That's a little bit strange. But I also think that Trump might just use any thing available to him to get the ballroom built. Oh, for sure. National security is the best license ever. Yeah.
46:52 You know, it's one of those situations where I think that the military industrial complex and Donald Trump have overlapping interests where they want to put a bunch of crazy stuff under the White House that, you know, I guess doesn't exist there right now. And he wants a ballroom. And so for a while, people thought that the crazy stuff under the white house, the ballroom was a conspiracy, even though Trump would speak to it. But it might be real. It just might only be an excuse for Trump to make the ballroom. Exactly. I think a lot different than people expected. Like they thought he secretly wanted the bunker, but no, he really wants the ballroom. And the bunker is actually an excuse. And then like, I don't know,
47:27 the Pentagon wants the bunker. Exactly. It's the easy. way to get what you want is to just team up with the military industrial complex. Exactly. He should have had them help with the pool as well, I think. Oh, how's that going? Is that going well? Well, they did drop charges against the Olympic Olympian that... They did. There's footage today of more of it chipping away, kind of proving that it wasn't his
47:52 exacto blade or whatever he was using. It's crusting up and falling apart right now. Yeah, I mean, I'm surprised that he let it go so quickly. I heard that he was trying to throw Janine Piro under the bus for it and get it reignited. Yes, Piro got in a shoddy match with the governor of my home state, North Dakota, Doug Bergam, Doug Bergam, who sold a software company to Bill Gates, and that's why he's a billionaire. And now leverage that to be a yesman for Trump and say, yes, sir, it wasn't the bad contractor. decided upon.
48:29 It was secret malevolent forces that hate America, including this Olympic athlete. And Doug Bergum was going on the Sunday show, I was talking about that, and Janine Piro apparently was pissed at him because he wasn't given her a lot to work with as the person who was actually trying to prosecute people for those sorts of things by blabbing it about the press.
48:50 It is very interesting. A lot of these cases fall apart, these, whether it's like anti-ice stuff, it's like, we're going to throw the book. You remember that guy that, like, threw the burrito? Yeah, the sandwich. And then they made the highlight reel about going to his door at like 2 a.m. And then that got thrown out by the jury. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people think that's why Pam Bondi got, you know, the acts eventually
49:16 because she was bad at these political prosecutions. Like, because, you know, this is part of a tapestry of retribution acts he's engaging in. and it's just the one that he requires, I think, a lot more outward approval from the judicial system in order to execute sometimes, right? But all of the firings being done by, like, the new acting director of like the new DNI, who I think it's still Bill Pulte, all of the, you know, cleaning house being done at the FBI by Cash Patel, that doesn't necessarily require so much approval. And then he also got the approval from the Supreme Court recently to fire some people, like some particular, like, head of an agency as well. So, I mean, it's just when he meets up against any kind of, I think, resistance from a theoretically unbiased body. He just has to let it go. But he's not really, you know, able to deal with that, I think, emotionally very well, very maturely, I should say.
50:11 Yeah. There does seem to be a self-defeating element to this, I guess, power grab that like you know we're we're going to have a shock on toilet paper prices leading into the midterms did you remember what happened during COVID like people went absolutely crazy about toilet paper it's pretty important to the American psyche um but yeah so that's all over on the discourse that was your stream this morning um people should go check that out um very very good show uh it's all right people say they like it people say they like it i don't know what they're smoking but I hope it's good.
50:48 It's fun and interesting topics done in an intelligent way, and that sounds way too dry when I put it that way. But it is very good. Oh. What are you going to say, Brandon? I was going to say we also watched a bunch of police officers being arrested for flock camera violations and also just like freaking out on the job. There's a lot of videos out there of police behaving badly,
51:09 a lot of sheriff specifically. Really? Any highlights that you want to share? Oh, yeah. So we yesterday watched a bunch of videos about like police departments in smaller areas who have, you know, what they call second chance officers, which are officers who have been fired from bigger police departments and just need a, you know, a little bit of help to get back into the blue. And turns out a lot of those officers just, I don't know, they're just not ready for the, they're just not ready for the authority. And so you get a lot of like road rage incidents, lying, you know, things like that. police officers
51:47 I know never it's so surprising second what did you call them second chance officers yeah second chance officers like a make a wish foundation type thing
51:57 I was just gonna say that it sounds like make a wish like my wish is to be a you know a police officer fascinating well I feel very safe it's very good our sheriff departments
52:09 are our second chance cases like that what did I just watch No, never mind. I'm not going to get on that. Matt Binder. Welcome to the program. Good to see you. It's good to see you guys, too.
52:21 What's going on? Not much. We're just doing plugs. Do you want to get it on this plug out? Boys Day. Remembering a bit of a boys day, Matt? Oh, yeah. Sushi, we got to break out the sushi.
52:33 I know. We need sushi. Oh, I might have sushi with the boys. Got my poker chips. I'm going to cut them right here. You're going to start bragging about winning $200 whole dollars? I mean, Don't get me wrong. $200 is a lot of money to me.
52:47 But if I was a regular gambler, I don't know if people know what I'm talking about. Tim Poole was bragging about how he was like a really smart gambler and was bragging about like spending $400 something and walking away with $600 something. And it's like, listen, I mean, I would brag about that because I'm not a gambler. But for someone who claims to be a regular at the poker table, I don't know. That seems like low stakes. right yeah that's nothing that's nothing that's fascinating we might need to watch i think you're so rude i remember
53:23 when i was watching casino royale with daniel craig and in that scene where they're all playing like baccarat or whatever they're playing across from that like sumo guy and all the other ethnic minorities temple was just sitting there like just beanie on like eyes occluded by a visor
53:40 you just you got to remember this chip exactly temple is really big in this community. Like, I've seen a lot of casino movies, and I've seen movies where they count cards and all sorts of things. And they always brag about, you know, big wins. I don't recall, like,
53:56 them running off with 200 bucks. Yeah. The person at the payout window isn't even paying attention when they're, like, cashing that out. I will also point out that in a previous episode of the Tim Pool show, which we've been watching a lot of recently, and I
54:12 can't say I'm happy about that. He bragged about making $3,400 or something per hour, which I don't know if that's before, after like the tax on ruples or whatever, but it seems like if he only made $200 playing poker, that's like a loss of money. I mean, to me, he wasted time. To me, the thing that I would really be bragging about if you're trying to impress people with money-making skills is the $150,000 or whatever it was per month he was making from from uh from uh to to spread russian uh just be himself and spread uh things that the russians wanted
54:48 to hear uh i mean that is amazing i 200 dollars at the poker table that's not that crazy to me yeah all that money for self actualization and uh still has to wear the beanie into the mandalay bay or wherever he's gambling at it's a tuxedo beanie bender uh you want to do you did you plug or Oh, just YouTube.com slash Matt Binder, subscribe. I'm almost not that nice round 40,000 subscriber number. So let's get there. All right. Very nice.
55:20 Well, folks, yeah, and left reckoning we had Biddle O'Rourke on talking about if Democrats can be in a coalition with people who take APEC money, as well as Zoraamadani and how we can get low propensity voters to start voting again. So I appreciate Biddlewark. taking the time to talk with us. Go check that out Patreon.com.com slash left. Reckoning that would be a like every Sunday, a member's only Sunday show this weekend.
55:48 So check that out, Patreon.com, I'll second. And we will see you after the break. Okay, Emma, please. Well, I just, I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the majority report. Wait, look. Look, Sam is unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World.
56:04 So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show. It is Thursday. I think you need to do proper for Sam. That's good. Sir, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this.
56:18 And I'll tell you why. So it's offered a twerk, sushi, and poker with the boys. Twerk? Sushi and poker with the boys. Who was offered a twer? Yeah. Sushi and poker with the boys. What?
56:30 Twirl. Sushi and poker with the boys. Someone's offered a twir? Sushi and... That's what we call the biz. Dwer? Sushi and ties I just think that what you did to Tim Poole
56:50 was mean. Free speech. That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about it because I think you're responsible. I probably am in a certain way, but let's get to the meltdown here. Twirp? Ugh. Sushi and poker with the boys.
57:06 Oh my God. Dwerp. Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry. I'm losing my fucking mind. So it's offered with twerk? Yeah.
57:11 Sushi and poker with the boys. Logic. Dwerp. Sushi and poker with the boys. Boy, boy, boy, twir? I think I'm like a little kid. A little kid. I think I'm like a little kid.
57:20 I think I'm like a little kid. Add this debate seven thousand times. A little kid. Some people just don't understand. So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but like, I absolutely think the U.S. should be providing me with a wife and kids. That's not what we're talking about here. It's not a fun job.
57:44 It's not a real thing. That's a real fit. That's a real fit. Willie Walker. Twerk. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. The real thing.
57:49 That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's the joke. Has done it again. Offer. I think he might be blowing up. Boy.
58:08 Offered a word. That's a real thing. I've gotten out of hand. Sushi and poker with the boys. Clue as to what's going on. Live YouTube. Sam has like the weight of the world on the shoulders. Sam doesn't want to do this show anymore.
58:31 It can't do it anymore. It was so much easier. One of the majority report was just you. Let's change the subject. Right. Rangers and Nick are going to be. Now, shut up. Don't want people saying reckless things on your program.
58:44 That's one of the most difficult parts of this show. This is a pro-killing podcast. I'm thinking maybe it's time we bury the hatchet. Left is best. Trump. Violet twir? Don't be foolish. And don't change.
58:57 To the way. I wrote my honor's thesis. I don't see on foreign policy. We already fund Israel, dude. Tougher question. I have an answer to you. Incredible theme song. I Bumbler.
59:24 Emma Viglin, absolutely one of my favorite people. Actually, not just in the game, like, period.