A South by Southwest stage served as the backdrop for Katie Couric’s podcast recording, on the agenda Saturday was the issues Muslims in America face currently.
Couric along with her co-host Brian Goldsmith and two guests – New York Times op-ed writer Wajahat Ali and Syrian-American rapper and activist Mona Haydar – tackled that topic March 11. The podcast, which focused on “The Muslim Next Door,” was a tease to her upcoming six-part National Geographic series, “America Inside Out.”
The series, which premieres April 11, was inspired by the media’s current focus on the “wrong things,” Couric said.
“The president, the media at large, certainly gives us a lot to talk about in terms of the inter-office politics that are going on in the West Wing or the latest group that’s been offended, and I feel that sometimes we’re paying attention to the wrong things in the media,” Couric said.
She said that, amidst this “transformational period” in the United States and all over the world, some are unnerved.
“All this change is very unnerving and unsettling and I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding,” Couric said. “I’m trying to take these divisive issues and help people get reacquainted with their empathy gene and to understand these issues (like what her Muslim guests face), which really I don’t think is discussed in mainstream media ever or nearly enough.”
Assaults against Muslim people in the United States have surpassed the level reported in 2001.
“For a lot of Muslims in middle America, islamophobia can be lethal,” Haydar said. “For me, being a very visible Muslim has done great things for me. I think it depends on where you are.”
Yet, any time a Muslim extremist acts out in violence, “our peoples are questioned,” Ali said.
“You’re always a walking explainer,” he said.
Haydar said that on the plane on her way to speak at the festival, a woman sitting next to her asked her why more Muslims aren’t speaking out against the violence of extremists.
“It’s not my job to address that question,” she said.
She said, as a mother of two boys and a current student, she’s just trying to live her life like everyone else.
