June 2019 - Steve Salaita

It Ain’t Merit

Reactionary pundits are infuriating, but we should reserve much of our anger for the media that generate their fame.

A recent Intercept article about Mohamad Tawhidi, the so-called “imam of peace,” a rightwing, Zionist, Islamophobic Shia cleric (no, seriously), sheds light on his rapid emergence as a media darling:

Tawhidi’s public career began, as he recently told “intellectual dark web” star Dave Rubin, when he “was discovered” by a producer for a tabloid news show on Australia’s Channel 7. “I got a call from Channel 7,” Tawhidi told Rubin, “and apparently they Googled ‘imam,’ ‘Adelaide,’ ‘Muslim,’ just to get a comment.”

He speaks with pride where shame is appropriate:

“So they came in wanting a three-minute comment on a certain issue and I gave them a 30-minute talk about the Muslim community,” Tawhidi continued, “and the director gets in touch with me and [said], ‘We can do a lot with what you’re saying.’”

The Influence of Anxiety

What happens when you no longer feel like eating?

It began in 2007. I had been in Jordan with my father; our spouses remained stateside. He got on fine, with dozens of doting nieces and nephews keeping him flush with arak, but I decided to cut the trip short. Booze was never my thing.

I missed my wife and our small condo in Blacksburg, Virginia, but mostly I’d seen enough of Madaba, my father’s hometown, despite the charm of its stone alleys and shabby storefronts, ambiance for a carnivalesque sense of tenor and motion. It was the time of year when many residents spend the night on verandas and rooftops.

College Administrators Care About Your Speech Rights–If You’re a Nazi

They disapprove of speech favorable to Palestinians, however.

Discussing free speech in the United States is a losing proposition. Every political demographic screams about hypocrisy, but doing so misses the larger point: it’s impossible to lionize speech as understood in this country without also being hypocritical. That’s because civil liberties are indivisible from the needs of power. In many cases, speech isn’t performed as a freedom; it’s an asset exploited by the shrewdest consumers.