Happy 4th everyone. I'm celebrating like everyone else with family, friends and fireworks. However, I wanted to say something about this story from the NY Times which bends over backwards to defend Aminah Knight, the woman to posted a flyer for a "Muslims only" swim event in Texas.
Ms. Knight, a former public-school teacher from New York City, was determined. She wanted something for families — and especially for young women and girls who, like her, enjoyed swimming but disliked the attention that full-body swimwear, common in the Middle East, often drew at American pools.
“We swim too,” Ms. Knight thought. She refused to settle for another bounce house party.
She traveled from mosque to mosque across North Texas’ booming Muslim community, talking up her event. She made her own website and flyer. And her efforts worked. Hundreds attended.
That was the first year. She held the event again last year and it was even more popular. This year she planned to host it again but things didn't go as planned.
She had a flyer ready, which she shared widely on social media last year, when more than 500 people turned out. She changed a few words, adding that the event would be “family-friendly.”
And she kept the part that said: “Muslims Only.”
She didn’t think twice about it. After all, the event celebrated a Muslim holiday. There would be halal meat, Islamic music, a private prayer area and a dress code of modest swimwear.
She wanted observant families to feel comfortable. She never thought anyone would mind.
But this year people noticed the flyer and in particular the part that read "Muslims only." First it attracted the attention of a local podcaster and then the NY Post. Eventually she removed that wording from the flyer but it was too late. The governor stepped in.
In a letter, Mr. Abbott’s public safety office told the mayor of Grand Prairie that Ms. Knight’s party was “discriminatory,” and warned that the city would lose $530,000 from the state, if the event were allowed to go on. By then Ms. Knight had posted that the event was open to all, but in the letter the governor’s office pointed to a “frequently asked questions” portion of the event website where it still said the park had been “exclusively reserved for Muslims.”...
“The City must cancel the event and commit to never allowing something like it again,” Mr. Abbott wrote on social media.
Hours later, the city said it had canceled the party. A spokeswoman for Grand Prairie said the move was “in the best interest” of the city.
As Aminah Knight was responding to criticism, she agreed to an interview with Sara Gonzales. And that didn't help her case much.
Ms. Gonzales attacked Ms. Knight’s intelligence for a typo in the name of her day care on its website — “Learing Center” rather than “Learning Center” — and questioned whether it was in good standing to operate. Ms. Knight appeared stunned, incredulous to find herself in a kind of rhetorical cage match.
“What is your name actually?” Ms. Knight asked at one point.
Ms. Gonzales, for her part, appeared equally stunned at her guilelessness. “You agreed to do an interview with someone whose name you didn’t know?”
The Sara Gonzalez interview with Knight was about 15 minutes long and as a summary this is really not remotely fair. In fact, Gonzalez was extremely patient with Knight and often gave her a long time to answer questions without interrupting. This was not a cable news shout-fest.
The key exchange was about why Knight had thought it was okay to advertise a "Muslims only" event. And, in my review, I think all Knight had to do here was admit she'd made a big mistake. But she didn't do that. Instead she gave a long answer suggesting that the rules should be different for minority groups.
Gonzales: I know that you feel like you were wronged in this, but I just wonder if you feel like it would be fair for uh say a private group to rent out a publicly funded water park and put on, you know, their posters, this is for whites only. I'm just I'm struggling to see the difference in that.
Knight: Yeah, thanks for asking that. Well, so there's a couple of there's a couple of things there, right? Marginalized groups like the black community or like the American or excuse me or like the Muslim community oftent times need to take a moment to gather fortify each other and then go back out into the world. It is not easy identifying as a marginalized person in this country where you constantly feel like there's a foot on your neck for one reason or another. Maybe because you're black, maybe because you're a Muslim.
And so the importance of this event, this event at heart is so that young Muslim girls who struggle with modesty oftent times because the standard of beauty that they see around them has to do with how sexy they are and how much of their skin they can show. And so they're oftent times in a really difficult space because they're trying to balance their commitment to God and wanting to be, you know, devote to him. They're trying to balance the pressures of their family to make sure that they are being modest.
This answer goes on for more than a minute and a half and Gonzales then accurate reflected that answer back, saying, "my question actually was how is this any different than someone holding a whites only, you know, KKK party at a publicly funded water park. And I feel like your answer...was just well it's okay for us because we feel like we're a marginalized community."
Again, I think all Knight really needed to do here is admit she screwed up, but she didn't do that.
Knight: If anybody rents out a private space and for a private party, it could be that somebody says, "Hey, I'm renting out the water park for the night family reunion." If your last name is not Knight and you're not part of the night family, I wouldn't expect you to come, but I also wouldn't broadcast that all over the world. I would only send it to my target audience.
Gonzalez: Right. But that's doesn't violate discrimination laws...There's no discrimination law that says you can't have a private event for a family reunion. There are discrimination laws that say that you cannot have a private event that excludes people based on their religion. That is that is federal statutes and state statutes. So, how do you think that that's okay?
And again, there's no apology and no recognition of error just another answer trying to justify it. In fact, Knight admits a moment later, "You're absolutely right. I didn't think anything was wrong with that." Things got really odd when Gonzales asked Knight about the LLC that was receiving the ticket money for the event.
Gonzales: when people go to your website to buy tickets for that event, it says that Ascendin Faith LLC is who is receiving the money. And you don't know what that is?
Knight: I don't know. It must be some type of typo. It must be a typo.
Finally, as for attacking Knight's intelligence, that was one question about her daycare:
Gonzales: So, you also run a daycare, I believe, called Excellence Early Learing Center. At least it's listed on Google that way and on your website. I think it's also called a leaning center. Um, so I'm just wondering, is it appropriate to be in charge of teaching children when you can't spell learning right?
[pause]
Okay. She's not frozen cuz she's blinking. She's just mad.
Knight: No, I'm not I'm not mad, but I'm just I am acknowledging the typo, and I think that's a more appropriate way to say it.
If Sara Gonzales had done this interview for the NY Times, they'd be calling it a masterpiece of taking someone apart. But because they don't like Gonzales or her politics they are bashing her for doing an excellent job, boiling down her 15 minute interview to two snippets which leave out all of the questions Knight failed to answer.
The NY Times account is one-sided and doesn't examine any of the questions that should be raised about all of this. But the readers won't have any idea what they're missing unless they click on the link and watch the whole interview.
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