Being Muslim in America (and MIT) in 2016

Last December, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump called for a ban on all Muslims entering the United States. In March, he added that “I think Islam hates us.” MIT alumna and Wise Systems co-founder Layla Shaikley join engineering masters student Abubakar Abid to explore how this type of hateful, discriminatory rhetoric influences public opinion, discuss its impact on the daily lives of Muslim-Americans, and examine strategies for combating it. Layle Shaikley is an MIT alum, co-founder of Wise Systems and co-founder of TEDxBaghdad. With her viral video sensation “Muslim Hipsters: #mipsterz,” she helped launch a national conversation about how Muslim women are represented. Abubakar Abid is a engineering masters student at MIT and a member of the Muslim Student Association. Hisham Bedri is an MIT graduate who studied new imaging technologies and their implications on privacy. Moderator: Seth Mnookin, associate director of MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing and director of the MIT Communications Forum.