Tag Archives: Ziad Ahmed

Waking up in America on November 9.

Faith and Social Justice, Uncategorized, , , , ,

The worst of it, said 17-year-old Ziad Ahmed, ” is waking up in America after crying yourself to sleep, and not feeling safe. (If you don’t feel that way, you don’t get to belittle how millions of us are feeling.)

Here is his essay in the Huffington Post , linked to the web page at NIOTPrinceton, where he is a board member.

Tomorrow is another day, says Ahmed. “But tomorrow, I will continue to rise as a proud American-Muslim teenager, and I will not let anyone take that away from me no matter what tomorrow holds. Tomorrow, we rebuild. We have to.”

 

#TheGenerationofNow

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goldie taylor

Goldie Taylor (above, veteran journalist now editor at The Daily Beast) joins Zelli Imani and Brittany Packnett in a #BlackLivesMatter panel at #TheGenerationofNow program at the Carl Lewis Center on Sunday, December 13, 1:30 to 6 p.m., arranged by redefy. Primarily for teens but open to adults, organizers expect more than 200 people, but you may be able to register here.

If you can come only for part of the afternoon, the panels are from 1:30 to 4:55 p.m. and they are in this order: The first panel, with Donya Nasser and others,  is on interfaith activism — how to advance racial justice between different faith-based communities. Second is #BlackLivesMatter. Third is Haroon Mogul, an expert on Islam, foreign policy, and the Muslim World, on combatting Islamophobia. The fourth panel, with Lina Wu, Caroline Lee and others,  is on marginalization of the Asian experience in mainstream culture.

Mr. Ahmed Goes to Washington

Faith and Social Justice, , , , , ,

Ziad Ahmed, whom I know as a youth member of the board of Not in Our Town Princeton, was invited to the White House for dinner with the president. Reason: he had been inaccurately targeted, as a child, for the “do not fly” list. He responded to that experience by founding an anti-bias organization.

Ahmed, now a rising junior at Princeton Day School, established ziad photo ReDefy to “boldly defy stereotypes, embrace acceptance and tolerance, redefine our perspectives positively, and create an active community.”  He has also made many valuable contributions to the NIOTPrinceton organization as well. He is doing important work. Here is the link to Nicole Mulvaney’s coverage in the Times of Trenton.