"We're not Quran-thumping or street preaching. A few people at a time, we're trying to make people comfortable with the idea of talking to a Muslim. Can we address any of their questions so they figure out we're just normal human beings?"
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| Photo: Casey Parks/The Oregonian |
Source/Credit: The Oregonian/OregonLive
By Casey Parks | June 4, 2017
Seven days after the MAX train attack, Harris Zafar pulled on a bright blue T-shirt. "I am a Muslim," it said in white letters. "Ask me anything."
Then he headed for Washington Square Mall.
At a time when some Muslims feel unsafe leaving the house, Zafar did what he and three others have done for the past five months of Saturdays. They stood in the mall's atrium, inviting anyone to meet them.
He didn't know what to expect this time. On May 26, an extremist had threatened two teenage girls, one in a hijab, on a train in Northeast Portland before police say he stabbed three men, two fatally, who intervened.
Sixty-two percent of Americans don't know a Muslim, according to The Pew Research Center. If people don't know Muslims, Zafar reasoned, how can they bridge the prejudices that divide us? Ignorance is fertile soil for hatred, he said.
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