West Seattleite to speak before Womxn’s March tomorrow

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

If you are going to the Womxn’s March on Seattle tomorrow, get to the starting point at Judkins Park in time for the pre-march speakers.

One is a West Seattle neighbor – Aneelah Afzali.

Afzali is executive director of MAPS-AMEN, the recently launched American Muslim Empowerment Network, launched through the Muslim Association of Puget Sound, which is based in Redmond.

She will be one of five speakers at the rally before the march, and her speech will be about combating Islamophobia. “Essentially,” she told us during a phone conversation, “getting people to understand that Muslims were part of America even before it was a country, despite the demonization we are seeing in the media.” She’ll be talking about what people can do to help combat Islamophobia.

What CAN you do? “Each circumstance will vary,” Afzali says. The important thing is to not just stand by in silence – use your voice, use your body if you have to, or tell the story – if you see or hear something, posting about it on social media can be an important way of fighting back. “Standing up for the victim, letting them know they have an ally … there are a variety of things that people can do.”

In the bigger picture, her work “has four areas of focus – coalition building … with other minority groups as well as our friends and allies of any kind of background. That’s important during troubling times. (Also) education about Islam and Muslims – unfortunately, most people in our country don’t know Muslims, and something is easy to demonize when you don’t know much about it.” Another area of focus: “Leveraging media properly – Islam is the most mentioned religion (in media),” but most of the mentions are negative, Afzali says. The final focus: “Youth empowerment – helping build the future leaders of our country.” Last weekend, MAPS-AMEN had a youth-advocacy workshop with more than 100 young participants learning about Islamophobia and using the “power of the pen” to combat it.

MAPS-AMEN plans to have more than 100 American Muslims marching tomorrow; an announcement of that is how we found Afzali – we received a news release about the group’s participation, and asked if there were any West Seattleites with whom we could speak.

ABOUT THE MARCH: Marchers are gathering at 10 am at Judkins Park, with the speakers (including Aneelah Afzali) scheduled at 10:30 am, marching instructions at 11. Full details, including maps, are here.

11 Replies to "West Seattleite to speak before Womxn's March tomorrow"

  • rob January 20, 2017 (7:49 pm)

    i hope she speakes about how we as americans  all need to get along. And how lucky we are where the common man has a shot at leading our country. And how we as the americans need to work together to make america strong. We as americans all need to work together because there is no better place in the world to live. god bless the USA

    • Lynn January 20, 2017 (10:37 pm)

      ” there is no better place in the world to live”

      Is it though? I don’t know. We don’t really take care of our veterans or our families here. Virtually zero policies on maternity and paternity leave in this country. Compared to some countries in Scandinavia, we are very backwards in that sense.

  • Jeannie January 20, 2017 (8:46 pm)

    As a Jew, I totally support our Muslim neighbors. We need to stand together, regardless of religion (or lack thereof), color, gender, age, etc. There’s been an upswing in anti-Semitism around the country, as well as the horrible attacks on mosques. Trump may not be blatantly anti-Semitic, but his election has brought the creeps out of the woodwork.  

    • Lynn January 20, 2017 (10:43 pm)

      Thank you. 

    • Seattlite January 21, 2017 (12:22 pm)

      Jeannie — I’m sure President Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and coverted daughter think otherwise.

  • J Lardizabal January 20, 2017 (9:16 pm)

    Kol HaNeshamah had the honor of hosting Aneelah Afzali during our Torah (bible) study two weekends ago. She shared words of the Quran–its history and stories–and was absolutely captivating. I look forward to hearing more from her. 

  • Jeannie January 20, 2017 (9:32 pm)

    Thank you for hosting her! She does seem like a remarkable woman. Perhaps someone from your congregation could speak at her organization, so our Muslim neighbors can learn about Judaism. 

  • Great American January 20, 2017 (11:37 pm)

    What’s with the mis-spelled woman word?

  • Kadoo January 21, 2017 (9:23 am)

    She’s terrific; I’ve heard her speak before.  

  • Jon January 22, 2017 (5:50 pm)

    I don’t know this speaker personally, but I do grow tired of the politically-correct views in regards to Islam (disclosure: half of my family are Muslim) — which bring with it a bulletproof ‘trump card’ (no pun intended) of: “Well, you’re a racist if you disagree, so hush.”


    Islam is an ideology, not a race. Like any ideology, it’s full of bad ideas. For example: dogs are “haram”. You can’t pet dogs. That’s incompatible with most of Seattle. :P

    Seriously though — I find it ironic that people who follow Islam could ever pretend to champion the rights of women; especially while wearing a hijab (which is a lot more than “a form of respect” ). A hijab is much more than a kippah you wear to temple. That’s nice if you just enjoy wearing one, but at least be honest about its origins and how it is implemented as a requirement for women in many societies.

    Islam is an extremely gender-discriminatory religion where women are subservient to men. Period. Anyone who says otherwise, including the profiled speaker, is being dishonest to sell you on their religion. Women are meant to be covered and kept separate from men; they are not allowed to be promiscuous; they are forbidden from enjoying many things average Americans take for granted (you can’t even pray in the same room as men). The only reason it isn’t law in this country is because we don’t live under religious (Sharia) law.

    Take it or leave it, whatever your preferences may be (so long as you’re not hurting anyone, why should I care what sort of nonsense you believe in?) — it’s just dishonest to continually prop it up as a tool of female / homosexual empowerment when it is quite literally the opposite.

    Read about the abuses in Rotherham, UK for the worst of it. Here’s an interesting video where a female journalist returns to her family’s home country of Bangladesh to document the abuses under an Islamic government.

Sorry, comment time is over.