Diversity Board

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The Diversity Board Assignment – An Overview
The Diversity Board Assignment encourages you to step outside of your comfort zone and experience the lives of others who are different from you. This assignment is worth 30 pts.
Basic Requirements: 1. 2-3 pages typed, double-spaced, using 12 pt. Times New Roman font. 2. 2-3 sources required using APA format—Magazines, Books, Newspaper Articles, Internet Articles, etc. a. Resources for using APA format and for evaluating internet sources: i. Pg. 237 of Guidebook: Sample Bibliographic Citations in APA format ii. Purdue OWL: APA formatting guide: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ iii. Pg. 239 of Guidebook: “Checklist for Evaluating Information Found on the Internet” 3. Title page required. 4. Use at least 3 of the class topics listed on pg. 50 of your guidebook (under “7 Written Responses…”) b. Please BOLD these terms within your paper so they are easy for me to find. 5. Answer the 7 written responses—1 paragraph per question. c. The first question is more of an introduction to your diversity role and should contain a thesis statement previewing your paper as its last sentence. d. Include an 8th conclusion paragraph at the end—reiterate your main points/thesis and give a solid conclusion. 6. Write in 1st person—i.e., “My morning is much like everyone else’s…” e. Feel free to be creative and create a completely new character with a unique name, job, lifestyle, etc. 7. Edit your final draft for grammar and punctuation errors. At LEAST hit “spell check”!! 8. Please only print on one side of the paper. 9. Rip out pg. 53 of your Guidebook (the grading rubric) and staple it to the back of your final paper. This is what I will use to grade your essay.
Guidebook Page Numbers: * pp. 49-50: Full Description of Assignment * p. 53: Grading Rubric that you must turn in to me BLANK * p. 55-60 & pp. 61-65: Sample diversity board papers (your papers should look and sound like these!)

I am A Muslim In America

David Poku

My name is Ahil, my name is from Arabic decent and means Prince. I was born very dark skinned. I am now 21 years old man living in America and I am Muslim, it is for this reason that I have been both blessed and cursed. As a Muslim, we are just like most any people aside from the fact that we are not entitled to drink alcohol, have any type of pork, and no sex outside of marriage. I live in Austin, TX. The people here are very different yet in many instances can seem to be the exact same. The word Muslim is an Arabic word that means “One who submits to Allah and Allah as the one and only one God with no partner, no son, no companion, no associate, and no equivalence.”(). I came to America for an opportunity that I could not be granted in the place of my birth. Since I could remember I have aspired to be a great car salesman. When I was young and living in Jordan, everyone always spoke of doing whatever they could to try and get an opportunity to come and find success in this so called wonderful place called America, but I am here to tell my fellow people that why there is a great set of opportunities beset upon those who travel here, there is also two sides to this story. My religion is a s just a part of me as the air that I breathe, or the food that I eat, or the very water that I drink, but for the life of me, I have tried to in almost every way possible to conceal this. All of the stories and the things that I heard from the place of my birth were crammed with positive affirmations of achieving a dream that can be attained with hard work and time, but like I said before there is two sides to every story. When I came here, I was told that people were more accepting to various cultures, but after a terrorist incident that the people in America call 9/11, the public eye has since seemed to scrutinize people who follow the Islamic foundations. Apparently the people tied to the terrorist attack were of Middle Eastern decent and because of that fact the masses of America seemed to have all adopted the inconsistent notion that these people followed this religion.
This is the first curse and a blessing that I have been brought acknowledge. The ignorance of people permeates me, I have tried to educate the few that I was unfortunate enough to engage in a conversation that dealt with this, thinking that maybe if I educate a few the word would somehow get out and spread to those who belief this faulty notion that everyone who is Muslim is a part of some secret terrorist regime and cannot be trusted. Five years passed as I spread the word to many and many more. I started my own church and preached the true word of Islam to everyone, it didn’t matter what religion they were, what the color of their skin was, or what the once thought before, as long as I could burden them with the truth. Do not be confused, I was not pressing my religions beliefs to change or convert the religion ideologies of others, I just wanted to let everyone know the true meaning of y religious foundation.
I was now 26 years old, with a wife, Sara, and 2 kids, and I had spread around 3 different church facilities in Austin. My boy who was 6 years olds name was Aaban, and my daughter, who was 8, was named Manha. One day I was taking my family to the airport to go visit the place of my birth. I realized something very peculiar, as we were boarding, the people in the airport stared at my family, as if we were doing something wrong. You see some people can easily identify Muslim people sometimes; my wife and daughter were wearing Shawls that day. In the Muslim religion, women are supposed to cover their hair as means of being modest. Many people in American may not know or understand this. As a people we tend to fear or express caution to things we do not understand. It was then and only then did I realize that no matter how many ears I reached with my initiative to spread the true meaning of Islam that it would not change a thing. These people seem to hold the people who identify with Muslim as a whole responsible for the terrorist attack that took place on 9/11.
It was because of the realization of this fact that I handed off the ownership/pastoring of my churches to another individual who I had met that was willing to take it over. I sought to become the car salesman that I had always aspired to be. I sent out more than a thousand applications in one month, driving from place to place. I met with over 100 managers for different car salesman jobs, and on my own free time took all the spare time I had to learn about cars. Every single meeting I went to, I was met with a sort of indifferent look, that always followed wit where are you from? By the time I was 30, I knew everything there was to know about cars, I even at times impressed interviewees that were questioning me because I had known things that their staff did not, but one small fact remained, I still had not found a job. I was beginning to lose hope, but my nature was to strive for success at any cost, I could not let my family down.

One day when I was at a Starbucks parking lot, I saw a very young man with the hood of what looked like his car up and there were clouds of smoke engulfing the engine. I went over for assistance, and saw that this man was a well versed with car mechanics, yet he was flawed with one aspect of what he was doing. I asked the young man if I could fix his car for him. I saw a very arrogant smile on his face, and he said you can give it a try. Ten minutes later I had his car running. When I waked to go shut the hood of his car, I was met with a very firm handshake of another man, an older man, the man looked familiar. He shook my hand, and said, I thank you for fixing my car. He looked at my kind of funny and said: “aren’t you the man who started that set of churches a couple years back?” I replied yes, but I am no longer running those churches. The man replied: “ I have always was admired your way with people and wanted to tell you about an opportunity. You see.. I run a car dealership wanted to see if you would be interested in working with me? I smiled and told the man, that the foundation of Islamic faith is peace and at this very moment I have found it, through all of the prejudice, the ignorance that has beset itself upon my family and I, I am now in a place where I can surrender myself to my god and derive peace and it is for that, that I thank you. So this message is for everyone that plans to come to America, this is the other side of the story, you will be faced with prejudice, with people who fear you because they do not understand you, you will hesitate and may start to resent your decent or question your religion, but I am here to tell you when you find peace you will finally see that the curse is a blessing in disguise.

References

Associated Press, (10/24/12). Spying on the Muslim Community. Muslim In America, pp. 1-2.
Rauf, Feisal. A. (April 1, 2011). Five Myths About Muslims. American Muslims, N/A pp. 1-2.

Citations: Rauf, Feisal. A. (April 1, 2011). Five Myths About Muslims. American Muslims, N/A pp. 1-2.