The National, an English newspaper based in Abu Dhabi, has published an opinion piece by Rasha Elass, which quotes Imam Zaid’s recent lecture in New York.

Here are some highlights:

“This is our time. This is our place,” Imam Zaid Shakir told his enthusiastic young Muslim audience in New York. “As a community we’re not invisible, but some of us have chosen to pretend that we are.”

“Yes, there are challenges in this post-9/11 America: the Patriot Act… right-wing elements and their surrogates. But we should embrace the challenges,” he said.

And a quote from Dave Chappelle:

“You’re not playing around, America, because you just put a black man with a brown name in the White House.”

Read the full article here: http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090114/OPINION/778135416/-1/NEWS