Andrew Crighton
Life Editor
A lone male was seen distributing DVDs containing two Islamophobic videos onto people’s cars at ISU on Monday, April 4, 2016. It is believed that the man was from out of state.
According to Stuart Summers, associate vice president of marketing and communications, one of the reasons it is believed the individual was from out of state is that he did not place the DVDs in a higher-traffic location.
Once the man was seen, reports were made to ISU Public Safety, and once what was on the DVDs was known, Public Safety began collecting as many of them as possible, also according to Summers.
The amount distributed is not known, because it is impossible to know how many students picked up the DVDs before they could be collected, however, Summers said it was less than what people may think it was.
The DVDs contained copies of YouTube videos made by a man named Dale Brown, who writes and performs gospel music as well as maintains a YouTube channel containing various other videos similar to those found on the DVDs.
Whether or not the male who distributed the videos was or had a connection to Dale Brown, Summers could not comment on.
Dale Brown was contacted and asked for a statement, and as of the writing of this article the only response has been, “This address has been hacked. We therefore do not use it much anymore,” and to leave comments on his blog or YouTube channel.
Daniel Hummel, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science, was mentioned by name within one of the videos contained on these DVDs, and was claimed to be “giving his spin on Islam, for the naïve Western audience.”
Hummel was not aware of his mention in the video until contacted.
Hummel remarked that because Islam is something this individual doesn’t agree with, then in that individual’s mind, it must not be true.
“If he would have done this the right way, it could have been a great exchange. We could have had dialogue and a discussion about it,” Hummel said. “He could have come and said all that stuff in a dialogue, to our faces, and that would have been fine as long as he was civil, he was respectful.”
Zackery Heern, assistant professor in the History Department and specialist in the Middle East, commented on some of the overarching themes of the videos, namely that we should be suspicious of Muslims within our community.
“This debate in the American context is a bit newer, this debate on if Islam is inherently violent or inherently peaceful, there’s enough textual references for people to argue what they want,” said Heern.
There are elements of violence, tolerance and murder found within the Quran, just as there are in the Bible, or any other religious text.
“What you want to read into this, you surely can; it depends on who is doing the interpretation,” Heern said.
Hummel expressed a similar sentiment as Heern in terms of interpretation of religious texts.
“I’ve always looked at religious texts as a mirror of who you are. If you are a misogynist, you will read the Quran in a misogynistic way. If you a violent person, you will read the religious text in a violent way.”
