It’s a uncommon factor in our quickly secularizing nation to be confronted with piety and devotion in widespread tradition. So it was a shock, and a balm, to look at a person who prays day by day and talks brazenly about his religious religion storm a bastion of earthly godlessness: “Saturday Night time Stay.”
I’m referring, in fact, to the comic Ramy Youssef, who hosted the present on what he described in his opening monologue as “an extremely non secular weekend,” noting Ramadan, Easter and the arrival of a brand new Beyoncé album.
“I’m doing the Ramadan one,” he quipped, to peals of laughter, unspooling a really humorous bit about how loving Muslims are. Youssef has mined his expertise as a believer among the many profane in mild standup specials and a namesake sitcom. His complete monologue glowed with a welcoming heat — Muslims, he appeared to say: We’re identical to you.
In a rustic that’s supposedly obsessive about range and inclusion, it’s outstanding how uncommon it’s to listen to from a working towards Muslim in America.
Surveys by the Institute for Coverage and Understanding, a nonpartisan analysis group centered on Muslim Individuals, have persistently discovered that Muslims are the most definitely group to report spiritual discrimination in the US. Based on a Pew survey performed in 2021, 78 p.c of Individuals mentioned that there was both so much or some discrimination in opposition to Muslims in our society. Muslims are not any extra prone to commit crimes than members of another group, however crimes during which Muslims are suspects get outsized media protection, analysis has proven.
It’s no shock, then, that Islamophobia is probably probably the most tolerated type of spiritual prejudice. Proper now, Senate Republicans seem to have persuaded a number of Senate Democrats to vote in opposition to a Muslim judicial nominee after smearing him, with no proof in any respect, as an antisemite.
Lots of the skits that toyed with faith on “S.N.L.” on Saturday had been humorous — Ozempic for Ramadan! Genius. However a part of me winced via them as effectively, as a result of I noticed in Youssef one thing that different members of minority teams have needed to do to “earn” their place within the security of the mainstream: the efficiency of normalcy, of being nonthreatening and candy, the requirement to show that your group belongs in America identical to everybody else’s.
I beloved Youssef’s monologue, during which he bravely pleaded, “Please, free the individuals of Palestine. And please, free the hostages. All the hostages.”
“I’m out of concepts,” Youssef declared towards the top of his monologue. “All I’ve is prayers.”
To which this nonbeliever can solely say: Identical, Ramy. Identical.
