Strength in Numbers

By: Ali Anwar

As an active member of SMU’s chapter of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), I have spent countless hours volunteering, organizing events, and serving as an ambassador to represent and uphold the values of Islam. After an entire year of serving MSA, I sincerely believe that my diverse experiences – ranging from collecting donations for Pakistan Flood Relief to building houses for Habitat for Humanity – have made me a more caring member of the community. However, despite all of the charitable work I have done, there is one thing that continues to bother me: the negative stereotypes targeting Muslims.

As students of color, there is no doubt that we have all faced negative stereotyping at some point in our lives. The stereotype that I have had to fight relates to the images presented by the media that depict Islam as a violent and hateful religion. It seemed to me that every service MSA engaged in the community was overshadowed and ultimately erased by one news headline after another. But with patience and perseverance, I chose to continue fighting these stereotypes.

The weekend of April 8-10 brought with it a unique opportunity for SMU’s chapter of MSA. Every year, MSAs from all over Texas come together and compete in an event called MSA Showdown. This event includes a wide variety of competitions such as basketball, flag football, knowledge bowl, poetry, writing, video production, and many more. In addition, MSA Showdown also hosts a charity drive that benefits a local charity. This year, the competition was hosted by SMU.

The President of our MSA, Samaiya Mushtaq, had briefed us on the significance of this particular Showdown. We were first told that hosting an event that had a record-breaking 250 participants would be no easy matter. Each and every member of SMU MSA would have to be actively volunteering in order to ensure that we were as gracious and welcoming as hosts can be. Our second priority was winning the competition. Competing against universities such as the University of Texas and Texas A&M would be quite a challenge considering that the MSA general bodies of those schools are three times the size of our chapter’s entire population. Nevertheless, we accepted our mission to be as welcoming as possible to our fellow Muslims while retaining a competitive edge.

The atmosphere during that weekend was awe-inspiring. Dozens of students from different universities set aside their differences with students from rival schools and socialized as units of a greater cause. When the competitions started, the attitudes became much more ambitious and focused on winning. And when each event ended, everyone became as relaxed and friendly as before.

I was registered for two events: flag football and poetry. In the single-elimination bracket for flag football, SMU’s team advanced to the second round after I caught an interception and returned it for a touchdown. However, we lost by a devastating 14 point deficit in the subsequent match-up. The other event I participated in – poetry – had an immense pool of talented competitors. My poem, an emotional piece I wrote about the importance of unity, won second place.

On the day of the closing ceremony, we learned that SMU took first place overall in the entire MSA Showdown. This was an incredible feat considering that all of our competitors were also working as volunteers to run the entire event and how much smaller our chapter of MSA was when compared to the other schools.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the main purposes of MSA Showdown is hosting a charity drive, and the selected charity for this year was Wipe Out Kids Cancer. Having a game-winning interception and returning it for a touchdown felt incredible. Winning second place in poetry felt more incredible. Being a part of SMU’s team and winning first place overall while making dozens of unforgettable memories with my MSA family was even more incredible. However, the one thing that felt the most amazing was seeing the look on the Wipe Out Kids Cancer coordinators’ faces when we brought them the thousands of dollars worth of donations that we collected from all around Texas. One lesson that Showdown taught me that I will cherish forever is that a community is unstoppable when united under a common cause.

Regardless of the stereotypes we face as Muslims, each member of MSA made a positive difference in the community. And although we did not make a difference on a global scale, we were able to dispel of the misconceptions some people may hold about our religion and taught them what Islam is really about. As students of color, I implore you all to remember the same lessons I learned that weekend. Instead of being threatened by stereotypes, embrace your uniqueness and uphold your sense of cultural identity. By working with others for a good cause, you can find unity. And with unity, we can all begin to chip away at the problems created by negative stereotyping.