Dr. Amin Asfari Faculty, Wake Technology College & North Carolina Wesleyan College
Dr. Amin Asfari has a deeply personal reason for working to educate people about prejudice. His cousin was one of three Muslims gunned down in North Carolina on February 10, 2015 in their own apartment by a self-described hater of Muslims. Dr. Asfari explains the title of his talk by noting that both Jews and Arabs are considered semites because they both speak semitic languages; therefore, discrimination against either group can be called anti-semitism. He adds that he “does not wish to detract from the horrors that Jews have suffered” and “there is plenty of hate to go around.” Dr. Asfari then goes on to discuss historical perspectives into anti-semitism, current anti-semitism, the people he calls “the funders of hate,” and the psychology of Islamophobia and other forms of prejudice. Dr. Asfari has a Ph.D. in Public Policy.