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我是部落客、影片製作人兼屠夫，我將解釋這幾個身份如何融合在一起。
這得從四年前說起。當我和一位朋友第一次在紐約最繁忙的清真寺進行齋戒月，長著大鬍子、戴著無邊帽的男子成群地在街上遊走，簡直是FBI探員的春夢。（笑聲）但身為這個群體的一員，我們知道這個地方多麼友善好客。多年來，我見過許多照片，將這個地方描繪成毫無生氣的龐大建築，如同美國人對穆斯林的刻板印象。
鑒於對這種短視觀點的失望，我和我朋友有了這個瘋狂的想法：每晚在不同州的清真寺度過齋戒月，然後將這些故事分享在部落格上，我們稱之為「三十個清真寺的三十天」。我們驅車遊歷了五十個州，分享了超過一百個穆斯林族群的故事，從洛杉磯專案的柬埔寨難民到居住在南卡羅來納州叢林的黑蘇菲教派，呈現出美麗而複雜的美國肖像。媒體報導迫使在地記者重新造訪當地的穆斯林社區，但真正令人振奮的是我們目睹世界各地的群眾因此受到啟發，展開屬於他們的「三十清真寺」之旅。甚至有兩個NFL（國家美式足球聯盟）運動員向聯盟請了長假去做這件事。
當「三十清真寺」風潮席捲全球時，我正在巴基斯坦忙著製作一部影片。我和副導演Omar正與許多朋友討論如何定位這部影片，這部影片名叫《小鳥會走路》，內容是關於街頭流浪兒尋找家庭意義的故事。我們把焦點放在青少年與家庭錯綜複雜的關係上，但我們的朋友執意要我們把注意力放在無人機和針對性屠殺項目上。使影片更「貼近時事」，最後只會使把故事託付給我們的人變成社會和政治的象徵物。當然，我們沒有接受他們的建議，而是著重於愛的交流和年輕人的掙扎與迷茫。我們影片蘊含的概念只有同理心以及穆斯林影片中普遍缺乏的情感。
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
I'm a blogger, a filmmaker and a butcher, and I'll explain how these identities come together.
It started four years ago, when a friend and I opened our first Ramadan fast at one of the busiest mosques in New York City. Crowds of men with beards and skullcaps were swarming the streets. It was an FBI agent's wet dream. (Laughter) But being a part of this community, we knew how welcoming this space was. For years, I'd seen photos of this space being documented as a lifeless and cold monolith, much like the stereotypical image painted of the American Muslim experience.
Frustrated by this myopic view, my friend and I had this crazy idea: Let's break our fast at a different mosque in a different state each night of Ramadan and share those stories on a blog. We called it "30 Mosques in 30 Days," and we drove to all the 50 states and shared stories from over 100 vastly different Muslim communities, ranging from the Cambodian refugees in the L.A. projects to the black Sufis living in the woods of South Carolina. What emerged was a beautiful and complicated portrait of America. The media coverage forced local journalists to revisit their Muslim communities, but what was really exciting was seeing people from around the world being inspired to take their own 30-mosque journey. There were even these two NFL athletes who took a sabbatical from the league to do so.
And as 30 Mosques was blossoming around the world, I was actually stuck in Pakistan working on a film. My codirector, Omar, and I were at a breaking point with many of our friends on how to position the film. The movie is called "These Birds Walk," and it is about wayward street kids who are struggling to find some semblance of family. We focus on the complexities of youth and family discord, but our friends kept on nudging us to comment on drones and target killings to make the film "more relevant," essentially reducing these people who have entrusted us with their stories into sociopolitical symbols. Of course, we didn't listen to them, and instead, we championed the tender gestures of love and headlong flashes of youth. The agenda behind our cinematic immersion was only empathy, an emotion that's largely deficient from films that come from our region of the world.
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《小鳥會走路》在世界各地的電影節和戲院上映後，我終於在紐約擁有一席之地。鑒於充裕的時間與經濟依然拮据的事實，妻子指派我肩負起煮飯的工作。每當我去當地肉店購買清真肉時，總覺得不太對勁。
替不知道的人解說一下，清真肉是指遵循相當嚴格的伊斯蘭準則，以人道方式飼養及屠宰的動物。不幸的是，美國大多數清真肉均未達到伊斯蘭的標準。我對這些不敬業行為瞭解得越多，越覺得遭受侵犯，特別是因為藉由我的信仰獲取利益的竟是我居住社區的商店。因此熱血沖腦之下，毫無屠宰經驗的我和一些朋友在曼哈頓東村時尚區中心開了一家肉店。（笑聲）我們稱之為「良心肉鋪」，我們重新為清真正名，藉由採購有機、人道飼養的牲畜以及勞工階級家庭負擔得起的價格。這在美國可說是一項創舉。最令人難以置信的是，90%的顧客甚至不是穆斯林。對許多人來說，這是他們第一次與穆斯林進行如此親密的互動。
因此這些截然不同的項目－（笑聲）都是對現狀不滿的結果，這是我出自本能的反應。對於一些試圖過度簡化我的信仰與族群的商戶和管理者，對付這個體系的唯一方法就是不按牌理出牌。我們必須用充滿創意的方法反擊，藉由信任、接觸管道以及只有我們能賦予的愛。我們必須理直氣壯地重申我們的信仰，藉由每一幅影像、每一塊肉，因為如果我們為了媚眾而粉飾我們的故事，我們不僅會失敗，也會讓擁有較多資金與資源的人操控我們的故事。但這種富有創意與勇氣的行動並非為了標新立異或貼近時事，只因為我們的族群太獨特、太美好，驅使我們尋找一種毫不妥協的方式以獲得認同和尊重。
謝謝。（掌聲）
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And as "These Birds Walk" played at film festivals and theaters internationally, I finally had my feet planted at home in New York, and with all the extra time and still no real money, my wife tasked me to cook more for us. And whenever I'd go to the local butcher to purchase some halal meat, something felt off.
For those that don't know, halal is a term used for meat that is raised and slaughtered humanely following very strict Islamic guidelines. Unfortunately, the majority of halal meat in America doesn't rise to the standard that my faith calls for. The more I learned about these unethical practices, the more violated I felt, particularly because businesses from my own community were the ones taking advantage of my orthodoxy. So, with emotions running high, and absolutely no experience in butchery, some friends and I opened a meat store in the heart of the East Village fashion district. (Laughter) We call it Honest Chops, and we're reclaiming halal by sourcing organic, humanely raised animals, and by making it accessible and affordable to working-class families. There's really nothing like it in America. The unbelievable part is actually that 90 percent of our in-store customers are not even Muslim. For many, it is their first time interacting with Islam on such an intimate level.
So all these disparate projects -- (Laughter) -- are the result of a restlessness. They are a visceral response to the businesses and curators who work hard to oversimplify my beliefs and my community, and the only way to beat their machine is to play by different rules. We must fight with an inventive approach. With the trust, with the access, with the love that only we can bring, we must unapologetically reclaim our beliefs in every moving image, in every cut of meat, because if we whitewash our stories for the sake of mass appeal, not only will we fail, but we will be trumped by those with more money and more resources to tell our stories. But the call for creative courage is not for novelty or relevance. It is simply because our communities are so damn unique and so damn beautiful. They demand us to find uncompromising ways to be acknowledged and respected. Thank you. (Applause)
