{"id":20659,"date":"2015-11-19T08:10:17","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T14:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=20659"},"modified":"2015-11-19T08:10:17","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T14:10:17","slug":"palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinian MMA brothers fight negative stereotypes (Video)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Michael Bacos<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"dropcap\">Askar Askar and his brother Asef were teenagers when they came to the United States from Palestine in 2001 to\u00a0reunite with their father.<\/p>\n<p>They were bullied in school because of their ethnicity. So Askar&#8217;s dad enrolled him in tae kwon do in Chicago, while Asef decided to bulk up by lifting weights until he decided to take a tae kwon do class, too.<\/p>\n<p>Then one day, when walking home from the class, they stumbled across an LA Boxing gym and decided to take up MMA.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We went in and got our asses whooped the first day,&#8221; said Askar. &#8220;It was a straight-six-month\u00a0period of getting destroyed.&#8221;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Palestinian MMA Brothers\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/146073123?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">Askar and Asef Askar talk about how they got into MMA and how they hope to destroy the negative stereotypes cast on Arabs and Muslims. (Michael Bacos\/Medill)<\/div>\n<p>The brothers decided to quit, but one of the coaches berated them, inspiring them to give it another shot.<\/p>\n<p>Years later, they have moved on from beating bullies.<\/p>\n<p>Now, they are moving into the professional ranks.<\/p>\n<p>Askar racked up a\u00a07-2 record in the amateur MMA ranks and won his first professional fight Saturday in Michigan City, Indiana. On the same card, Asef improved to 4-0 as an amateur and retained his\u00a0Hoosier Fight Club featherweight title.<\/p>\n<p>Being Palestinian, Asef said, is great preparation for MMA.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Palestinians go through wars\u00a0everyday,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We&#8217;re some of the toughest people out there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Askar has experienced his share of racism during his first few fights for Hoosier Fight Club.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Every time I walked out, I got booed,&#8221; said Askar. &#8220;You get that one guy that&#8217;s pretty racist and starts yelling, spitting and being judgmental against us. The biggest thing is, you ignore it and prove them wrong in the cage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just because you think a guy with a long beard, long hair and a turban blows up stuff doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s all of them. I want to prove everyone who thinks we&#8217;re a terrorist wrong.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Palestinian community in Chicago has thrown its support behind the Askar brothers &#8211;including an estimated 500-1,000 \u00a0fans at their fights in Indiana.<\/p>\n<p>They hope to become so popular that\u00a0Palestinians will fly to the States to watch them fight.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sports helps you fit into American culture,&#8221; says Asef. &#8220;It shows that just because we&#8217;re Arab, we&#8217;re doing what everyone else is doing. It&#8217;s not like we stick to one thing because we&#8217;re from a certain culture or background.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">Askar Askar (left) and his brother Asef spar at Roufusport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Michael Bacos\/Medill)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Michael Bacos Askar Askar and his brother Asef were teenagers when they came to the United States from Palestine in 2001 to\u00a0reunite with their father. They were bullied in school because of their ethnicity. So Askar&#8217;s dad enrolled him in tae kwon do in Chicago, while Asef decided to bulk up by lifting weights [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":20660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[452,509,31],"tags":[192],"class_list":["post-20659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beyond-chicago","category-fall-2015","category-sports","tag-promo"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Palestinian MMA brothers fight negative stereotypes (Video) - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Palestinian MMA brothers fight negative stereotypes (Video) - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Michael Bacos Askar Askar and his brother Asef were teenagers when they came to the United States from Palestine in 2001 to\u00a0reunite with their father. They were bullied in school because of their ethnicity. So Askar&#8217;s dad enrolled him in tae kwon do in Chicago, while Asef decided to bulk up by lifting weights [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-11-19T14:10:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/11\/Palestine.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"michaelbacos\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"michaelbacos\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/\",\"name\":\"Palestinian MMA brothers fight negative stereotypes (Video) - Medill Reports Chicago\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/11\/Palestine.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-19T14:10:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#\/schema\/person\/6fbc0ea39a7b6828fc3c1cd056fdbd8b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/11\/Palestine.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/11\/Palestine.jpg\",\"width\":960,\"height\":720,\"caption\":\"Askar Askar (left) and his brother Asef spar at Roufusport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Michael Bacos\/Medill)\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Palestinian MMA brothers fight negative stereotypes (Video)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/\",\"name\":\"Medill Reports Chicago\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#\/schema\/person\/6fbc0ea39a7b6828fc3c1cd056fdbd8b\",\"name\":\"michaelbacos\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa7331b8921a171c40f5e9beae04554eee6a7cb8feaf779058a8868ab84b3054?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa7331b8921a171c40f5e9beae04554eee6a7cb8feaf779058a8868ab84b3054?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"michaelbacos\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/author\/michaelbacos\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Palestinian MMA brothers fight negative stereotypes (Video) - Medill Reports Chicago","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Palestinian MMA brothers fight negative stereotypes (Video) - Medill Reports Chicago","og_description":"By Michael Bacos Askar Askar and his brother Asef were teenagers when they came to the United States from Palestine in 2001 to\u00a0reunite with their father. They were bullied in school because of their ethnicity. So Askar&#8217;s dad enrolled him in tae kwon do in Chicago, while Asef decided to bulk up by lifting weights [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/","og_site_name":"Medill Reports Chicago","article_published_time":"2015-11-19T14:10:17+00:00","og_image":[{"width":960,"height":720,"url":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/11\/Palestine.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"michaelbacos","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"michaelbacos","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/","url":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/","name":"Palestinian MMA brothers fight negative stereotypes (Video) - Medill Reports Chicago","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/11\/Palestine.jpg","datePublished":"2015-11-19T14:10:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#\/schema\/person\/6fbc0ea39a7b6828fc3c1cd056fdbd8b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/11\/Palestine.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/11\/Palestine.jpg","width":960,"height":720,"caption":"Askar Askar (left) and his brother Asef spar at Roufusport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Michael Bacos\/Medill)"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/palestinian-mma-brothers-fight-negative-stereotypes-video\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Palestinian MMA brothers fight negative stereotypes (Video)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#website","url":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/","name":"Medill Reports Chicago","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#\/schema\/person\/6fbc0ea39a7b6828fc3c1cd056fdbd8b","name":"michaelbacos","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa7331b8921a171c40f5e9beae04554eee6a7cb8feaf779058a8868ab84b3054?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fa7331b8921a171c40f5e9beae04554eee6a7cb8feaf779058a8868ab84b3054?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"michaelbacos"},"url":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/author\/michaelbacos\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}