#Be Like Ralph

(I Wanna) Be Like Ralph

Last week, Democratic Senator Cory Booker made headlines when spoke on the Senate floor for 25 hours and five minutes non-stop, in an act of protest. 

“Tonight, I rise with the intention of getting in some good trouble,” he said in his opening remarks. “ I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able. I rise tonight because I believe, sincerely, that our country is in crisis.” 

Booker was not trying to stop legislation. This was an act of protest. So, what did Booker say? That’s the problem. Most people can’t tell you. They can tell you that he didn’t use the bathroom. And that his record broke the record held by Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1957 filibuster against civil rights. But that’s about it.

That’s because Booker neglected to talk about maybe one of the most troublesome developments since Trump took office: the arrests and deportation of student activists. 

To be exact, in 25 hours and 5 minutes, he mentioned it only once. In 74 pages of Congressional records, he mentioned Rumeysa Ozturk’s name– the Tufts University graduate student who was taken off the street by ICE– one time. And that was it. No one else was named. Not Mahmoud Khalil, or Alireza Daroudi, or Yunseoh Chung, or Rasha Alawieh, or Badar Khan Suri, or Ranjani Srinivasan, or Momodou Tal, or the dozens of others who have had their student visas revoked for merely protesting. 

Another topic he failed to mention: Gaza. Twenty-five hours and 5 minutes and Gaza didn’t make the cut. 

Maybe that’s because in December, Booker welcomed Yoav Gallant, the former Israeli Defense Minister, who has been indicted by the ICC for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

A few days after the talk-a-thon, we watched crowds of people turn up across the country for the HANDS OFF protest. I walked with the crowd in New York City for a few blocks. I looked for signs, but spotted few. Where were the signs for Rumeysa? For Mahmoud? For Gaza? For an end to wars? 

What exactly is this protest about? Hands off WHAT? If we can’t say hands off our students, hands off our freedoms, then what were we doing there?

The arrest of Rumeysa and Mahmoud and Yunseoh and Rasha and Ranjani has been devastating for so many Arab and Muslim Americans in particular. In Rumeysa and Mahmoud and the rest, we see our community. We see our friends. Our families. 

So, this week I’ve been wondering, what do we need to hear at this moment? What should protest look like now? I’ve been thinking about how these students have paid a high price for speaking their truth. Real protest usually has repercussions. There’s so much we need to learn from them. We should all know each of their stories. Booker could have told us more about them. I mean, he had the time. 

The truth is Arab Americans have few politicians who we truly admire. For a few years, many of us looked up to Bernie Sanders. Amo (Uncle) Bernie. We even had t-shirts. His voice was clear. Unwavering. He spoke up for the working class, and against capitalistic greed. He accepted us into the political fold. 

But then Israel unleashed havoc on the people of Gaza, and he failed to call for a cease-fire. In any other conflict, politicians would have demanded a ceasefire. They would have asked for an end to the killing. But not for Palestine. Palestinian lives do not matter. He called for a ceasefire eleven months too late.

Arab Americans exist on the outskirts of this country’s political dialogue. What does it mean when your group is shunned by both parties? Maybe it means we lack the real power to effect real change. Maybe it means that we are put in positions where we have to explain ourselves. (SEE LAST YEAR’S POST ABOUT HOW I’M NOT DOING THAT ANYMORE.) Maybe we are amongst the most vulnerable.

But, maybe, it also means that because we are not beholden to any group, we might have a different take on things. A different outlook, a birds-eye view of what is happening around us. When you don’t belong, maybe you can see more clearly what’s wrong. 

Some of the people I admire the most are Arab Americans. I admire these individuals because they consistently speak truth to power, or tell our stories, even at their own detriment. Many have spent their life in service–to a greater community and/or a greater cause. Some of them understand the meaning of freedom viscerally because they grew up in countries where freedom wasn’t a given. Others understand that corruption flourishes more easily in unfree societies. 

Booker is right. Our country is in crisis. But we need more than showmanship. We need depth. We need people with values, who are consistent and don’t waver in the face of political or financial pressure.  We need leaders and activists who don’t only speak. They do. Leaders whose actions are consistent with their words. For me, these are some Arab Americans I admire. I think we can learn a lot from them. 

1. Maher Hathout – This one isn’t fair because most people won’t be able to grab a book and learn about Maher Hathout. He was a Muslim leader in Los Angeles who was ahead of his time. He knew the value of freedom because he had spent time in Egypt’s prisons in his youth. He worked and led from his values. He believed in freedom deeply– for everyone. And he spoke his truth, whether in the presence of presidents or regular people. And, maybe most importantly, he believed in the power of new generations to lead. Few Muslim leaders tell younger people they know what they’re doing. But he did just that. 

2. Helen Thomas – As a journalist, I’ve always admired the Arab American journalist who covered ten US administrations. She spoke openly on the topic of Palestine. An article in the Christian Science Monitor described her as “outspoken, blunt, demanding, forceful and unrelenting. Not only does she command respect from the highest power in the US, her reputation is known worldwide. Nothing speaks to her legend more than when USA Today Founder Al Neuharth had an interview with Cuba’s Fidel Castro. He asked the Cuban leader what the difference was between Cuba’s democracy and the U.S.’s democracy. Castro responded, ‘ I don’t have to answer questions from Helen Thomas.’” 

3. Mona Hanna-Atisha – A pediatrician and public health advocate whose research exposed the Flint Water Crisis. She single-handedly used her research to prove that the water in Flint, Michigan was poisoning children. She faced a brutal backlash for her findings. 

4. Edward Said’s book Orientalism was life-changing for me. As an academic, he synthesized the way the West “othered” the Arab and the Muslim world. And he spoke on the topic of Palestine with such force and clarity. I wanted to attend Columbia because of him.  

5. Maysoun Zayed, a comedian and disability activist. I first saw Maysoun in a comedy show after September 11, 2001. Ever since, she has used comedy to make people laugh and speak truth to power. She is fierce and funny and just a bad-ass Palestinian woman.

6. Noura Erakat is a dogged lawyer and civil rights activist. She’s smart and just impressive. When I want to understand a legal matter, I always say, what does Noura say about this? 

7. Mo Amer healed us this year with season two of Mo. In an industry that has not been kind to Arabs, Muslims, and especially Palestinians, he created one of the most honest and real shows I’ve ever seen on television. I laughed and cried and laughed again and cried. But, most of all, I felt completely seen. He told the story of Palestinian and Arab Americans in all our beauty and pain. 

8. Ayman Mohyeldin is an American journalist, anchor and political commentator based in New York for MSNBC. Many people don’t understand the limitations placed on journalists in news organizations– the words you have to use because of the organization’s style guide. He’s doing an amazing job as an Arab American in a mainstream news outlet, bringing out stories that would normally not be covered. 

9. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, a Palestinian poet who won the National Book Award last year. Her poetry is powerful and her speech was everything.

10. Ralph Nader…ahhh, what can I say about Ralph Nader. I think we need to start a hashtag. #I want to be like Ralph…

I want to end with Ralph Nader because few people have a resume like Ralph’s. Many people know that he was a presidential candidate for the Green Party. Last November, many Arab Americans voted for Jill Stein. I don’t blame them. We didn’t have good options. And Jill Stein was saying all the right things when it came to Gaza. 

But Stein is no Ralph. Running for president is not what makes someone great. What they do before and after is what makes them great. Ralph’s accomplishments are too numerous to list. He is most known for his 1964 book Unsafe at Any Speed, which criticized the automotive industry and helped lead to the passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966. He set up a band of law students that the press dubbed “Nader’s Raiders” to evaluate and revamp the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In 1971, he founded the watchdog group Public Citizen in order to engage in public interest lobbying and activism. 

But my favorite fact about Nader is that when he was a law student at Harvard, he would often skip out on his classes and “hitchhike across the U.S. to engage in field research on Native American issues and migrant worker rights.” He has a curiosity and interest in regular people and the underserved. And then he did something about it.

Now, at the age of 91, he has been feverishly writing on his blog, asking people to wake up, to speak up, to do something, with the same urgency he’s had his entire his life. Check it his blog here.

For Arab American Heritage Month, I say we should all try to #BELIKERALPH

I Will Not EXPLAIN

30 Days of Arab Voices 2024

For years, I’ve been explaining. 

As a child, I explained out of necessity. Instinctively. 

Every day…..often multiple times a day. 

“What are you eating? What’s hummus? Looks weird.”

Or..”what do you mean you’re fasting? Are you sure that’s healthy?”

Or, “why can’t you spend the night?” 

Or, “do Muslims have to wear that thing on their head?”  

I explained. Carefully. Politely. As if it was my job. 

I was in my junior year of high school when I “explained” my world, for the first time, to a large group. The entire school, in fact. It started as an English assignment. I presented on the topic of “Muslim Representation in the Media.” I pulled together headlines and statistics; talked about who Muslims were and what we looked like. And then, I showed a scene from a popular movie at the time called “Not Without My Daughter,” about a loving, Iranian father who turns into a child abducting fundamentalist as soon as he returns to Iran to visit his family. My English teacher at the time watched in amazement. I had presented something that, to me, was obvious. Every day, I noticed how Muslims and Arabs were being depicted in the news or in the movies because it was so far from my own lived experience. And it was everywhere. The racist tropes of the 1980s and 1990s were not subtle. 

When I finished the presentation, I knew I had not only aced the assignment, I knew I had schooled my teacher. I was making an impact, shaping a mind. She immediately asked if I could give the same presentation to the entire school. Of course I could. That was my job. Or so I believed.

I eventually became a journalist because I wanted to help people in the U.S. understand my world. My different worlds.

I grew up as the daughter of Syrian immigrants to the U.S. At first, our community was made up of mostly Syrian families. But as we grew older and interacted with the world outside our communities– and as my parents fielded our questions about our hyphenated world – our communities expanded and changed. Our mostly Syrian community soon came to include Lebanese and Palestinian families and activists. My parents came from Shi’a families from Damascus (there are only a handful of those in the first place.) So when we asked questions about Sunni and Shi’a, my mother took us on a tour of mosques to meet different Muslim groups. Soon, we added an Iraqi, Shi’a community to our mix. One of my best friends, when I was a kid, came from that community.

But we didn’t settle there. New questions and new phases in life led us to explore even further. Soon, we made decisions, as a family, about which groups we wanted to spend more time with. Eventually, we landed in a mosque that felt perfect for us. It didn’t ascribe to any sects of schools of thought. They were Muslim, not Sunni or Shi’a. It was ethnically diverse. Muslim women were leaders. And they identified as both Muslim AND American. This mosque was one of the first mosques I ever encountered to proudly embrace its Americanness. 

Throughout all these phases, politics was never optional. My identity was political. It felt like a prerequisite to being Arab and Muslim in America. When your identity and faith are described as part of the “axis of evil,” you have no choice. Whether you liked it or not. 

Over time, the leaders of the mosque became role-models for me. Whenever anything happened in the news that had to do with Muslims, or Arabs, it was the leaders of my mosque that were on local or even National television fielding people’s questions. Salman Rushdie. The Gulf War. The first and second intifadas. The downing of an airline over Lockerbie, Scotland. Racist caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and death threats. September 11. The war in Iraq. And on and on. And, always, Palestine. They appeared on CNN, Fox News; they were quoted in major newspapers across the countries and wrote their own op-eds. At the time, I felt like at least we were being represented. They were filling the void. 

But it wasn’t until I met someone who would become one of my closest friends that I realized there was a community that I had not been exposed to growing up. A community that I had so much to learn from. The Black Muslim community. Black Muslims understood this country in a way we did not. They had lived it. They knew it went beyond explanations. They understood the systemic issue at hand. They understood it because it was their story, their lived experience. 

By being in community with my Black Muslim friends, by understanding the systemic racism that this country has been built upon, I began to understand that the storytelling we needed was not one of explaining. A colonized mind explains. A colonized mind tries to justify its existence. A colonized mind will never be able to tell an authentic story of resistance, because they're always speaking to an audience that starts with a different premise, a different set of facts, a different narrative. A premise where we must prove our self worth, our humanity. And that is not something that can be proved.

It took my friend constantly asking me why we responded to certain questions for me to completely understand this. You can not explain to those who want to silence and discredit your narrative. We have known this for decades. We have seen our acts of protest, our acts of resistance, our stories, our mere existence described as terrorism or anti-semitic or undemocratic or un-American.  

On Tuesday evening, the month of Ramadan came to an end. Every day during Ramadan, as I broke my fast with a single date, I thought about the people in Palestine and Yemen and Sudan and Congo whose hunger had not been alleviated at the end of the day. I struggled to sleep, every night, thinking about Gaza and and the genocide taking place in plain sight, with the full support of the U.S. government and so many people in this country. No explaining in the world can get people to understand that our lives matter. Our women and children matter. That our men matter. Our blood either matters or does not. To so many in this country, it does not. 

So I leave you with this poem. I am not a poet. But this poem came to me in those sleepless nights. This Ramadan, I reaffirmed something that I had learned many years ago, from my friend Intisar Rabb. I will no longer explain. It is not my job. I will be. I will resist. And I will tell my story, our story. Fully. For me. For us.

I will no longer explain.

I am the daughter of Syrian

Immigrants

Raised in Los Angeles

A world away

Far and between

Who will continue to dream

No

To Act

To Yearn

To work

For a better world

A better day.

But I will not explain. 

I am a we

A descendent of us

A movement

That will protect and nourish and raise

A collective whole

Above the noise and clamor of hate and derision and greed 

and lies that tells us

We do not matter. 

That tell us

It is all about the singular 

Me,

pulled up by some imagined boot straps

To succeed 

In a race

That we want no part of,

With empty letters

That fill resumes

Only to ignore 

Our Sick

Our Elderly

Our Bereft

The Weak

So that 

In the end

We walk

Alone.

I am a part of us

That will not sleep

That will not rest

Until every Black boy

Every Muslim girl

Every Latinx Afro Native son and daughter is safe

And sound

Asleep

In their bed

Their breath

Rising and falling

Like a sweet lullaby

That soothes 

The hearts

Of every mother and father

In every corner of these vast occupied

lands.

I will not explain 

Because 

I am not the sick one.

I am not the one who does not see.

              The one who does not want to see

Who does not hear

Who does not feel

The tears

The cries

The unseen images

And empty words

On deserted newscasts

I will not explain 

Or close my eyes 

To feel only the numbness of 

Shopping malls

And video games

The scrolling

Trolling

And ticktocking

Of cursory pundits and celebrity names.

I will not explain

To be put on the defensive

To prove

That we bleed

We love

We reel

We need to heal.

I will reflect

I will resist

I will reclaim

I will reframe.

I will stand 

I will be.

We are together

A whole

A single breath

Started by our ancestors

Our Tetas and Jiddos

Who shaped our stories

With love and hope and laughter

Who told us we will never be alone

As long as we know

Us.

As long as we know

Our Voices

We will be strong

As long as we know

Our Name

We will be loud

As long as we know

Our Legacy

We will be clear.

We will not have to say never again

Because we know never again

Is Now.

We know never again

Will be too late.

Because

We are more than an instant.
We are 

A continuation of a

A lineage

Of hope

Of pain 

Of love

That waxes and wanes with every birth pang and every last breath

In a line

That tells our story. 

My story. 

My line

That stretches from the gardens of Babylon to the deserts of Damascus and the hills of Lebanon and Los Angeles. 

My mother died on October 7

To join the other souls

That rose

Too early

Across the oceans and the seas

Awaiting us 

Above the darkness of this world.

I am my mother.

Her first and last breath.

That filled me

And shaped me

And showed me how

To resist

And be.

I will not explain.

I will feel 

With every Gazan

Mother

Father

Daughter

Son

Who left us

Too soon

To rise up

To say

Collectively

We are one

We are one

Inna ll’llah

Wa inna Ilayhi Raji'un.
To you we belong

And to you we will return

We are your light

Your love

Your community

That shines through the darkness.

We are one.

We are love.

I will not explain.