Hello, To my friends in the entertainment industry.
I know that many of you hate the policies of the current president as much as I do. Everything from his Deathcare bill, his beefed up American ICEs deportation force, and his climate change denial. Today, his Muslim travel ban goes into partial effect and this is why I need your help.
Unfamiliarity breeds fear. Many of the folks in 45’s beige crowds who cheer on the Muslim ban are folks that have never in their life met an actual Muslim. The beautiful thing about Los Angeles is that you get to see every single race, creed, color, orientation, and gender living their best (or worst) self. We aren’t afraid of the other because when you’re in a melting pot, there is no other, there is only US.
Every day I walk out of the building I manage and I say hello to my wonderful Muslim neighbors who are proud that they pay the rent 10 days early every single month. I walk next door and have a cup of coffee with Karim who literally works seven days a week, 10-12 hours a day to put food on the table and clothes on the back of himself, his wife and his 12-year-old daughter, Saba. Speaking of his daughter, she’s a proud Muslim girl who will be wearing her headscarf to events as she competes in the National Science Fair because she won the California State Science Fair earlier this year. A Muslim ban that affects Karim and his family is a ban that affects my family and me. And if it were to keep out a brilliant, growing mind like Saba’s it will affect you and your family. That is not okay.
My entertainment friends this is where you come in. Many of you write, produce, edit, act in, and direct television, movies, and digital content. In order for us to fight the Muslim Ban in our airports, we must first fight the Muslim Ban in our hearts and lives. My ask is that you start integrating more positive images of Muslims in your medium. I’m not asking for whole storylines about faith, it’s actually more powerful if being Muslim is just who they are and the stories are completely independent of their religion. Imagine the firefighter who gets up from her prayer mat before hopping on the truck to save the day or a Muslim nurse running around the hospital making sure the patients are okay, or maybe even a POTUS who happens to be Muslim that makes decisions about how to solve the challenges of our democracy. While the President seeks to otherize and demonize our Muslim brothers and sisters, I’m asking you to humanize them. If you don’t think Will and Grace nudged the needle on Marriage Equality or that President David Palmer on 24 help ease Middle America into President Obama, then you are giving short shrift to your craft.
My dream is that Saba wins the National Science Fair and stands in her hijab before the President’s orange, grinning face. I hope she looks around the West Wing and sees a place she can one-day work (or maybe even run). I hope she gets to tell The President about the Alzheimer’s treatments she’s been testing that got her to the White House. And I hope for all of our sakes that he actually listens and maybe uses some of them on himself.