It’s primary day, August 2017 – The scene is Wayne County Community College, Detroit, Michigan. I am one of many volunteers at the polls with my buddy, a Jewish political enthusiast from Oak Park.
There we stand at the polls, 6 in the morning, ready to motivate and persuade Election Day voters to vote for our candidate. I won’t go into details, as it relates to who we were campaigning on behalf of, but we were there on the front line and ready to take on the task of a long election day that began for us with a breakfast stop at White Castle to grab a 30 cheeseburger crave case.
Right out of the gate, the voting machines began to malfunction, causing speculation and hysteria amongst the voters. My Buddy Mike and I caught in the middle of this inner city voting crisis looked on helplessly while trying our best to comfort voters and reassure them that their right to participate in the political process would not be stolen from them - just temporarily delayed.
To add to the tension, every major news crew had begun to descend upon this mini crisis. Every direction I turned there was a reporter and boom microphone over my head trying to get the inside scoop. I did the best that I could do with bringing exactly what we were experiencing as well as the backlash to the people of metro Detroit.
Still to this day I don’t know what drew the reporters to me. Hell, I was just an election day volunteer. I guess I looked engaged and knowledgeable about what was going on (sarcastically).
Because of that, for the rest of the day every “special” person who visited that poll made a point to stop over and talk to me about the chaotic events of that morning. One of those special people was a gentleman that I had met a few weeks prior to the election named Abdul El-Sayed.
Abdul was at that time a candidate for Governor of the state of Michigan. Abdul and I had spoken at the United Auto Workers Cook-Out at Belle Isle in Detroit Michigan; He spoke on behalf of his campaign and by chance the candidate that I was volunteering for could not make it so I spoke on her behalf. Immediately Abdul came and I greeted him with the greeting of his native language, “Asalaam Alakum” and he replied, “Walakum Asalaam”. We briefly spoke about the UAW Cook Out mini-showdown and then the “politics of that day” began.
Abdul began to tell me how good of job I had done speaking on behalf of my candidate at the UAW’s Cook-Out, and went on to say in so many words that I should reconsider my allegiance to my candidate because she left me high and dry.
I leaned in to hear more (detecting him laying it on thick). He then went on to extend an invitation to jump ship to his campaign, to which I asked (for the sake of argument), “why are you a better candidate than the one I had already been working for?” To which he gave a very impressive studious response. I paused for a moment as I reluctantly peeled back the novice campaign volunteer persona.
After a moment of trying to find the most politically correct way to say it I just told him: “Abdul, you’re a really great guy but there will be plenty of people throughout this very ‘red’ state that are going to hold your Islamic/Arabic background against you”. I went on to say, “that you’re over-qualified, you’re a great speaker, your handsome, but unfortunately we have a lot of work to do as it relates to educating our conservative/traditional counter-parts about the true peaceful Islam; the loving and nurturing face of Islam”.
Cultural bias is unfortunate, but it is very real. And considering our good brother Abdul El-Sayed is running in a state that’s dominated by individuals who reference the Fox News network as canonical law, saying that he is fighting an uphill battle in this gubernatorial race is an understatement.
Abdul El-Sayed, visibly upset by my statement, vowed to prove me wrong and bided me farewell as he continued to make his rounds talking to the other volunteers and voters.
As he walked away, a young reporter from the Associated Press — almost
spitting image of a young Jack Kennedy — walked up to me and asked to interview me about what the gubernatorial candidate and I had just discussed. Hoping I hadn’t just made a rising political-star angry I responded to the young JFK look-alike by saying, “strategically we can’t afford to gamble this election cycle away. The Republicans have a monster of a candidate that was practically groomed for this moment, and strategically it wouldn’t be wise to test the waters of western and northern Michigan right now with Islamophobia at an all-time high amongst ‘mainstream Americans’”.
The reporter asked my name and moved along with the candidate. Moments later as I was standing there, with my Jewish friend and a Caucasian female third party volunteer, I felt regretful but I also felt what I told him was to make him wiser and not to demean him ‘walahi’. After that exchange with Abdul, I realized how important his campaign really is to Arab and Muslim Americans across the country. I had to set aside political strategy to realize that during his campaign across the great ‘red’ state of Michigan he will shake hands and meet Michiganders who have never been exposed to Muslims. There is no better ambassador to knock down the stereotypes and prejudices against Muslim people than Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. Win, lose or draw, Abdul is a winner and the people of Michigan will be better off by seeing what a good Muslim really looks like via Abdul.