Build with the People Who Love You
You don’t have to be white to constantly center whiteness. I’m not here for the “persuadables” — at least not in the traditional sense.
As a lawyer, persuading people is what we get trained to do. On a personal level, I enjoy the art to making an argument — being able to apply creativity to concepts is what drew me to law school.
But as someone who grew up 1. neither white nor Black and 2. feeling alienated in Muslim community spaces for not being Arab or Pakistani, certain spaces are not where I want to prioritize my time.
My parents followed the patterns of white flight out of Detroit into the suburbs of Michigan when I was a toddler. In third grade, a blond-haired, blue-eyed kid laughed at me for my accented pronunciation of “lobster,” and I later inadvertently caused a commotion when a classmate in elementary school found my last name in a dictionary.
Having “Islam” for a last name — a rather common surname for Bangladeshi Muslims — became far more loaded for me after 10th grade, when the Twin Towers fell as we sat watching during school, staring at the television in horror.
The elementary school incidents, pre-9/11, didn’t come from a mean place. I never felt bullied or targeted by my classmates; their interest stemmed from a place of curiosity. Instead, I felt othered — I was aware that I was not fully of this place. I was not average, and certainly not normal, but not special in a good way either. That feeling was there when I started attending an Arab and Pakistani immigrant-led Sunday School to learn my religion… and learned too about the 1971 Liberation War after I asked my parents why some Pakistani aunties were so hostile with me. The feeling of alienation was there when I went back to Bangladesh to visit family and found the shopkeepers raising prices even though I followed my mom’s instructions to stay silent and not speak a word while out in public. No matter my fluency in Bangla or my donning of a salwar kameez, I was still an American kid who stuck out just by the way I walked.
Today, while still feeling restless in the world in a fundamental way, I’m grateful for having been the odd one out for so much of my life. I now work to create spaces where people can feel like they belong, and I’m constantly connecting with others who have felt strange and foreign somewhere— which, ultimately, is almost everyone.
In the aftermath of 9/11 and now in the wake of the 2016 election, there’s renewed focus on having people from different backgrounds talk to each other so that they can learn about each other and stop all the hate.
The theory is that we’re all human and, therefore, if we spend enough time in dialogue with one another, we’ll get past the harmful stereotypes and see that we all have similar fears, hopes, and dreams for ourselves and our families, and then life will improve for those who are targeted.
The reality is that those who are hated, indiscriminately attacked, and specifically discriminated against are targeted not just by vigilantes and everyday people, but also by well-funded institutions and million-dollar industries, and by government policies entrenched in law.
We may all be human, but because of the element of power in a society that is shaped by systemic racism, some of us are dehumanized more frequently than others by the narratives we see in media and film and by the laws we see added to the books. This applies whether you are asking a Palestinian to dialogue with Israelis, a Muslim to dialogue with non-Muslims, an African American to dialogue with white Americans, or some combination of all of the above.
This tendency to treat certain groups of people as “vermin” or “pestilence” or some other “cancer” on society that needs to be “eradicated” from the face of the earth is not a new phenomenon. This is specific language that is chillingly timeless. People have committed genocide against other people on every continent, across all racial backgrounds, and throughout multiple generations because of differences in religion, ethnicity, or physical ability. It’s a distinctly human condition to not just stereotype others, but use political power to devalue some people more than others to the point of withholding resources, enslaving people as property, and — all too often — committing mass murder upon their communities.
Under one theory, the last stage of genocide is denial, with a push to rewrite history and downplay any atrocities. We see this often today, where people of all backgrounds reflect upon the history, purpose, or future of the United States while erasing the stories, lived experiences, and voices of African Americans and those indigenous to this land.
Today, advocacy messaging — whether for a political campaign or some other work— often means thinking strategically by grouping people into categories of the base, persuadables, and opposition. The base is the group that already agrees with you. The opposition isn’t going to change their minds. The idea is that the fight is really for the persuadables.
Given just how prevalent dehumanizing discourse about immigrants, Africans, African Americans, Muslims, women, and so on is in now-President Trump’s base (the phrase “cancer” on society above links to a piece about his former national security advisor), many have seen the election results as an urgent call to do things differently.
Thus, many news outlets, institutions, and groups of individuals have invested their energies into understanding the opposition and what’s appealing about them to the persuadables. Mainstream media have sought out and published profiles of Trump voters and neo-Nazis, offered column space to people who defend white nationalist media guests, and focused on this question of who is a Trump voter by examining what they believe in and outlining their demographic information.
Others have focused more specifically on the idea of gathering together and increasing dialogue with more of our neighbors, under the notion that the people who live near us are persuadables. Can we reach people in this group and get them to agree with us?
While dialogue with persuadables is an important tool that should not be discounted, it is often prioritized to the point where people who actually already like each other don’t get a chance to dialogue among themselves and build power together. Dialogue alone won’t change the system, and those in the base need more training and resources to get to that next step.
Someone should dialogue with the opposition and the persuadables.
But the base needs some love, too.
Because what often happens is that by seeking to appeal to the persuadables, we see politicians, organizations, and individuals adopt the language and framework of the persuadables — or even the opposition — to begin to shape the discussion. By seeking to understand the persuadables and meet them where they’re at, advocates center their concerns and work to find messengers that appeal to these individuals. Given the demographics, this means that people are centering the perspectives and concerns of whiteness.
In these discussions then, the all-powerful question format becomes the way of “opening up dialogue.” Are all Muslims terrorists? Does racism exist? Is Black Lives Matter a hate group? Tune in at 9 pm, where we’ll discuss…
These types of spaces are not for me. Moreover, they often fracture and alienate the base, and we see significant sums of money flowing into talking to the persuadables instead of going to support the base.
I’m deeply invested in the idea of getting to know one another. My passion to counter dehumanization and interrupt genocide is what drives me.
But I’m not interested in flattening myself in order to talk to a persuadable.
In the United States, even well-meaning people often flatten race discussions into a question of Black vs. white. In the Muslim space, race is often discussed in the context of Arab vs. Black.
Multiple panel discussions and other events in the last two decades have focused on representing the “base” — whether that’s been defined as “minorities,” “Democrats,” or “the resistance” — by splitting people into these specific categories:
- African American/Black
- Latino/Hispanic (also known as Latinx)
- Asian/Pacific Islander
- Middle Eastern/Muslim
- LGBTQ
- Women
- Youth
Where, as a millennial Asian Muslim woman, do I fit?
This isn’t a question of identity crisis issues— it’s a deeper question as to how white supremacist narratives about the world shape the way we understand even the fight for justice.
Who gets to represent women and youth? (White women and white young people? (Are millenials even youth anymore?)) Is there a separate “bucket” in these spaces for someone who is elderly? Or what about someone who is disabled? What about someone who is an African Muslim woman and dealing with the intersections of anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and anti-woman policies?
Are these “diverse” panels and events and media spotlights reinforcing white supremacist narratives about the world? When you have a line-up on stage where each person fits stereotypes of who is expected to be in that category, it erases the intersections. If we are intentionally doing this, who are we trying to appeal to by flattening these identities into neat silos with a single individual representing each group?
The coalition that’s needed to achieve a majority of engaged people who will vote, donate, and lobby for more fair policies for us all needs people of all different backgrounds. But that coalition cannot sustain itself if it does not serve the interests of its constituents. The coalition will fail when its leaders do not understand their own base.
And that is what is happening with so many liberal — and some progressive — spaces in the United States. People spend so much time, energy, and resources in trying to reach the persuadable that they fail to understand concepts around identity and goals for the person in their own base.
If someone isn’t listening and can’t understand who you are, how can they advocate for what you need? They’re not listening to hear your asks.
If someone doesn’t understand how racism or antisemitism or Islamophobia operates, how can they truly envision a world without that kind of hate? And how can they lead their base to that world as a reality?
By prioritizing the perspectives, concerns, and resources of the persuadables, many of today’s leaders — whether politicians, community leaders, non-profits, or otherwise — are actively losing people out of their base. Symbolism is prioritized over systemic change and the voices of the persuadables are taken more seriously than the voices of those in the base.
I want to build with the people who love me.
They don’t have to love my personality or my organization or my interpersonal skills. They do have to love the history and context that surrounds me. By doing that, by starting out with a rejection of the silos that erase people who don’t fit neatly into one category, they can start getting me to a world I want to be in.
You don’t have to be white to constantly center whiteness. So, most days, I simply get out of the way of people who consistently erase Muslims who are Latino, East Asian, biracial, and so on— their narratives, labor, and perspectives — in their rush to organize against the harmful effects of white supremacy. I don’t join in cheering for companies that feature a hijab-wearing model when Muslim women overseas are being exploited to make that company’s products. And I’m concerned more with making connections with others who are commonly erased than I am about “breaking stereotypes” about women like me.
In doing so, I suppose I’ve become someone’s persuadable when they assume I’m in their base.
As for the persuadables in our national climate today, they are more than welcome to listen to me, talk with me, and challenge me. I encourage them to bring their full selves — and to be well aware that I’m bringing my full self. That self can and will walk away if basic rules of respectful conduct can’t be met. Let the person with the best argument about the state of the world win by a jury of their peers.
In the meantime, I want to be in spaces that embrace complexity and look at issues of bigotry from a wider systemic lens. Thus, spaces that flatten racial justice organizing to “white vs. Black” aren’t really for me. Spaces that reduce Islamophobia to “Arab and Muslim” aren’t really for me either. Other spaces exist and I’m grateful for the people who embrace this rejection of silos.
It’s become especially clear to me over the past couple years that there are people out there who focus on winning over the people who harm them instead of building a new world with the people who already get them. I hope to link up more and more with people who are already in my camp and connect across the divisions that have kept us apart this long so we can cultivate solutions for a more just world.
