Today, a new friend I made this summer asked me a rather pointed question: “How much danger do you think you are in for speaking out, organizing and protesting?” I just started laughing and blurted out, “Oh, probably a lot.”
Then, I got absolutely serious and delivered the answer that I have been holding onto in my heart for a while: “Listen, one of the many reasons I moved here as a young adult is for First Amendment rights. I decided a while back that I have to be prepared to die on that hill.”
My friend followed up with, “Don’t you think it would be better for you to lay low for a while and do things, you know, quietly, in the background?”
For sure. It absolutely would be. Maybe, if I had held on to my local public administration job and my title of respectability and did not start an absolutely radical blog, maybe, just maybe, I could travel out of the country to see my family and return without trouble.
But those of us who grew up under authoritarian regimes and those who have studied them in depth know for a fact that some people have to stick their necks out at the first sign of threat and danger to all of us.
I’ve written a lot about doom and gloom in these last few months, so today, I would like to highlight the people who inspire me to keep pushing, keep saying the uncomfortable truths.
Zohran Mamdani
Zohran is a Democratic Socialist running for Mayor of New York. He surprised everyone by getting the most votes in NYC’s mayoral primary.
Let’s review some of the attacks against Zohran, shall we…
It started with a statement from Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee.
On June 30, Texas Republican Representative Brandon Gill told Mamdani to “go back to the Third World” in response to a video of him eating with his hands.
“Civilized people in America don't eat like this,” Gill Xitted (is that the right verb conjunction for the platform formerly known as Twitter?). “If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World.”
This one struck a chord with many of us from the Global South who happen to live in the United States. It’s kind of hilarious, when you take the sheer bigotry out of it, because the people of this country LOOOOVE to EAT with THEIR HANDS.
I was 16 years old in a wealthy suburb of Kansas City as an exchange student, when fellow teens asked me all sorts of silly questions such as, “Do your people eat on the floor with your hands?” I don’t know, Chad, do your people love to eat pizza, fried chicken, ribs with their hands, not even so much with a freaking a paper towel and just wipe their hands on their unwashed jeans?
I’m going to be sensitive and qualify this sentence with “not all Americans,” but I have never observed a majority of the population that is worse than Americans about table manners. Really. I’m so sorry to be the one to break this one to you–the fork is not a cutting device. That is what the knife is for.
You can gloat all you want about your chopstick game, but if you do not know how to use a fork and a knife properly, please kindly sit down and stop being a bigot.
Sorry, not sorry, for that tirade on table manners. Back to Zohran…
By July 1, as reported by The Guardian, it escalated to this: “The [administration] has raised the possibility of stripping Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic mayoral candidate for New York City, of his US citizenship as part of a crackdown against foreign-born citizens convicted of certain offences.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, appeared to pave the way for an investigation into Mamdani’s status after Andy Ogles, a rightwing Republican representative for Tennessee, called for his citizenship to be revoked on the grounds that he may have concealed his support for “terrorism” during the naturalization process.”
What was Zohran’s answer to all of this? Golden, of course.
“The President of the United States just threatened to have me arrested, stripped of my citizenship, put in a detention camp and deported. Not because I have broken any law but because I will refuse to let Ice terrorize our city,” he wrote.
He continued: “His statements don’t just represent an attack on our democracy but an attempt to send a message to every New Yorker who refuses to hide in the shadows: if you speak up, they will come for you. We will not accept this intimidation.”
That is a Profile in Courage. Calling out the bullying and the intimidation tactics for what they are and promising not to back down.
Mahmoud Khalil
Khalil was the first one to be “disappeared” for exercising his First Amendment rights on the Columbia University campus. He spent more than 100 days in a Louisiana Gulag and missed the birth of his first child Deen.
On June 21, ordering Khalil’s immediate release, federal judge Michael Farbiarz of Newark, New Jersey, found that the government had failed to provide evidence that the graduate was a flight risk or danger to the public. “[He] is not a danger to the community,” Farbiarz ruled. “Period, full stop.”
The judge also ruled that punishing someone over a civil immigration matter by detaining them was unconstitutional.
And what did Khalil do when he came out of illegal detention? He went right back to Columbia to protest. Then he sued the government.
Khalil told the AP that the goal of his legal claim is to send a message that he will not be intimidated into silence.
“They are abusing their power because they think they are untouchable,” Khalil said. “Unless they feel there is some sort of accountability, it will continue to go unchecked.”
Khalil said he plans to share any settlement money with others targeted in Trump’s “failed” effort to suppress pro-Palestinian speech. In lieu of a settlement, he would also accept an official apology and changes to the administration’s deportation policies.
Golden, again.
Everyone who has been on the streets protesting since February 5.
This one goes out to all of you, the hundreds and thousands of you in Kansas, and the hundreds of thousands and millions of you, who have chosen against all odds to come out to the streets to say, “None of this is OK.”
May all the goddesses and the faeries in the gardens bless you. I know so many folks, who are not at all in one of the at-risk groups, who keep telling me over and over, “I don’t know, it seems like a trap… what if I go out to a protest and they arrest me or worse?” Well, Chad, I’m glad you are choosing your safety over everyone else’s. Hate to remind you of the old poem, “First they came for…” But you do you.
No Kings Day was an absolutely phenomenal event. I’m sorry if you missed it.
Here in the Sunflower State, there were at least 22 events. But, according to The Old Gray Lady, none.
This week is the week of “Good Trouble Lives On” commemorative events in honor of the late John Lewis. We had an amazing turnout for it in my sleepy little college town in the Heartland.
We are going to be at the Capitol in Topeka tomorrow.
Resist like our lives depend on it. They do.
I stand with you on that hill.
Fight like hell and never give up!