Be Nice (And Go Vote!)

Shehla: Hi, everyone. May peace be on you all, and welcome to another episode of my podcast. I'm A Muslim And That's Okay. My name is Shehla, and it's been another busy week. I mean, for me personally, again, lots of moving, cleaning, I went through that in my last episode. But, hey, this past Tuesday was super Tuesday. I hope everybody who had their primary election days of voting on Tuesday went out and voted. I did and did the whole sticker, picture selfie thing and put it up like, had four people like it. I don't have a lot of followers, but that's okay. 

Anyway, but yeah, I hope everybody went out and voted. And I think for us especially, I voted Democrat. I have for the past two elections. And it's important to go out and make your vote count. It doesn't matter if you're voting Republican or Democrat, I mean I guess it makes a difference. Now, that's a tricky thing with politics as it is now. I mean I have a lot of friends who are Democrat, but there are some who are also Republican and some who are neither. 

I remember in the 2016, they did vote third party and everybody has a different opinion about this and what was right, what was wrong. And what's right or wrong has become quite murky these days. And, again, it is the matter of what you believe in, what you want, and doing the right thing too, and sometimes when you make the Venn diagram, there isn’t a place where all three circles sort of intersect and that's where the problem I think really lies. I was just having this discussion with my friend online and with the primaries now over in some states, not in all states, one Democratic nominee has the clear lead and she disagreed that he should not have gotten the lead. It was not a matter of whether I greed with her or not. 

I think as a minority, especially as a religious minority and as a minority in the US, and I told her this, this is really hard place for us because-- and again I told her this as well. For us, all the nominees more or less are the same, and this will be an unpopular opinion, but the fact is. And my exact words to her were, "The pool was white," and for us as minorities it’s a matter of choosing which one will be the least awful to us, and that is the truth unfortunately as it is. And again a lot of people will disagree with this for different reasons, but I can tell you great amount of assurance for minorities and I can tell you in the Muslim community, there is an overarching real feel of this that who is it that will see us as people, not just people when our votes count, but people all the time? I mean, any nominee can hold as many rallies as they want and gather any amount of minorities as they want, but the fact is when all the elections are said done and over with, we do get pushed to the sidelines. 

And again, here's the thing, it's not as simple as nominees, politicians, etc, are evil, that’s not it. It is I think a matter of us as well as minorities, really raising our voices. If we want our rights, we do really need to be able to speak up about them and be really seen and heard and that also factors into it. It's all great to be attending rallies and making all the nice slogans, posters, campaigns and all of these things to support the person that you're really rallying behind. But the real job is, after all of this campaigning is over, after all of the elections are over, to really work hard to make sure that what we want to happen is known to our representative, so that is on us as minorities to really do, and I know I went on a whole, I guess rant over there, political rant, I know, I guess. The real feel that I felt with a lot of my friends online that there were a lot of people disgruntled, I mean, that's how it is. But I think sometimes when you are a majority, it's easy to not see the perspective. And again, I don't blame anybody for this. Please, I don't want anybody to feel that way, that they should feel bad about this. No, not at all. 

It's only natural, and I say this from a place when I was living in Pakistan that I was of the majority that I couldn't see the struggles of those that were minorities until I-- one of my best friends is from a religious minority in Pakistan and when I heard her struggles, that's when I realized that this is not okay, what's happening to her is not okay, her and her community is not okay. And I think that also falls on us as people who are minorities to really reach out to other people and you should tell our perspectives as well and to have our perspectives heard in a really meaningful way. 

In these situations, it's easy to become defensive. And again, with the rhetoric the way it is, there is a lot of political fires being lit on both sides, or as many sides as you want. And people are in a really inflamed state, and that's never a good thing, because what it does is it keeps us from really listening, really hearing the voices that need to be heard on all sides. Because I can see right now that America is really hurting. And this is not the first time I've expressed this. There are a lot of people who are hurting for a lot of different reasons, and most of all are the people who are really struggling financially. It doesn't matter what race, what religious background, what ethnicity they're from? There are a lot of people who are struggling financially in a lot of bad ways. And I really, really feel for their struggle because it shouldn't have to be this hard as it is now to really make ends meet. 

And one of the, I guess, social media pages I follow is Humans of New York, and just this morning, I read this story on the page of this dad and what he was saying that him and his, I forget-- I think it was his wife. They live in separate places, in separate apartments or separate living conditions and that he can't live with his son because they can't afford to be in one safe, secure place together. And that just broke my heart. He said that he's working as hard as he possibly can, and I see that in a lot of people. They are literally doing everything possible, multiple jobs and trying to get their college degrees. And college education being as expensive as it is, it's ridiculous, and student loan debt, all of this is such an immense, crushing burden on anybody. 

And I wouldn't be surprised if somebody has multiple addictions problems, mental health issues with all of these things. Again, I think I crossed into something that-- I mean mental health issues are not caused by these things, they are definitely compounded by it. And that is a factor when it comes to the overall wellbeing of our lives. 

In America, there is this concept of the American dream, but I-- and there was a time and I will delve deeper into this, into my next podcast when I'll go into a little bit of my own background and where I grew up. I know I was supposed to do it this week, but with this political discourse as it is right now, I think what I speak of is when my parents were in the US, they had immigrated, they were the first-generation immigrants from my family to the US. And they were living the American dream. And many people at that time were, I'm not saying everybody was, and there was definitely a lot of poverty, racial inequality then too, but now it is at a level that I don't think two generations of Americans has seen that kind of inequality and poverty and financial oppression, I think that's the word for it that we see right now, and it is heartbreaking that people who are struggling so hard, doing everything possible to make things work, still can't make things work, it is ridiculous. It really is that we live in a time that we have some of the most powerful technology in the palm of our hands, and yet we cannot provide financial security to our most vulnerable people. And this is the greatest injustice that exists right now that we see opulence, luxury, and aspirations sold to us in so many different ways and we're expected to reach for them, but here's the thing, how do you reach for something when your arms are being continuously pulled back by so many burdens? I think there is nothing, literally nothing that is more heartbreaking than that. 

And a lot of people could say that this condition is not something unique to the US, I would agree with them. I have lived in a developing country. And in Pakistan there is not-- even now a lot of people struggle with really abject poverty. But what scares me is, for me I see the US not just from the inside but also from the outside and I see the cracks. I think most people who have lived here and grown up here can't see it from an outsider's perspective. They can't see the system going wrong, but I have seen a system that is-- and I speak of living in Pakistan, and again, this might be a sensitive issue for those who live in Pakistan or who are from Pakistan but the fact is the system there has been broken for a while, and there are many reasons for it, I won't go into that. There are again lot of political nuances, lots of issues over there that need to be resolved. But what I'm saying is that when you've seen a broken system and when you come halfway across the world and you wish for something better for your children but you see the system falling apart in the same way, it's very scary. It really is. 

Okay, let me put this way, I have a lot of friends in the US, a lot of them that I hold very dear to me. I have a lot of friends in Pakistan. Again, a lot of people whom I hold very dear to me. And you wish for them to always be happy and hoping that they are given the best opportunities, and you don't want to see them struggle, so same for me in the US. And I see so many people that are becoming victims to a system that is slowly breaking down, and it's consuming them, taking them with it, and it really is, you don't want that happening, you really don't. And I'm fortunate enough that God has blessed us with financial stability and we are not struggling as a lot of people do in the US, but still it's not enough for us not to be struggling and say everything is okay because once the system starts breaking you can't avoid not falling into the holes that are created by it, especially as a minority, you can't and that's the truth of it. 

And what needs to happen in the US is that people need to stop. And, yes, we will never really agree with one another on everything, but I think what we need to stop and think about is, is that one issue, you can take any issue-- I guess not even going to go into that, but take any issue of choice, any issue, and really think hard that “Is that issue worth plunging the entire majority of people who are struggling so hard into further depths of financial insecurity?” Do we not care that much about each other that we are willing to bring the other person down over one issue that does not even affect a vast majority of our choices in life? 

And with that, I hope that I've left you all with some food for thought and you'll hear from me next week and I will go a little bit deeper into my background and where I come from. Until then, I hope that we can decide to be more civil and kinder to one another and make the right choices come November. May peace be on you all. 

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[Transcription provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]