Aber Kawa (Photo by David Pastor for Feet in Two Worlds)
While Donald Trump’s Islamophobic remarks may have prompted many Muslims to plan to vote this year, it’s not clear to some community activists that Hillary Clinton offers an especially attractive alternative. “I don’t think Muslim voters are extremely happy with either candidate,” Aber Kawas, youth organizer for the Arab-American Association of New York (AAANY) told David Pastor and Rachael Bongiorno of Feet in Two Worlds.
“Hillary Clinton has supported foreign policy decisions that have been very detrimental to the Middle East and countries where they have Muslim majorities,” Kawas adds. “During the Obama administration there were still wars continuing, there were still drone killings.”
Kawas believes voting is a way to help what she describes as an “overly marginalized” Arab community in South Brooklyn. “We want to represent the issues that are affecting our communities, [and at the same time] hold politicians accountable to what they are saying and to what they are not doing for communities.”
“When one candidate is more open about it and less politically correct, it just shows how disrespected we can be as a community. And how little dignity anyone holds for us. And so it kind of pushes us to have to strive for our own sources of dignity,” she adds.
That’s one of the reasons, Kawas argues, that it’s important for the Muslim and Arab communities to look at local and state election races, and focus on how those candidates and their policies can impact the lives of people who live in the neighborhood – which in Kawas’ case is Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
“These local fights are important,” Kawas says. “I care a lot about the policing that’s going on in this city, specifically as a Muslim dealing with a high population of kids who are stopped and frisked, or dealing with surveillance. Immigration is also a huge issue for our community in New York City because a lot of people are coming in as refugees, and there’s also wage reform.”
Go to Feet in Two Worlds to read about the trauma and hate crimes of a post-9/11 world that Kawas describes, and to read her views on social justice movements and how they can connect different marginalized communities.