Asra Nomani@AsraNomani
Hi there @SusanSarandon, this is my mom, my dad and me on the rail trail in Morgantown, West by God Virginia. Let me tell you what it means to be Muslim in America.
First, your backstory: At an anti-Israel protest in NYC, you just said, "There are a lot of people that are afraid, that are afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country.”
Let me give you “a taste” of what it “feels like” to be a Muslim in America:
✅🇺🇸 My dad didn’t have to become a second-class indentured servant to one of the many tyrants of Muslim countries that use immigrants from India, like my family, as essential slaves. In 1975, after getting his PhD at Rutgers, he was about to go to Libya — a Muslim country — led by a Muslim, Moammar Qhadafi, to work like a servant with a PhD for a wealthy dictator…but then the phone rang one day and I picked it up…
✅🇺🇸 It was West Virginia University calling, and my dad got a job as an assistant professor of nutrition. He got rejected first for tenure but being Muslim in America meant he got a right like everybody got — his right to appeal and guess what? He won and he became a full professor. That’s what it means to be Muslim in America. You get your full rights, like @DrZuhdiJasser has wished for his family in the Muslim nation of Syria, where a Muslim dictator destroys the lives of Muslims.
✅🇺🇸 My mom? Being Muslim in America meant she got to live FREE with the wind in her hair, like @AlinejadMasih fights for women in the Muslim nation of Iran to be able to enjoy.
✅🇺🇸 And what did living free mean for my mom as a Muslim in America? It meant in 1981 she got to start a business on High Street in downtown Morgantown, called Ain’s International. That is something that @miss9afi wished women could have had the right to do in the Muslim nation of Saudi Arabia. But guess what? That entrepreneurship and financial independence is denied Muslim women in so many Muslim countries.
✅🇺🇸 That summer my mom started her business, I got on a plane at Pittsburgh airport for Tahlequah, Oklahama, and I went away from home at 16 for a National Science Foundation camp — without a male chaperone, a right denied Muslim women and girls in Saudi for so long.
✅🇺🇸 In another “taste” of being Muslim in America? My family got a pathway to citizenship. You think the Muslim dictatorship of Qatar allows a pathway to citizenship for Muslim slaves, servants or Palestinian Muslims? Hell no. The Muslim Al-Thani family just buys citizenship for Muslim soccer stars from countries in Africa to steal World Cup wins. But otherwise it treats non-Qatari Muslims like slaves. America? My family waited, took the test, studied the constitution and we are citizens — hallelujah!
✅🇺🇸 I’m going to fast forward because this is just a “taste” of what it means to be Muslim in America. In 2002, I fled Pakistan with a souvenir that could have gotten me imprisoned or killed: a baby growing inside of me, a wedding ring not upon my hand. Sharia law makes sex out of marriage a crime in Muslim countries like Pakistan. My body? The mullah’s tyranny. And even dare to be atheist like @YasMohammedxx? It’s also a crime punishable by death — in Muslim countries but not in America!
✅🇺🇸 Where do you think I came to give birth to my baby in safety and security, without shame? West by God Virginia in the United States of America — where we enjoy equal rights as Muslim AmeriCANs, not AmeriCANTs.
This is a “taste” of life for a Muslim family in America. Please don’t minimize the experience of Jewish Americans by sanitizing the hell that it is for Muslims living in Muslim countries and vilifying America for the life — and freedoms — she offers Muslims like my family. Go, live like a Muslim woman in a Muslim country.
You will come back to America and kiss the land beneath your feet. 🇺🇸
