Today a video (see below) started circulating of a woman, in the Reston, VA Trader Joes, spouting hate and unfiltered racist comments to the Muslim woman behind her in line. When I watched the video, I was immediately brought back to the many grocery store encounters my family had with random micro-aggressions and hate speech.
It’s encounters like this that make me so excited to run for office as a religious minority. I am excited to be framed as a a “Child of the Resistance” and described as “the spirit of what is driving the Democratic Party forward right now”. I am the antitheses of Donald Trump as a progressive Muslim-Jewish Arab American woman.
In my district, VA 67, Jim Lemunyon, a typical Republican has held the Delegate seat since 2009. He has voted for open discrimination policies, he is pro-school vouchers, and is against a woman’s right to choose.
We need to fight back as Democrats but we also need to fight back with the right candidates. Now is the time for minority Americans to be on the ballot. We need people of different races, genders, sexual orientations, and ages to show that Democrats are diverse and grassroots. We must show the right that we are voting, engaged, and standing strong.
