Bilal
@Bilalbay
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very personal account | opinions highly my own.
Joined August 2014
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💔
''Before the war I was beautiful.''
A young girl in Gaza says witnessing all the death and destruction in Israel’s war has made her ugly.
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Gaza is smaller than Detroit.
Israel has dropped more bombs on Gaza than the entirety used in the World War II bombings of Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined.
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Here's a fun fact:
Over the last 50 years, eighteen justices have been sworn into SCOTUS (from Harry Blackmun in 1970 to ACB in 2020). And none — not a single one — attended a public or state institution of higher education. Not for undergrad. Not for law school.
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This is what Barack Obama said to an Israeli audience, in Israel, about Palestinians in a 2013 speech. The point isn’t to glorify Obama’s record on this. It’s to point out that even the rhetorical empathy is at an all time low.
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I’m the former comms director for the city of Dearborn, home to ~60K Arab Americans (likely an undercount). I’ve never seen my community like this. The sense of betrayal is bone deep.
There will be a non-insignificant number of Arabs, Muslims, and young voters who sit out 2024 or vote for Cornel West instead of Joe Biden in states like Michigan and Georgia given his near one-sided support of Netanyahu’s far right government’s atrocities.
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Here's the breakdown I did for fun because this is my second ironic use of "fun":
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I cannot wait to vote for
@RashidaTlaib
again. She’s not just anti-war, she’s for racial, economic, and environmental justice and she holds the powerful to account. Get you a member of Congress who is rooted in community rather than corporations and lobbyists. Highly recommend!
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The right-wing just ousted an Ivy League president with relative ease. How do you think ordinary Arabs and Muslims feel about their free speech prospects. Of course, as always, that is the point.
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Here is the mayor’s statement from yesterday. “Nothing could have prepared us for the complete erasure of our voices and radio silence from those whom we elected to protect and represent us.”
Today, my constituents are watching in shock and horror as our federal and statewide leaders remain silently complicit in some of the most horrific war crimes our eyes have witnessed, funded by our tax dollars. Emboldened by a green light from the Biden administration, the
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Jewish activists are being thrown off the stairs by agents of the state and you all want the Senate to investigate 19 year old anthropology majors.
Let’s be clear: The US Capitol Police were violently responding to a peaceful protest.
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If you see Rashida as an extension of Hamas in your twisted imagination, it’s because you’re racist. Ideally, someone who loves you enough would’ve explained that to you by now.
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"When it comes to our air quality and rain and storms and climate crisis, there is no wall to segregate you away from that.” -
@RashidaTlaib
In Detroit, an epicenter of climate change in the Midwest, it must be asked: Who will bear the brunt of further inaction?
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😀: hi im Bilal
IRS: that’s great Mohamad, you owe us 25%
🥸: hi im Bilal, inc.
IRS: right this way sir
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I feel like this is just insulting to
@nhannahjones
and everyone else who worked on this. You don’t have to see your (idealized) self in every telling of history.
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“tiny theaters of social dominance” are five words from
@tressiemcphd
that will never allow me to think about advice in the same way. Right in time for our socially awkward weekends.
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I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. The entire body text of this article does not contain a single sentence that says who killed this journalist. Only that he “was killed.” Not just the lede. I mean the entire article.
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If you’re afraid to call a thing what it plainly, viscerally is, then you are not free. And your society is not free.
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Part of why they hate Rashida so much is that she forms policy positions by talking with her constituents rather than some Lockheed Martin lobbyist. They find her love of democracy objectionable.
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You can be fundamentally understood as biased and incapable of objectivity just for being named Mohammed.
NYT reporter’s social media feed was so genocidal that this fall one of the tweets she liked wound up in South Africa’s filing before The Hague. Imagine being Palestinian and learning she was then assigned to cover the war and shape public opinion
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Just some editorial thoughts:
The dense fog obscuring cause and effect — a gunfight “broke out,” Palestinians “were killed” — is not a clarity problem, it’s an honesty problem. And more fundamentally it’s a text on how media sustain and amplify existing power differentials.
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Not sure anyone other than
@tressiemcphd
could get me to pause mid-IG scroll to watch a 25 min live. Longform video tressays 🔥
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A 500-year rainfall doesn't discriminate, but we do.
That's why Detroit's summer of flooding was so devastating. When climate crisis meets the machinery of racist disinvestment, Detroiters feel it like few others.
My latest in
@TheNation
:
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We are witnessing the largest mass expulsion of Palestinians since the Nakba. This is a time for courage, not manufactured complexity. Complexity is the refuge of the comfortable and the powerful.
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HAPPY THREAD: Thrilled to be starting a new journey as Director of Policy & Research of the DC-based Groundwork Collaborative, a dynamic think tank that is challenging longstanding dogmas about how the economy works while advancing an economic worldview that dignifies everyone.
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@tressiemcphd
Whenever I think about unsolicited advice I remember the person who told you to repaint your entire staircase lol
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Tressie McMillan Cottom on secret meetings should be subbed into every employee onboarding in America 😂or every kindergarten classroom it may be too late by then
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We need a U.N. resolution asserting the right of the English language to exist
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Most of the so-called racial reckoning from a couple years back is now in the clearance section of our politics.
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I’ll never forget when my dad, who lived under Israeli occupation, pointed to some pro-Israel books at Borders and said “read these too.” He knew that fear of arguments would fail me, and it’s clear to me now how the silencing of Palestinian voices has failed so many of you.
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This piece by
@OsitaNwanevu
is essential. Bipartisanship as an idea is not just a relic, but in some ways an accident of history. To ascribe such virtue to it is both strange and self-defeating.
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Dearborn Public Health produces an excellent Arabic-language demo on administering Narcan during opioid emergencies.
This is culturally competent harm reduction at its best. One more reason to invest in localized public health.
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If any journalists want Arab American voices/perspectives for your stories, particularly if you’re interested in metro Detroit, please dm me. I’ll connect you with folks, and happy to chat myself.
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@tressiemcphd
With each of your pieces there are always a few of these comments that inadvertently prove your point. Like surprise extras on a tasting menu.
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From a constituent’s perspective, they didn’t just censure the only Palestinian member of Congress. They censured one of the best members of Congress period. One of the most responsive, accountable, and genuinely helpful in America. I’ve seen it firsthand.
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After taking the GRE 6 years ago I haven't seen the word "loquacious" again even once.
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When people falsely accuse Arabs and Muslims of supporting terrorism it is deeply racist, yes. But it’s also a way to say, “I have the power to determine whether you are a person.” That is part of the awesome power of white supremacy.
We’re seeing very clearly who has the power to adjudicate personhood in the U.S. and who does not. We are not full humans if someone can render our humanity moot at will. That is what power looks like. That is what conditional citizenship looks like.
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Public libraries are miraculous. Imagine that: a place to browse the web, read a book, apply for a job, use the bathroom, take a phone call, or just sit in a well-heated room in the dead of winter — FOR FREE.
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It’s illegal for Palestinians to “express joy” in public for reuniting with family members who in many cases were detained and imprisoned without charge. Stupefying to wrap the mind around this level of dehumanization.
National security Minister says there can be no expressions of joy as some Palestinians imprisoned by Israel released. Many, arrested as children, haven’t seen their families in years
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“Come on guys, wouldn’t you rather be ethnically cleansed than die?!”
Palestinians are not humans to pretty much anyone in the U.S. commentariat. You don’t ask questions like this to people you deem human. You don’t make up callous trolley experiments involving your family.
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Nothing anyone says or does can ever complicate the irrefutable reality that Palestinians are human beings deserving of as much dignity, protection, and freedom as anyone on earth, and not a shred less.
But some of you are trying really hard.
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They are pulling kids out of the rubble with their bare hands. The Palestinian will to exist, to endure, to survive despite the collective death sentence imposed on them is the most inspiring display of humanity I’ve ever witnessed.
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"The Fed can’t build more homes, break up price-gouging corporate monopolies, or lower the cost of prescription drugs. But it can make life even more expensive."
My piece on inflation and affordability.
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Today I voted on an Arabic ballot for the first time.
It was a special moment, and a reminder that we preserve democracy only by widening its arms to include more of us.
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There are many prickly little insults that come with having no generational wealth in America, but a big one is watching those who do have it become public authorities on your experience, as some sort of passion project.
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Believe it or not, the Midwest is the region expected to see the most infrastructural damage due to climate change of any in the U.S.
Decades of disinvestment have compounded the risk even though our weather extremes don’t compare to coastal regions.
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Has anyone done any research on the last time this many Jewish activists were arrested in the U.S.?
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Someone seated next to me at the coffee shop is currently interviewing for a spot at Princeton and the questions are absolutely exactly what you’d expect. Most boil down to “so how long has your family been wealthy?”
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[literally any life challenge]
Mom: have you tried putting olive oil on your chest?
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The reason I worry about the safety of Muslim friends and family is not because some abstract hate “is winning.” It’s because the greatest purveyors of Islamophobic ideas in American life are elected officials at the highest levels of government, from both parties.
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Still can't believe I get a Tressie McMillan Cottom essay delivered to my inbox a couple times a week.
Let’s Talk About Tenure, by
@tressiemcphd
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I’ve attended Palestine protests my whole life. No one has ever chanted “from the river to the sea.” Not a single time.
The chant is “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
So why is it acceptable for U.S. news outlets to invent a different chant by omission?
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This turkey just handed me a valet ticket and asked me to fetch the car.
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Final results in Dearborn for statewide offices:
Governor:
Whitmer 64.11% Dixon 32.49%
Secretary of State:
Benson 66.30% Karamo 30.96%
Attorney General:
Nessel 61.96% DePerno 35.55%
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Shine a light on Islamophobia. I do it all the time. But the reality is that it has no currency in the U.S. It is too elemental to modern American political culture to be considered bigotry. Hating Muslims gets you chairmanships in the Senate and fellowships at Harvard.
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A two-state solution is the only way to guarantee the long-term security of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people.
To make sure Israelis and Palestinians alike can live in equal measures of freedom and dignity.
We will not give up on working toward this goal.
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I’m the former city of Dearborn comms director and my inbox is buzzing. Can’t imagine what my successor is dealing with.
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The lettuce is an automatic disqualification. Arguably a misdemeanor under shawarma law.
Here’s my Shawarma Review No.2!🌯 could I do 100 spots in one year?
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I wrote for
@DetNews
on why public libraries matter and how letting them wither away is a betrayal of the public good.
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Can confirm that
@RashidaTlaib
’s constituent services are second to none. Changed how I think about what a Congressional office can do.
Rashida Tlaib on Shri Thanedar: “While he is busy posting memes, his residents are calling my office asking for my assistance because he is absent from doing his job.”
@nannburke
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@Kevsulvaran
@iiNxthann
@siyaxoliisa
@PalarianS
@BeautyNBars
@lostblackboy
Monster Giuseppe heel that’s the monster shoe
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Major policy lesson from the last two recessions from
@rooseveltinst
fellow JW Mason:
“Monetary policy is a lot weaker than we thought, and Big Fiscal really gets the job done. The job of macroeconomic management really cannot be left to the Fed.”
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We’re seeing very clearly who has the power to adjudicate personhood in the U.S. and who does not. We are not full humans if someone can render our humanity moot at will. That is what power looks like. That is what conditional citizenship looks like.
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America’s moral standing in the world has been eviscerated. Watch any foreign news outlet. It looks nothing like the military PR Americans watch. The world is bearing witness to apocalyptic cruelty. Infants being pulled out of rubble. Kids drinking salt water. 24/7 for a month.
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There's been some excellent local journalism this month. Spent the afternoon working through some open tabs. Here are a few that stood out:
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You all believe too much in your own innocence. You’ve internalized that brown people have a monopoly on cruelty. What else do you call dropping 6,000 bombs on an area more dense than Manhattan and calling it self defense.
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Got amazing batch of family photos today. My grandfather, center against the door, south Lebanon, 1982. Caption notes it was taken during the Israeli invasion.
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The cheapening of Palestinian life and the refusal to see Palestinian humanity through any prism other than violence has been a bipartisan effort from the beginning. Nothing notable about this, IMO.
Interesting coalition building in the Michigan Senate re: “from the river to the sea,” chant heard at pro-Palestinian rallies. Sen. Moss is responding to Rashida Tlaib’s defense of the phrase. Theis is one of the most conservative members of the Michigan Senate.
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The NSC and State Dept employed a genocidal klansman for three decades and every Arab and Muslim in the U.S. is worried about losing their job for advocating Palestinian freedom.
A lobbying group has severed connections with Stuart Seldowitz, a former adviser to ex-President Barack Obama after videos where he made Islamophobic remarks and issued threats to a New York City food cart employee surfaced online.
The footage, shared on Twitter by a Columbia
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Some of these "policy" job postings are really like "Shaytan is seeking a Deputy VP to support his state-level strategy development..."
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Dehumanization is the mortar that holds it all together. The second you begin to view Palestinians as full human beings the entire architecture of justification for this breathtaking cruelty falls apart.
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I am coming out against this chocolate-covered dates trend. Dates are sweet enough. Flaming hot dates are now inevitable.
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Absolutely devastating
From Gaza now: Mosques are the only means of communication through speakers. 'We have no communication with the outside world. They are using their military might to harm us. We have no power but the power of God, no one but God. Please, pray for us.'
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“His wife Valeria recently told a newspaper in Brazil that the 95-year-old Chomsky still follows the news and raises his left arm in anger when he sees images of Israel’s war on Gaza.”
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I realize Islamophobia may be less familiar to folks given how acceptable and politically expedient it is in American life. But if you want an absolute clinic on what Islamophobia sounds like, watch this interview.
"Who? Which of my pro-Palestinian guests expressed support for Hamas?Because I must have missed that."
@piersmorgan
challenges Brooke Goldstein after reading out her tweet accusing his journalism of "being a propaganda tool for terrorism."
@GoldsteinBrooke
|
@WajahatAli
|
#PMU
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@thenation
The cruel economics of the last half century make Detroit an epicenter of climate crisis, even if its weather extremes don't top national charts. The Midwest, more than any other region, is expected to have the largest damages to infrastructure due to climate change.
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If this isn’t racist enough for you it’s time to take down the lawn signs.
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Please say a prayer for Issam Abdallah, a Reuters journalist and one of my cousin’s best friends. He was killed by Israeli military.
Reuters journalist killed in southern Lebanon by Israeli strike, colleagues say - The Washington Post
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