Nida Allam

I feel emboldened to help make basic necessities—paid family leave, a dignified, safe birthing experience, a true living wage, and a secure job—a reality, so that every family in Durham County has the support they need to raise their children…

Being only seven years old when a horrific terrorist attack wrecks your country is traumatizing enough. Now imagine, at seven years old, being blamed for that attack. As my friends and classmates grew up, they would celebrate milestones and achievements like their first piercing, their first date, their first kiss, and their first straight-A semester. For Muslim kids, those moments were overshadowed by our first time being labeled a terrorist, or the first time we were asked by our teacher to “explain Islam and tell the class why Muslims hate America.” Among Muslim Americans, these moments are so common that they feel clicheed—and yet, I still remember them with the same burning trauma I felt as a child.

There’s a corrosive idea in politics that young candidates should “wait their turn.” Change happens incrementally, the theory holds—and we ought to defer to older issues, older tactics, older leaders, before even thinking about raising our own hands.