I personally never tick self-identification of race and ethnicity on any application form voluntarily. I have never done, except the N-400 application for Naturalization form. It was mandatory; otherwise, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now called the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the Department of Homeland Security) would not process your application.
You had to tick either the “Hispanic or Latino” or the “Not Hispanic or Latino” box in the “Ethnicity” part, and either one of these: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, White. I don’t like labelling people in accordance with their skin color; I also believe it is not ethical to discriminate against people from Latin American countries, labeling them Hispanic or Latino, especially when they are becoming part of a nation they choose. But if you do not mark any one of these, your naturalization process would not go through and you’d remain unnatural as you are! (Why is it not “becoming citizen” but “naturalization”?)
For the sake of fairness, let me mention that some scholars defend that voluntary or mandatory self-identification of race and ethnicity on application forms to prevent discrimination, not to discriminate against. But still, my experience in Türkiye taught me that you have to see people as you see yourself: a human being.
Attacking Mamdani for being Muslim
Back to the self-identification forms. They have brought a hornet’s nest about Mamdani’s ears, as if he needs more after the sitting president of the country called you “a communist,” and the city of which you are probably becoming the mayor in November, “a communistic city!” Mamdani, who is a democratic socialist, not a communist, scored a stunning victory over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the first round of the city’s Democratic mayoral primary. There is a strong likelihood that Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, will be elected as New York City’s mayor.
You should follow him on all platforms in social media platforms: He posts continually pro-Palestinian, pro-Gazan and anti-Zionist messages. Mamdani has been focused on lowering the cost of living; he says he has found a new blueprint for Democrats to follow during Trump’s second term. Democrats seem voiceless after Trump’s return to power. Mamdani could be not only the mayor of New York, but also a new voice for Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans.
The New York Times published a document stolen by a eugenicist and leaked to the newspaper. Eugenicists are new followers of Hitler’s “racial hygiene” theory. They advocate, as Hitler did, the practice of controlled, selective breeding of human populations. They seek a regime which, by sterilization, improves the population’s genetic composition. Hitler thought the improved German race should not have Rassenschande (racial shame) and Blutschande (blood disgrace) mixing with the Jewish, Romani and Slavic peoples. Since it was not easy to have people self-identify themselves with ticking boxes in applications form than (as the U.S. does today), Hitler thought he has to have a “Final Solution” (Endlösung) to all his problems, which provided no antecedent to anyone, but ironically only the children and grandchildren of those Jews who perished in Hitler’s gas furnaces as part of that solution!
Apparently, some Americans also learned from Hitler’s example like Jordan Lasker, the Eugenicist, who, seeing that Mamdani ticked a wrong box in his application form in his 2009 college application submitted to Columbia University, thought that Mamdani, the probable future mayor of New York, was trying to pass himself as both Asian and African American. Now! God forbid, somebody might have a child from him and that child might contaminate the “good old American race”!
Zohran Kwame Mandani, like almost all people in the world, is a mixture of humanity: He was born in 1991, in Kampala, Uganda as the only child of filmmaker Mira Nair and postcolonialism academic Mahmood Mamdani; they named their son in honor of Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana. Both of Zohran Kwame’s parents are Indian; his mother is a Punjabi Hindu, and his father is a Gujarati Muslim from Bombay; he grew up primarily in Uganda. Mamdani is a dual citizen of Uganda and the United States; he was naturalized in 2018.
And ladies and gentlemen, put on your seatbelts: Zohran Kwame is a Muslim! He identifies with Shiite and its Twelver branch. Mamdanis belong to the Khoja community, known as “Hindoo Mussalman,” “Mamado” meaning Mohammad in southeastern Pakistan and Kachchh in western India.
In other words, New York, the center of financial capitalism, would have a Muslim mayor in November. Mayors in Gotham City administer all city services, public property, police and fire protection and most public agencies, and enforce all city and state laws within New York City. Its budget is the largest municipal budget in America, more than $100 billion; it has 325,000 employees. There are more than a million students in New York, and the mayor spends about $21 billion on education. Its tax revenues ($27 billion) are higher than Türkiye’s ($22 billion)!
Do you think that those people who carefully administer self-identifying tick boxes in their naturalization and college entrance forms (and where else, God knows!) would like the idea of having a Muslim mayor in New York? They wouldn’t, and as soon as Mamdani became the probable nominee of the Democrats, all the Islamophobic, racist and xenophobic attacks were heaped upon him.
Is Xenophobia part of MAGA?
U.S. Representative Nancy Mace shared a message on social media, “After 9/11 we said, ‘Never Forget.’ We sadly have forgotten” implying that Mandani was like al-Qaida terrorists who hijacked four U.S. passenger planes and crashed the first two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the third into the Pentagon. (The fourth plane crashed in a rural Pennsylvania field during a passenger revolt.) Another Republican representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene, posted an image of the Statue of Liberty wearing a burqa, covering the body and the face.
President Donald Trump’s political power base, the Make America Great Again (MAGA) people, including Trump’s son Donald Jr., portrayed him as a “jihadist.” Even some Democrats spoke of Mamdani in the context of 9/11.
Some members of the U.S. Congress asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to denaturalize and deport Mamdani, alleging that he had concealed support for terrorism when he applied to become a citizen. Representative Andy Ogles referred to Mamdani as “little Muhammad” and “anti-Semitic, socialist, communist, a supporter of Hamas.” Trump, himself, suggested that Mamdani might be in the U.S. illegally, adding that he might arrest him, withhold funding from New York City, and a federal takeover of the city if Mamdani is elected. All, without a proof and legal authority, of course.
All that started with The New York Times’ article that was questioned as journalistically unethical by many, but the NYT did not stop there. The editorial board of the newspaper wrote that it did “not believe that Mr. Mamdani deserves a spot on New Yorkers’ ballots.” The article did not mention Mandani’s being a Muslim, but it found his experience “too thin.” Mandani, as a member of the New York State Assembly since 2021, has had many bills passed into law. He pledges fare-free city buses, public child care, city-owned grocery stores, a rent freeze on rent-stabilized units, additional affordable housing units, comprehensive public safety reform, and a $30 minimum wage by 2030.
All these, apparently, are too much for the American establishment. The Atlantic magazine claims Mandani is disconnected from actual government budgets and organizational charts! Even the fashion critics found that Mamdani’s clothes contrast with his own Islamic worldview. He puts on a regular shirt, a jacket and a necktie, not an Indian Dhoti or Veshti, the traditional ethnic baggy trousers.
Mamdani also supports tax increases on corporations and those earning above $1 million annually. He pledged to abide by the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders and to jail Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York City.
The NYT’s racist article about tick boxes and Mamdani’s pledges got me started on this race-related subject! In fact, there was another subject not as “racey” but perfectly “racy”: Trump’s “suggestive 2003 letter to Jeffrey Epstein.” The more Trump insists that the news stories about the letter were false, the juicier they get. But how can you express an opinion on a letter written to be included in a book whose publisher, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted of 16 years for aiding Epstein’s sexual abuse of minors?