I subscribe to the theory that there’s a 48 hour post-primary timeframe in which people are allowed to be mad or smug or somehow inappropriately hostile and then all must be forgiven and everyone must act in the firm solidarity of parents enforcing bedtime. So, within that timeframe I want to say something that is very true and that I think is very important for people whose experiences with this race have mostly been online/media based:
Abdul El-Sayed was the victim of the most extreme racism I have ever seen in any political campaign in my entire adult life, calculated racist attacks that make Willie Horton look subtle. This is a man who is an example of the kind of squeaky clean midwestern ambition previously seen in Pete Buttigieg, married to his college sweetheart, valedictorian, Rhodes Scholar,etc. He was consistently framed as a sexual menace to women and a violent menace to Jewish people based on absolutely nothing in his own life but designed to align with orientalist porn about lewd sheiks preying on white woman. It was disgusting and shameful! I am ashamed at the racism that I would have, a year ago, naively said was not something Michiganders feel towards our fellow Michiganders and that revelation has sucked.
And so I want to say that if you learned who Abdul El-Sayed during this election and he just kinda gives you bad vibes or rubs you the wrong way, I just want some honest reflection about whether or not that impression was influenced by a heavy push to describe him in a way that fits smoothly into the racist narratives that we all have to swim through.
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