Eighteen years ago this month, my government began its invasion of Iraq through a deliberate disinformation campaign. The mainstream media was complicit in spreading lies about weapons of mass destruction in the face of widespread public protest and opposition. Today is no different. We spray bombs, launch missile strikes, and impose sanctions without regard for the lives of those on the ground.
In August of 2020, I served as a DNC National Delegate for Bernie Sanders. I worked with 17 other Muslim delegates and allies to draft DNC policy recommendations for the Democratic Party Platform. Another 70 delegates, some backing Sanders, others Joe Biden, endorsed our recommendations. Sixteen recommendations were accepted into the 2020 Democratic Party Platform, including concerns about endless wars, discriminatory travel and immigration bans, celebration of America’s history of religious pluralism and tolerance, end of support for Saudi-led war in Yemen, and the military occupation of countries. Specifically, language was added to the 2020 Democratic Party Platform, which stated,
Rather than occupy countries and overthrow regimes to prevent terrorist attacks, Democrats will prioritize more effective and less costly diplomatic, intelligence, and law enforcement tools. We will right-size our counterterrorism footprint, put it in service of broader regional and overarching foreign policy objectives, and ensure it never undermines the values we seek to uphold. And we will mobilize our partners to make sustained investments that can prevent conflict and help extinguish the flames on which extremists feed.
Never had the Muslim community submitted such a comprehensive document for platform reform. We were told to change a few words and sentences in the draft platform. Instead we submitted 17 pages. I spoke to CBS News, PBS, and TRT World and was quoted in the Washington Post , The Nation, Tampa Bay Times, Middle East Eye, Electronic Intifada, and other media outlets about issues of concern to the Muslim community in the 2020 election cycle and why we should vote for Joe Biden, but hold his administration accountable in the future. Ultimately we as an organization, Muslim Delegates and Allies, rejected the platform because it did not provide for Medicare for All (over 700 DNC delegates voted no on the platform due to the absence of support for Medicare for All), and did not restrict military aid to countries in turmoil. I am talking about Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war on Yemen and Israeli apartheid and colonization of Palestine.
In a Daily Kos post on August 6, 2020, I shared that Muslim Delegates and Allies didn’t support Susan Rice as Vice President because of her support for military intervention in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen and her role in advising the Obama administration to bomb Muslim countries.
I saw another statement posted by the DNC youth delegation expressing similar sentiments on youth issues on the Daily Kos site. I was not alone.
However, when I woke up the next day, and I’m an early riser, my post was listed as a false story with a message suggesting I did not know the difference between Susan Rice and Condoleeza Rice. I soon learned I was autobanned for life from the Daily Kos.
This is the article.
Administrators at the Daily Kos added this to the top of the story:
Admins have determined that the substance of this post is mostly false, with many inaccurate and misleading details, including but not limited to conflating Susan Rice with Condoleezza Rice.
The user account has been banned.
The rest of the story was crossed out with strike-throughs that look like this.
To be clear, I know who Condoleeza Rice is and had not confused her with Susan Rice. Apparently, this bit about “Oh, you must be confused between the two Rice’s” was a common response both on the Daily Kos and other media platforms when an activist objected to Susan Rice, then in line for a position as Vice President or Secretary of State in a Biden administration.
As a grassroots organizer in Florida, I was elected as a DNC Committeewoman in January 2021. Shortly after my election, another DNC member who had worked at the Daily Kos when my post was censored reached out to me via text message and told me he had been asked/ordered to remove my post after checking with five other Democratic Party elected leaders, staffers, and officials, who claimed my post was false, and said the statement was the work of foreign bots. This DNC member who revealed this information to me said:
So you have me to directly to blame. Well, that and those in the administration right now. I got a call early in the morning about one of your posts that basically said: “We are going into the convention, this is not correct, we’re putting out editorials, we strongly refute” and asking me to check with other islamic [sic] DNC members we knew. So we did. And the few we knew said, “I know of nothing.”
He provided the names of two people who denied that our group existed. Neither of whom we would have access to, because those folks operate in an elite political stratosphere, which benefits from being gatekeepers of the Muslim community and doing as they are told. These are people who I cannot even name, because they still function in a marginalized space. This other DNC member said he also reached out to three other current and past DNC members, all of whom were men, who also denied our existence. I asked for the DNC member to issue a correction and gave him over a month to issue it, which has not been done at the time of this publication. He grew a conscience, but he didn’t grow a spine.
He apologized saying, “I owe you a monumental, unbelievable apology because I and others basically ran with exactly what Team Biden pushed out there in response.”
He added:
“But there is no one to blame for anything but me. I carried in the message and emails, which I was told went straight through Dillon and other’s hands, and we had seen to [sic] many use the site to go on the attack after a bit. So, I made a mistake. A big one. A really, really big one, and I hope you can forgive me.”
Dillon presumably refers to Joe Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon.
The trouble at the Democratic Party is that it does not actually want Muslims organized. Even the list of all DNC members is not readily available to existing DNC members, because we are discouraged from collaborating, or heaven forbid, making the institution actually democratic.
I don’t think it’s fair for me to be censored for demanding Medicare for All in the middle of a pandemic or for objecting to Susan Rice for a cabinet post or for denouncing the bombing of Muslim majority countries. I expect journalism, ethics, and integrity at the Daily Kos, not censorship, strike-throughs and propaganda.
I take the First Amendment very seriously. I started writing as a freelancer for The Orlando Sentinel when I was in eighth grade. I have protested and fought to protect free speech my entire life since the first Gulf War. I have served 15 years on the Florida Bar’s Media and Communications Law Committee, including as chair and vice chair. I have published hundreds of news articles and opinion pieces and over 40 scholarly articles and book chapters. All I do is write. It’s the only thing aside from my family and being an educator that gives me purpose. To be able to express my thoughts, fears, and trepidations is what I do as a journalist and an academic.
Does the Daily Kos even know who I am? The Daily Kos knows nothing of the struggle and sacrifice of Muslim women.
In my father’s homeland girls are gunned down for wanting an education. They are killed by drones operated by my government. They are strangled to death in honor killings. They suffer in an economy crushed by the weight of foreign debt.
In my mother’s homeland, women are gang raped on buses in broad daylight. They are raped by the military in Indian-occupied Kashmir. They have acid thrown in their faces if they reject a suitor.
And here in America, my article got strike-throughs.
So forgive me for being whatever it is you think I am or was, Daily Kos. I live with the trauma of imperialism inflicted on my ancestors. The might of the British Raj that has subordinated us at every turn for centuries. Forgive us for coming here to this land you robbed from the native inhabitants and built capital systems with transatlantic slave labor. Forgive us for not forgetting.
The Daily Kos should not silence or censor Muslim women just because we challenge U.S. foreign policy or object to the possible Presidential nomination of a military interventionist.
I am not a foreign bot. I will not be invisible to you.
While some may feel that party unity is paramount during a Presidential campaign, the truth is that unless we wrestle and debate hawkish policies and their architects, we are bound to repeat our mistakes, only to find our party out of power or with reduced power after the next election cycle.
Silencing has not had the intended quieting effect, but what it has done is simply embolden us as to what is possible in the name of peace and justice. Susan Rice may have been the first Biden nominee we criticized, but she was not the last. Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken can thank us later for clearing their paths to their respective offices, but they are also responsible for the wars and violence they perpetuate and human rights violations they ignore.
As progressives we have been successful in having more war hawkish choices sidelined.
Michelle Flournoy was floated as a name for Secretary of Defense, but blocked by progressives because she was the architect of Afghanistan’s disastrous counterinsurgency efforts under President Obama.
Mike Morrell withdrew his name as CIA director because of his role in supporting torture.
Neera Tanden withdrew herself as nominee for the Office of Management and Budget. “We have a giant deficit. They have a lot of oil,” Tanden wrote in an October 2011 email titled “Should Libya pay us back?”
Currently, a campaign is underway against Rahm Emmanuel’s possible ambassadorship in Asia because of his long standing record to block racial justice and back large corporations.
It’s hard to wash away the warmongering and hate even if tweets can be deleted and entire articles have a strike through.
The White House serves the people, not the other way around.
Remember the powerful words of the National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman:
And yes we are far from polished.
Far from pristine.
But that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge a union with purpose,
to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man.
Editor’s Note: Daily Kos did not respond to a request for a comment for this story.
Good heavens! I shall block Daily Kos from my email, and I shall tell them why.
I was also banned by DKos. In my case, I had the audacity to claim that I (a former teacher) had never known another teacher that stole material objects from his or her students. Thus, I was called a liar and banned during the night, just as you were, with no way to respond. The ease with which someone with mildly divergent views can be permanently censored over there makes one suspect the true nature of DKos. Are they a ‘news source’ or a cleverly designed propaganda outlet?
DKos just isn’t worth it. Mondoweiss is much better.
I have now unsubscribed from Daily Cos