Wajahit Ali on Changing America's Narrative On Immigrants

Sam, how's everyone doing? Wow. Thank you for that overwhelmingly enthusiastic response. That was awesome. Just calm down. Calm down. Contain your excitement, everyone. All of you guys are looking at me right now. You're thinking the same exact thing. Is that Fareed Zakaria? You laughed a little too loud at that. The answer is no. I'm not Farid Zakaria or Reza Aslan or Riz Ahmed or Hassan Minhaj or Kumail Nanjiani or the dude from Slumdog Millionaire or Mindy Kaling. I'm the guy inbound gets. When all of them say no. I'm literally your last, second, seventh pick, desperate choice as token brown Muslim male speaker of inbound. I will take all Pity. Applause. I'll take. Thank you. I'm fueled by pity. But honestly, there should be no reason why you know me. I'm Wajhat Ali, a consistently brown skinned son of Muslim Pakistani immigrants born and raised in Bay Area Fremontistan, California. Anyone? Fremontistan. Bueller. Bueller. One person. Awesome. Where my parents thought it would be hilarious not to teach me English while growing up in America. So I only knew three words of English when I was dropped off at Childs Hideaway Preschool. For first word, shut up because my mother said shut up. Second word, idiot, because my mother used to say shut up idiot. And the third word was uh oh pasgetio because I couldn't pronounce uh oh spaghettio. I was also left handed. And if anyone knows anything about South Asian tradition, that makes me a unicorn. Because according to South Asian tradition, you only do one thing with the left hand. Think about it. I was also shy, sick, and also I was very, how do they say heavy, which is a nice way of saying big. Boned, which is a nice way of saying thick, which is a nice way of saying fat. I was fat. I was very fat. I was so fat that the only pants that I could wear growing up were something called husky pants. If you do not have the joy or trauma of knowing what husky pants are, there are pants where literally on the right side of your butt on big font, it's written husky. You could see it from space. I was, as they say, a winner. Check it out. Look at that. Killing it. Killing it in preschool. But the same kid who only spoke three words of English at preschool ended up graduating with an English major from UC Berkeley and ended up marrying a very pretty, very smart, very accomplished woman who was also the the varsity high school cheerleader. Itgets better. But growing up, I never saw my peoples as protagonists of the American narrative. I never saw myself represented. I never saw myself on tv. Sometimes we were sidekicks or stereotypes, or we were excised and completely forgotten. More often than not, we were the bad guys, the villains. And I found this to be interesting because Muslims have been in America for over 400 years. About 5 to 15% of the slave trade that was brought here forcibly against its will was Muslim. So Black Muslim blood, dreams, bones, hopes and labor fertilize this country's soil. But fast forward, take the DeLorean to 2017America, and 60 to 65% of Americans say they don't know a Muslim. Let that sink in. But when it comes to 1.6 billion narratives of Muslims and 1400 years of diverse, vibrant Islamic civilization, it is condensed into one stereotype. Rage Boy. That's an actual media term, by the way. You've seen this image countless years on newspapers, on TV screens. Rage Boy is brown bearded, bellicose, angry, anti freedom, anti America, anti woman, anti kfc, anti deodorant. Rage Boy is Islam, is Al Qaeda, is isis, is Boko Haram, is Al Shabaab, is Duck Dynasty. Because, honestly, if you're into racial profiling, who looks more like Rage Boy, Me or Duck Dynasty? I look like your friendly tech supporter Uber driver. Just saying. But even Rage Boy has a narrative. Even Rage Boy has a lived experience. This is Rage Boy. Shakeel Ahmed Bhatt. Look at him. Hello. They found him in Kashmir. He's in his mid-30s. He's single. He had no idea he was a meme. And literally, he's like, hello, I'm Shaquille Ahmedbar. I'm from Kashmir. Which explains why he has a lot of protests. But that image of Islam as the enemy, the foreigner, the other, has been used and abused by certain individuals and organizations to promote a hateful, divisive agenda and by certain politicians to gain votes. I won't name names. Donald Trump in 2015 said the following. He's calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims from entering the United States, but it's not a Muslim ban, even though it is a Muslim ban. But they added Chad in North Korea, so it's a travel ban, but it's not really, because it's a Muslim ban. Too soon. My bad. He also said, I think Islam hates America. And recently, he tweeted fake news saying that General Pershing, 100 years ago, told his soldiers to dip their bullets into pig's blood to kill Muslim radicals. I'm here on stage as a Muslim to save pig lives. You do not have to dip your bullets into pig's blood in order to kill Muslims. Regular bullets work just fine. Why? Because we're human beings. So Donald Trump says, I think Islam hates America. Meanwhile, ISIS is saying, I think the west hates Islam. The whole time I'm asking myself, who is Islam and who is the west and how come I've never met either of them? And being a Muslim right now, man, it's frustrating. It's exhausting. You're like, how do I respond? And many people of color, many minorities, they respond like Daffy Duck. You get angry, you get frustrated, you jump up and down, you tear your head bald. But what happens to Daffy at the end of every episode? The anvil always drops on his head. The shotgun always blasts in his face. Bugs Bunny, however, is always cool, calm and collected. At the end of the episode, he's standing over the hole, looking at Yosemite Sam eating his carrot, saying, what's up, doc? So let's be cool, calm and collected, especially on a friendly place called Twitter. On Twitter, this is the question I get asked most, where did you come from? Followed by a command, go fuck a camel or a goat. And I always get offended. Why only a camel and a goat? Why not more choices. What about a horse or a porcupine? And they say, no, only camel and goat. I respond, born in the Bay Area, California, and have never had sex with animals. Not judging MuslimBan whenever I appear on television, CNN, I get lovely fan mail. So I got this from Gary. Ignorant asshole. Notice the space between ass and hole. Why? Why ask questions? Why is it always a ignorant towel head like you from Pakistan who speaks ignorance against our president? No question mark. Go back to your homeland, you ignorant idiot. They always want me to go back to Fremont for some reason. Humor is a very powerful way of responding. It diffuses the tension, but it always helps you turn the tables on the hater and have a joke at their expense. And specifically, when it comes to responses, stand up comedy, a very unique American artistic institution alongside jazz. This is my friend Hassan Minhaj, a Muslim American, a son of Indian Muslim immigrants who was asked by the White House correspondence dinner to roast Donald Trump. Karma is real and brown. Comedy helps catharsis. Comedy also helps you sometimes speak truth to power. Dave Chappelle, African American Muslim asked by SNL to heal the nation after the election of Trump. And Aziz Ansari, the son of Muslim Indian immigrant parents, was asked to talk about Islamophobia and anti Muslim bigotry after the inauguration. Never underestimate the power of humor. Also Never underestimate the power of. Of representations of icons. This is a poster by Shepard Ferry. He's the dude who made the Hope Change Obama poster, right? Barack Hussein Obama, our first Muslim president. Takbir. Allahu Akbar. Thank you very much for voting for him. Eight years later, when he came to the inauguration, he took real life photos of women, Native American women, Latino women, Muslim women, African American women, and made paintings. There was a nasty women's March you might have heard of where 3 million Americans came out. The most popular march in American history. And this photo, and this poster was the most used iconic photo. A photo of a Muslim woman. Munara Ahmed, the son of Bangladeshi immigrants wearing a hijab with stars and stripes, became the symbol of resistance, became the symbol of America, became the symbol of we the people. Karma is real. Karma is brown. Karma wears a hijab. Speaking about people who feel disempowered. Yemeni Americans, they come from a country right now that's going through a humanitarian crisis. Yemen's on the Muslim band. They're like, listen, we don't have political representation. How do we respond? They decided, you know what? We have bodegas in New York, and New York depends on our bodegas. We're going to call a strike and invite people on social media to join us. We're going to do bodegastrike. Over the weekend during the Muslim ban, the hashtag trended and over 5,000 diverse Americans joined them side by side in New York as they shut down the bodegas. Give it up to the Yemeni Americans. That's Ms. Marvel. The power of fiction and narratives. Ms. Marvel is Kamala Khan, a Pakistani American teenager, Muslim from New Jersey. The creation of G. Willow Wilson and Sana Ahmanath from Marvel. She's now part of the Avengers, and she was used as an icon of resistance at the nasty women's march. And Ms. Marvel, a Pakistani Muslim immigrant woman, her costume is used as cosplay by millions of women across the world and as a symbol of strength, as a symbol of empowerment. A Pakistani Muslim American female superhero. The power of narratives. And you guys are asking, listen, dude, I'm not a superhero. I'm not in the media. I've never had sex with camels or goats. What can I do? I'm just an average Jose or Jane. How can I respond? Never underestimate the power of your authentic self. Never underestimate the power of being the best version of yourself. And never underestimate the power of telling your story. Because remember, if you aren't writing your story. Your story is always being written for you by others. And if you aren't telling your story, your story is always being told to you by others. During the Muslim Man, I went to Facebook, shared some of my thoughts and my friend Jay Passari, who knew me when I wore husky pants after many years, sent me this what's up old friend? I've seen the fears and intuitions you express as a kid slowly unfold over the years, despite your attempts to warn us all through art, writing and humor. That said, the last few days seem like a turning point toward the worst of these nightmares. My girlfriend and I have been protesting at SFO and giving money to immigrant law organizations. Let me know if there's anything else you'd recommend for a man of brown blood and white skin to do that would be of help. Keep up the good work. And that's how you create a multicultural coalition of the willing committed to doing good. And as a bonus, the secret weapon, hotness. Hotness. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do not know who these people are, you have failed in life. This is Gigi Hadid and Zayn Malik, the super couple. The hottest super couple in the world right now and respectively the son and daughter of Muslim immigrants. Hotness is what will save America and I'm going to throw a cherry on top. Give props to my friend Riz Ahmed, who just took home an Emmy, the first South Asian male to take home an Emmy as lead actor, the son of Muslim immigrants in Britain. And in conclusion, this is personal for me. Look, I got babies. I have Ibrahim who's three, I have Nuseba who's one. They are caramel mocha skin colored, they have multi hyphenated identities, they have multi syllable names and they're very cute because they look like their mother and they're crazy. But I'll be damned if I tell my two babies that that their inheritance and legacy in America is the you'll be a great victim, you'll suffer very well. So just sit there and take it and smile. Instead I'm going to say throw down ball out of control. Because nothing succeeds like success. And the best revenge against haters is always success. And inshallah, God willing, when they take their seat, which they've earned at the table and bring their biryani next to the meatloaf as winners of America, I'm going to tell them their job isn't done. Their job then, once they've made it, is to reach and look down at those people who are downtrodden and oppressed and lift and raise those voices to help join them at the table. So all of our kids, regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity, gender or multi syllable name, can contribute a positive, positive verse to the ongoing rough draft that is the American narrative. Thank you.