Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune trib Cast for
Speaker 1: April seventh. I'm Eleanor Klibanoff, joined as always by Matthew Watkins.
Speaker 2: Welcome, thank you.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 2: I cannot believe it's April, but here we are.
Speaker 4: Yeah, here we are.
Speaker 1: Feel somehow like February in Texas and that it is
Speaker 1: sixty degrees and not ninety six.
Speaker 2: Amazing. We love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but hopefully you're listening to this while you're out
Speaker 1: on a walk or otherwise enjoying the brief sunshine we're having.
Speaker 3: But by the time they're listening, it'll probably be ninety five.
Speaker 2: It'll be ninety five. Yeah, terrible mistake.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: This week we're talking about a topic that I think
Speaker 1: we've been talking about sort of spending some time on
Speaker 1: with the podcast for a little while now, which is
Speaker 1: the rising anti Muslim rhetoric in Texas.
Speaker 2: We're having.
Speaker 1: A very contentious election season, which we've talked about a
Speaker 1: lot on the podcast, and the issue that has really
Speaker 1: moved front and center Republicans in their campaign rhetoric is,
Speaker 1: you know, this anti Muslim rhetoric what is often described
Speaker 1: by Republicans from the Islamification of Texas create this idea
Speaker 1: that you know, Sharia law is spreading through the whole state,
Speaker 1: that at any given moment, you know, the state is
Speaker 1: in danger of being taken over by by Muslim groups.
Speaker 1: You know, despite the fact that Muslims make up significantly
Speaker 1: less than two percent of all Texans. This has really
Speaker 1: become the sort of political football of this election season,
Speaker 1: and we're seeing it really begin to move from rhetoric
Speaker 1: into action as we see elected officials using their power
Speaker 1: to create, you know, political caucuses around this, take legal action,
Speaker 1: talk about filing legislation, begin to file bills on the
Speaker 1: federal level aimed at this issue that they really have
Speaker 1: dragged the to the center of the political conversation.
Speaker 2: To talk about all of that.
Speaker 1: We are joined by State Representative Salmon Bojani, a Democrat
Speaker 1: from Yulis and a practicing Muslim. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Representative, Thanks Eleanor for having me.
Speaker 4: It's an honor.
Speaker 1: So you know, you when you were elected to the
Speaker 1: state legislature where the first was you know, along with
Speaker 1: represent of Lalani, we're one of the first. We're the
Speaker 1: first Muslims elected to the state legislature in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: But your story begins much earlier than that. Tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about you know, who you are, your
Speaker 1: journey to this country and to getting involved in politics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know. Thanks thanks for that question, and thanks
Speaker 4: for covering this important topic. So I was born in
Speaker 4: Pakistan and I moved to United States when I was
Speaker 4: nineteen years old. Worked at gas stations and mopping floors
Speaker 4: as a young immigrant to support my family and put
Speaker 4: food on the table. It was. It was tough at first,
Speaker 4: but not until nine to eleven happened that we receive
Speaker 4: a lot of slamophobia. My father used to own a
Speaker 4: jewelry store and I used to work there, and there
Speaker 4: was a lot of people that came in and said,
Speaker 4: you're not an American, go back to your country. I'm
Speaker 4: not going to buy a jewelry from you. And they
Speaker 4: would go across them all and buy it from and
Speaker 4: code and quote American business and then show us a
Speaker 4: receipt and say, hey, we are going to give our
Speaker 4: business to Americans only, and you should go. But again,
Speaker 4: I was, you know, a teenager. I didn't, you know,
Speaker 4: understand what was going on and didn't wasn't politically involved, right,
Speaker 4: So that was the first time I saw like my
Speaker 4: family being affected, and my father's business was sort of
Speaker 4: basically collapsed on the verge of bankruptcy almost And that's
Speaker 4: when I found myself working at gas stations and mopping
Speaker 4: floors for six bucks an hour, working three min one
Speaker 4: way job. That's where I met my wife, literally while
Speaker 4: mopping floors, and and and then eventually I worked hard,
Speaker 4: saved every penny to buy my own gas station and
Speaker 4: live the American dream and you know, make paychecks and
Speaker 4: sport of the econ me. I still own the gas
Speaker 4: station that I bought in two thousand and three, and
Speaker 4: it's an artic and actually it's in our district and
Speaker 4: I'm really proud that we have that, and my father
Speaker 4: helped me run that, as I have other endeavors that
Speaker 4: I have right now. But the second time I saw
Speaker 4: Islamophobia was when I decided to run for office, or
Speaker 4: even actually before that in twenty sixteen, when we elected
Speaker 4: our current president first time around, and he was speeing
Speaker 4: a lot of hateful speech about Muslims and people that
Speaker 4: you know are sort of different immigrants, and I felt like,
Speaker 4: this is how this person leader great nation when he's
Speaker 4: viewing such hateful rhetoric against people like me, people that
Speaker 4: pray like me, and so in our community there's always
Speaker 4: like a dialogue. Always Trump going to be helpful to us,
Speaker 4: so hurtful as business owners. Some people may think that,
Speaker 4: you know, one way or the other, but they were
Speaker 4: complaining a lot about the policies, right, the Muslim ban
Speaker 4: and the hateful rhetoric. And so I just felt like,
Speaker 4: I want to be the change that you want to
Speaker 4: see in the world, like Mahatma Gandhi said, as opposed
Speaker 4: to just complain about it. And so I was serving
Speaker 4: on the park board in my city of Ulyss upon
Speaker 4: insistence of actually Representativeangaea. When I became an attorney, I
Speaker 4: used to work at Haines and Moon. I started at
Speaker 4: Haines and Moon and he told me, as attorneys, it
Speaker 4: behoves us to give back to a community, so you should,
Speaker 4: you know, join a border commission in New York City.
Speaker 4: I was, okay, that's not you know, politics. You know,
Speaker 4: I don't want to get involved in politics, but I'm
Speaker 4: okay and sort of, you know, giving back my time
Speaker 4: and value to the city I love so much. And
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen happened and we elected as president, I felt
Speaker 4: like we need to do something about it. So that's
Speaker 4: when I put my name in the hat and ran
Speaker 4: for city council again. So well liked incumbent and saw
Speaker 4: a lot of Islamophobia at that time. I did not
Speaker 4: win my first election. As it turns out, a lot
Speaker 4: of people, you know, face defeat, and I think because
Speaker 4: I would experience failure, next victory was even more you know,
Speaker 4: very good taste in my mind, you know when I
Speaker 4: did when in twenty eighteen. In twenty eighteen that there
Speaker 4: was a lot of slamphobia. In fact, if you may remember,
Speaker 4: former state Representator John Jonathan Stickland attacked me for being Muslim,
Speaker 4: for being an attorney, for being you know, just having
Speaker 4: boy scouts come in from my troop and say the Quran,
Speaker 4: reside the Quran as an invocation in the Ulus City Council.
Speaker 4: That really brought a lot of good people actually out
Speaker 4: and people from mckinni and Princeton, Texas and so many
Speaker 4: random cities came out and said, hey, this is not
Speaker 4: the America that we know, right, you know, you cannot
Speaker 4: and this is a sitting state representative, elected official from
Speaker 4: our district. That's viewing such hateful speech, and so I
Speaker 4: knocked on even more doors and got a lot of
Speaker 4: great support, and you know, I won by only thirty
Speaker 4: seven votes and made history by being the first minority
Speaker 4: ever elected in the history of the city of Ulus.
Speaker 4: And that gave me a lot of like enthusiasm that
Speaker 4: Texas is not what people claim it to be. And
Speaker 4: it's sort of poetic justice that today I'm sitting in
Speaker 4: the same place where Jonathan Stickland sat and attacked me
Speaker 4: for being Muslim in that so you know, God has
Speaker 4: its way of you know, giving back or the karma
Speaker 4: that people do, right, So it's poetic justice where I'm
Speaker 4: sitting here. So I think, you know, eventually, I feel
Speaker 4: like the islamphobia is there, but it's very limited. That's
Speaker 4: not the Texas that we know. It's just sort of
Speaker 4: a fringe, loud minority of voices that bring all the hate.
Speaker 1: I'm curious, I mean, when you entered into politics, did
Speaker 1: you sort of anticipate like that your religion would be
Speaker 1: such a main part of you know, not just how
Speaker 1: you present yourself, but also how your opponents sort of
Speaker 1: try to attack you.
Speaker 4: I did, in fact, think that this would be a
Speaker 4: big issue I felt because of the nine to eleven
Speaker 4: discrimination as well as what our president at that time
Speaker 4: was saying, I felt that that would become a central issue.
Speaker 4: But I felt like it's easier for people to give
Speaker 4: hate online, right like on Facebook, sitting there like how
Speaker 4: Jonathan Sticklan did you know he posted on like a
Speaker 4: big post on right on the early early voting day,
Speaker 4: the first day of early voting, and that had like
Speaker 4: twenty thousand likes, And I was like, wow, like it's
Speaker 4: easy to do that. But then as I sat or
Speaker 4: stood outside the library greeting every single voter that came
Speaker 4: in and saying, my name is al Mambo Johanni. I'm
Speaker 4: wanting to run for you a city council and would
Speaker 4: love your support. And they'd be like one person rolled
Speaker 4: up in a wheelchair and said, you know, what kind
Speaker 4: of pork do you eat? I'm telling you about city council.
Speaker 4: I'm like, hey, I'll be an attorney. You know, I've
Speaker 4: got little kids. You know, the way the city council
Speaker 4: right now is that there's no one that has little
Speaker 4: kids that use the library in the park. And he's
Speaker 4: asking about what kind of pork do I eat? I'm
Speaker 4: like excuse me, sir, like, what does that have to
Speaker 4: do with city council? And he said, well, I mean
Speaker 4: if you don't you know, this is really important to me.
Speaker 4: I need you to answer this question. I was like, well,
Speaker 4: I didn't know there are different kinds of pork, but
Speaker 4: I don't need any kind of pork. And he said, well,
Speaker 4: if you don't eat pork, then you don't have my vote,
Speaker 4: sort of signaling that there has to be a religious
Speaker 4: test for you to be an elected office. People came
Speaker 4: in and I remember distinct there was a former professor
Speaker 4: from Texas A and M and him and his wife
Speaker 4: came out to board and I was, you know, having
Speaker 4: really intimate conversations with him, and I felt like this
Speaker 4: is great, right because I want to reason with people
Speaker 4: that are at a more intellectual level. And so I
Speaker 4: have a good conversation in a few minutes. And he's like, so,
Speaker 4: what do you think about shir Ya law? And I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: I mean shir yallow is is religious moral code and
Speaker 4: you know Muslims follow it. You know, it's very personal.
Speaker 4: It guides my principle of what I want to do
Speaker 4: in my life, not what you know other people should
Speaker 4: do in their own life. And he's like, well, I'm
Speaker 4: concerned you'll you'll bring shari Ya law on uless Like
Speaker 4: I just told you. It's a personal moral code, just
Speaker 4: like how Jewish community has it, Christians have it, a
Speaker 4: lot of religious communities have it. And then he says,
Speaker 4: what do you think about people, you know, women wearing hijab? Like,
Speaker 4: I mean again, people choose to do what they want
Speaker 4: to choose, right, it's about And I asked him, like,
Speaker 4: what do you think about people wearing boots and tex
Speaker 4: I mean, is this a bad thing to do or
Speaker 4: good thing to know? It just people do what they
Speaker 4: want to do, right, I mean we can't. That's the
Speaker 4: beauty of this country that we can choose to wear
Speaker 4: or do whatever we want to do, so long as
Speaker 4: it doesn't interfere some with someone else. So if a
Speaker 4: Muslim woman is wearing a job, what issue do you see?
Speaker 4: And he's like, no, no, no, I feel like you'll make
Speaker 4: less women wear a job. I can't do that. I mean,
Speaker 4: look at my wife's standing right here next to me.
Speaker 4: She's not wearing a job. But not that there's anything
Speaker 4: wrong with that, but I mean it's just like that's
Speaker 4: what made me feel like it's trickling down to normal
Speaker 4: people that are coming out and voting in a city
Speaker 4: election where there's no Republican or Democrat like on the ballot, right,
Speaker 4: And that's what I loved about city politics that, you know,
Speaker 4: So I saw a lot of that. But then when
Speaker 4: I got elected, it was really amazing eleanor Matthew that
Speaker 4: out of seven city council members, I'm the only Democrat
Speaker 4: on there, I am the only minority on there. Six
Speaker 4: of my Republican colleagues in twenty twenty elected me as
Speaker 4: a mayor of protesi for the city of Ulyss and I
Speaker 4: was just amazed, Like that is what Texas is about.
Speaker 4: It's coming together. No one party has all the monopoly
Speaker 4: of all the solutions. So when you come together and say, hey,
Speaker 4: our potholes are not democratic, our library is not Republican.
Speaker 4: We need to come together and solve problems for everyday
Speaker 4: Texans with kitchen table issues as opposed to polarized issues.
Speaker 3: How much do you see your role as part of
Speaker 3: your role, you know, being a voice for the Muslim
Speaker 3: community in Texas or even in your district and also
Speaker 3: serve along those lines, like how how large of a
Speaker 3: community a Muslim community is there within your individual district
Speaker 3: in the legislature.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question, Matthew. A lot of people
Speaker 4: ask me that and they assume that it must be
Speaker 4: a huge number. Let me surprise you. It's two percent
Speaker 4: of my district our Muslim you know voters or you
Speaker 4: know Muslim community. And so I even though my religion
Speaker 4: inspires me to do the work that I'm doing, you know,
Speaker 4: with public service, that is not like I'm not elected
Speaker 4: to serve the Muslim community. I'm elected to serve all Texans.
Speaker 4: And we have this like we strategized, you know, in
Speaker 4: our office, you know, and we came up with what
Speaker 4: is our one goal? If you had to put in
Speaker 4: one sentence, what is our goal as the office of
Speaker 4: the state representa famam Borjani and everybody wrote on the
Speaker 4: in their book as a facilitator, was was you know,
Speaker 4: sort of strategizing this that we want Our goal is
Speaker 4: to improve the quality of life of every Texan starting
Speaker 4: with our constituents and quality of life, our the kitchen table,
Speaker 4: issues like improving health care, high color, quality, education, our economy,
Speaker 4: you know, religious freedom, technology all that and is not
Speaker 4: really partisan neither it's for based on one religion. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's the reason why I even started the Religous Freedom Caucus,
Speaker 4: because it's not a you know, a fight against Islamophobia caucus, right,
Speaker 4: It's it's just this is our religious liberty is a
Speaker 4: central issue for all parties, for all our community because
Speaker 4: it's enshrined in our constitution, and so I feel like
Speaker 4: it's important to discuss those things and not just talk
Speaker 4: about one faith because an attack on one faith is
Speaker 4: an attack on everybody.
Speaker 1: Now I want to talk about the Religious Freedom Caucus
Speaker 1: and sort of this religious freedom issue, but I mean
Speaker 1: before we get to that, for people who maybe only
Speaker 1: know about the Muslim community through these attack ads that
Speaker 1: they're seeing, what do you want people to know sort
Speaker 1: of about what the Muslim community in Texas looks like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Muslim community in Texas is very diverse, and it
Speaker 4: may surprise you that we don't all follow the same
Speaker 4: Sharia law. Sharia law is very contact specific, cultural specific,
Speaker 4: you know, based on what country you come from. There's
Speaker 4: some people who will say, okay, you know, I will
Speaker 4: follow this, but not that that's totally normal. And I
Speaker 4: feel like they're the business owners they're the doctors justin
Speaker 4: I was looking at some statistic with that blew my mind.
Speaker 4: They're like over eight thousand doctors and nurses of Pakistani origin.
Speaker 4: There are Muslims in North Texas alone. Think about how
Speaker 4: many are more probably in all over the state of Texas.
Speaker 4: So it's likely that I tell my colleagues on the
Speaker 4: house that it's likely that one of you know, your
Speaker 4: doctors may be a Muslim. And so it's just we
Speaker 4: are contributing the citizens of the United States of Texas
Speaker 4: and it's a it's a very diverse community. We are.
Speaker 4: All we want to do is live, work and play,
Speaker 4: pray in peace in the state of Texas. And with
Speaker 4: so much you know, economy and the business vibe that
Speaker 4: the Texas Texas has, I feel like we should allow
Speaker 4: that and that is something a foundational principle of being
Speaker 4: able to associate, being able to belong and not treated
Speaker 4: like an outsider. And that's what I think our community
Speaker 4: is feeling right now that we are treated as an outsider.
Speaker 4: We're looked as there's a cloud of suspicion on the
Speaker 4: Muslim community. So there's not a day that goes by
Speaker 4: without me getting a text from a Muslim community member
Speaker 4: in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, anywhere in Texas that says, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, my daughter or wife was walking with the
Speaker 4: h job and she got targeted and there were people
Speaker 4: yelling you know, epithet, you know, and islamophobic speech at them.
Speaker 4: Or you know UTD students praying in a park and
Speaker 4: there's someone that comes in with a loud speaker and
Speaker 4: says islamophobic things to do them while they're praying. Or
Speaker 4: the Muslim woman if you may have heard of this
Speaker 4: in Uless, where she was sitting by her pool side
Speaker 4: with two little kids and there's a Caucasian woman that
Speaker 4: comes in and tries to drown the two kids because
Speaker 4: the woman was speaking to them in Arabic and she's
Speaker 4: you know, targeted for hate crime and all that. So
Speaker 4: there's a lot of that happening right now. It's really
Speaker 4: trickling down from the elected officials all the way down
Speaker 4: to normal constituents and Texans that should not be going
Speaker 4: through this. I mean, there's so much more things that
Speaker 4: we should focus on than them we're doing right now,
Speaker 4: and it's coming from elected officials, which is very concerning
Speaker 4: to me because what we say is held to a
Speaker 4: higher standard when we say we have a fan following,
Speaker 4: and so who knows what somebody looks at a tweet
Speaker 4: and goes out and actually takes an action. And I
Speaker 4: saw that firsthand, like in my family, you know, last summer,
Speaker 4: as you know, I broke orum and one of the
Speaker 4: Terran County Republican party chairs was was giving me a
Speaker 4: lot of hate for doing that and sort of docks
Speaker 4: my personal ad, my home address, my parents' home address,
Speaker 4: my social media like kids social media platforms, and they
Speaker 4: were unmarked cars following my family around while I was
Speaker 4: in Chicago, and you know, the people are coming to
Speaker 4: our doorsteps and trying to figure out or where's representa
Speaker 4: Bojani and all that like every time, and I'm feeling
Speaker 4: really you know, sad, and I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 4: how do I protect my family sitting in Chicago remotely
Speaker 4: when all this is going on Texas they know full
Speaker 4: well where I'm at. I'm posting on social media that
Speaker 4: I'm in Chicago and all that, and I literally, you know,
Speaker 4: after resultation with other Democratic colleagues, I had to hire
Speaker 4: twenty four to seven security private security, so that way
Speaker 4: I could take care of my family while I was
Speaker 4: in Chicago. So it's actually a really real threat that
Speaker 4: we experienced. And you've seen what happens what happened in
Speaker 4: Minnesota to Democratic elected officials, So I take that a
Speaker 4: lot to me personally, And actually we had a big
Speaker 4: conversation with my family as whether I should run for
Speaker 4: office again, because if something happens to my family while
Speaker 4: I'm helping people that I don't sometimes you even know,
Speaker 4: it's not going to be fair for me and for
Speaker 4: my family. But ultimately I decided to continue to run
Speaker 4: for office because I feel like there is such a
Speaker 4: huge need for somebody that has my perspective being born
Speaker 4: in a different country, having a different faith, and how
Speaker 4: do I defend against the Christian nationalism that's going on,
Speaker 4: or you know, the violation blatant violations of religious freedom
Speaker 4: rights instead of Texas.
Speaker 3: I think it's worth sort of pausing for a moment
Speaker 3: and talking about some of the examples of how you
Speaker 3: know this topic has come up in our politics in
Speaker 3: recent months. I mean, uh, you know, there have been
Speaker 3: actions by Governor Abbott and Attorney General Kin Paxon against
Speaker 3: the Council on American Islamic Relations kN Paxon seeking to
Speaker 3: shut them down, Greg Abbott calling them a terrorist group.
Speaker 3: We've had UH schools Muslim schools kept out of the
Speaker 3: voucher program when other religious schools, including Christian Injewish schools
Speaker 3: being allowed to participate. You have Dan Patrick declaring, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, combating Charia law as a uh interim charge,
Speaker 3: you know, something he has asked the Senate to study
Speaker 3: in the lead up to the next legislative session. You
Speaker 3: have had the fights and pushback in legal actions against
Speaker 3: the development in North Texas around a mosque, the what's
Speaker 3: known as been known as the Epic City development. And
Speaker 3: then you've had just kind of in the the races,
Speaker 3: the primaries, right, you know, candidates really making what they
Speaker 3: would describe as fighting Islam a key tenet of their campaigns.
Speaker 3: Someone who really comes to mind here being Bo French,
Speaker 3: who is running for Railroad Commissioner, a position that you
Speaker 3: know regulates the oil and gas industry, not something you
Speaker 3: would really expect that to be a big plank of
Speaker 3: the candidate. You talked a little bit earlier about how,
Speaker 3: you know, there's always been something of an undercurrent You've
Speaker 3: always sort of faced this kind of you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: frankly discrimination throughout your career. Do you feel like right
Speaker 3: now the climate is particularly hot and heated, or does
Speaker 3: it feel to you more like this is just kind
Speaker 3: of what it's always been like for you in your community,
Speaker 3: in you know, the political it.
Speaker 4: No, that's a great point, and thanks for that sort
Speaker 4: of background. And I feel like it has exacerbated significantly
Speaker 4: when I am talking about like nine to eleven, Like
Speaker 4: elected officials weren't fanning the flames. They were not fear mongering,
Speaker 4: they were not spewing hateful speech. I mean, besides president
Speaker 4: right or our president has been known that way, So
Speaker 4: if you discount that, like other elected officials weren't doing
Speaker 4: that in the degree that they're doing it right now.
Speaker 4: I mean you look at every congress member on the
Speaker 4: far right that that is saying, oh you know, do
Speaker 4: you do you you know our dog's bad or you
Speaker 4: know your Muslim's bad? Right, and just both frends you
Speaker 4: talked about him, I mean, he's he has this infatuation
Speaker 4: with me somehow, just like how Jonathan Stickland did. But
Speaker 4: he's also saying the same thing, you know, And I
Speaker 4: think when he tweeted or did a post saying that
Speaker 4: our Muslims worse or you know, Jewish community worse. I
Speaker 4: think he got a lot of backlash from lieutenant governor
Speaker 4: and other elected officials by saying, you know, we do
Speaker 4: not want anti Semitic behavior in our state. So I
Speaker 4: see our elected officials really quick to fight against, you know,
Speaker 4: any discrimination on one faith but not on the other.
Speaker 4: And that's the danger. The double standard is the danger
Speaker 4: that I see, and that's what's amplifying the volume. And
Speaker 4: that's why it's so important to fall back and protect
Speaker 4: the religious freedom for all faith communities. This is not
Speaker 4: something that I'm only fighting for the Muslim community, even
Speaker 4: though Muslim community is being targeted significantly more. They're being scapegoaded.
Speaker 4: And I think the the playbook hasn't changed. The actors
Speaker 4: in that playbook has changed. Right before, if you you know,
Speaker 4: look at a few years ago with more immigrants that
Speaker 4: are coming from South America and they're criminals and they're
Speaker 4: going to invade the border and they're coming to Texas,
Speaker 4: and so we need to build a five billion dollar wall,
Speaker 4: we need to have troops going and so it's exactly
Speaker 4: the same fear mongering tactic because it's difficult to sow
Speaker 4: the seeds of because it takes a little bit more time.
Speaker 4: It's easier to so hate. So that way, hate gets
Speaker 4: people turned on neighbor to neighbor pretty quickly, right, And
Speaker 4: that's what I saw as well. I'm a neighbor and
Speaker 4: I'm doing so many great things for the state and
Speaker 4: for the for my city. As soon as I run
Speaker 4: for the office elected office, now I'm you know, turned
Speaker 4: into an outsider. And so but I think if you
Speaker 4: look at it, it's a mccarthy'sm with the Texas accent. Right.
Speaker 4: So when McCarthy they he didn't need proof that someone
Speaker 4: was a communist. He just labeled it, and that label
Speaker 4: itself became proof that, Hey, you can destroy the careers,
Speaker 4: you can take passports, you can blacklist entire organization. So
Speaker 4: that's what Governor, our governor did, right, he said, Okay,
Speaker 4: here's care. I just lost three lawsuits, right, that's what
Speaker 4: he's saying. I lost three lawsuits back in October twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five against Care on blatant violations. Courts have told governor,
Speaker 4: you've blatantly violated our First Amendment. And what is this
Speaker 4: knee jerk reaction? Okay, let's label that organization as a
Speaker 4: terrorist organization without any substantive fact, without any kind of
Speaker 4: you know, view process, and then building a layer on
Speaker 4: top of that. So every brick that's left put level
Speaker 4: on top of that is based on basis foundation. So
Speaker 4: then you talk about Epic City bill. By the way,
Speaker 4: a side note, when that bill was what twenty forty
Speaker 4: two eleven HP forty to eleven was being filed and
Speaker 4: gone through the process and expedited through the process, by
Speaker 4: the by the way, and I'm sure you all know
Speaker 4: that there was no mention of shir Yah law. There
Speaker 4: was no mention. This is a bill that says, hey,
Speaker 4: if you were twenty five acres or more real estate development,
Speaker 4: instead of you have to people have to buy the home,
Speaker 4: actually not buy a membership interest in a company that
Speaker 4: owns land. That's what it is about. It's not there
Speaker 4: to bantury a lot, even though it was touted later on,
Speaker 4: I in fact voted no for it because of that.
Speaker 4: And I'm a real stair attorney, you know, like I
Speaker 4: have seen so many developlopment's just based on the same
Speaker 4: epicicity model. In North Texas here there's like ten acres
Speaker 4: twenty five acres fifteen acres where they say, we're going
Speaker 4: to dedicate some portion of land to mosque and we want,
Speaker 4: you know, to make this development for everybody, but most
Speaker 4: likely who will come those people that want, like their
Speaker 4: parents or their kids to be able to walk to
Speaker 4: the mosque. Right, so they're going to live close by.
Speaker 4: Like I said, they just want to live, work and
Speaker 4: pray in peace. And that's so many developments have happened.
Speaker 4: I think Epic City did a great job of marketing
Speaker 4: where you know, their neighbors in Josephine, Texas found this
Speaker 4: and said, how is this happening in my backyard? Not
Speaker 4: in my backyard. I don't want to slammify the state
Speaker 4: and things like that. So that's what and they prompted
Speaker 4: the governor Abbott and other elected officials to say, hey,
Speaker 4: you have to do something about it. And that's why
Speaker 4: this targeting is happening. But it's the same sort of
Speaker 4: building block on that and then they say the schools right. Oh.
Speaker 4: In another side note, when the private school voucher bill
Speaker 4: was being discussed in the legislature last session, a lot
Speaker 4: of Republicans came to me in my office or on
Speaker 4: the side and said, hey, you're Muslim. Don't you want
Speaker 4: your Muslim private schools to get this private school vouchers?
Speaker 4: I was like, if it passed, but I don't want to.
Speaker 4: I really don't want to. As a state representative, our
Speaker 4: job is to fully fund one like our public schools, right,
Speaker 4: one level of education, not like coming up with like
Speaker 4: multiple and private schools. So but it was sold to
Speaker 4: me as hey, your Muslim schools will also get money.
Speaker 4: And now they're completely violating so you know, we have
Speaker 4: elected officials right now, they're violating the intent of the
Speaker 4: legislature by you know, not just excluding some of the schools.
Speaker 4: And it had to be a lawsuit before they could
Speaker 4: come in and accept some of the schools.
Speaker 3: You actually touched on something I wanted to ask you about,
Speaker 3: which is, you know, we've seen the rhetoric among public officials,
Speaker 3: people and policy. I mean, you are as a member
Speaker 3: of the legislature. You spent a lot of time around lawmakers,
Speaker 3: Republican lawmakers, Democratic lawmakers in the Capitol. How does their
Speaker 3: actions in private, behind closed doors and committee meetings or
Speaker 3: anything like that compare to what you're hearing from them,
Speaker 3: you know, from you know, some politicians. Not everyone, of course,
Speaker 3: but some politicians publicly right now.
Speaker 4: Now that's a great question. I've always seen like a
Speaker 4: dichotomy of you know, how people are publicly speaking out
Speaker 4: and how when in private meetings. You know, I sometimes
Speaker 4: I'm one of the first Muslims they ever see, right
Speaker 4: because in their districts there is there's no Muslim that
Speaker 4: lives over there, or they have not come across them,
Speaker 4: and so you know, they always tell me, hey, you
Speaker 4: know you you seem pretty normal, right, you know, And
Speaker 4: I don't know what, like what does that means? I
Speaker 4: always say, like in their minds, maybe when they think
Speaker 4: of a Muslim they think of Uslamb and Laden's image.
Speaker 4: Maybe they think of somebody with a turbine and a
Speaker 4: beard and so, and I you know, they're very like
Speaker 4: respectful to me, like I've not had a legislator or
Speaker 4: doesn't matter where they sit on the political political spectrum
Speaker 4: being disuspectful of me. In fact, you know, I've had
Speaker 4: I do this if star at the capital every session
Speaker 4: where the first session I had fifty five or so
Speaker 4: state reps and senators that come they came in, and
Speaker 4: this time I had sixty plus state reps that came
Speaker 4: in and this is happening in the month of March
Speaker 4: and April. So think about like, you know, when all
Speaker 4: this legislation about Epic City is brewing and these people
Speaker 4: are coming privately, and I mean it's it's sort of private,
Speaker 4: but it's also like showing of support. And I try
Speaker 4: to do everything in English so that way everybody understands
Speaker 4: what's going on. It's and I tell them, hey, it's
Speaker 4: important to break bread together sometimes, right just in a
Speaker 4: in an interfaith way, in non partisan way, to say,
Speaker 4: let's come together. We have so much more in common.
Speaker 4: You know, when when I talk to Christian lawmakers, I say, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, the God that you pray to is the
Speaker 4: same God that we pray It's the same Abrahamic faith tradition,
Speaker 4: and so you know, I think when they talk to
Speaker 4: me in one on one it's a lot more respectful
Speaker 4: and is not that negative rhetoric as you see on
Speaker 4: public platforms. But I think they may be tempted to
Speaker 4: feel that their constituents want them to do certain things.
Speaker 4: Like for example, yesterday Attorney General Ken Paxson did this
Speaker 4: lawsuit and had to press release on the Islamic Tribune
Speaker 4: know right, and it's again he's going through a primary runoff, right,
Speaker 4: So it's just a race to be more Islamophobic. Right.
Speaker 4: So I would have never thought that Senator Cornyn would
Speaker 4: do something, Sureia free something in the US Congress. But
Speaker 4: he's doing that because he has to be more islam
Speaker 4: phobic than his opponent. Otherwise in the Republican primary, he's
Speaker 4: not going to get the support and the votes that
Speaker 4: he needs because if you look at I think what
Speaker 4: eight to ten percent of Texans come out in the
Speaker 4: Republican primary, and so he needs to win over the
Speaker 4: four point one or a five point one percent of Texans,
Speaker 4: and those are so far right Maga Republicans that they've
Speaker 4: fallen off the charts of the political spectrum. And so
Speaker 4: that's what they're trying to woo, and that they need
Speaker 4: to be more solamphobic than someone else. I mean, by
Speaker 4: the way I looked at this Islamic Tribunal website, I
Speaker 4: mean it clearly says they're not you know, they follow
Speaker 4: the law of the land, they follow the Texas Constitution,
Speaker 4: the United States Constitution, and this is just religious context.
Speaker 4: They're they're not binding, uh, you know, agreements or whatever
Speaker 4: the jurisdiction that they live in. So it's fear mongering
Speaker 4: at its best, sort of serving the red meat to
Speaker 4: their constituents.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the religious liberty aspect of this,
Speaker 1: because I do think there's like a very interesting like
Speaker 1: legal uh debate unfolding around. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: our elected Republican officials feel very strongly and talk a
Speaker 1: lot about religious liberty, and the concern tends to be
Speaker 1: around whether Christians are being discriminated against. We've also seen
Speaker 1: around sort of the you know, Warren Gaza, this question
Speaker 1: of you know, rising and Semitism that we've certainly seen
Speaker 1: some of our elected officials speak out against. But then this,
Speaker 1: you know, Muslims are treated very differently. A couple months
Speaker 1: ear last month was at the Faith Angle Forum in
Speaker 1: sort of this gathering of journalists and religious thinkers, and
Speaker 1: they were had this great author or scholar osma Udin
Speaker 1: who wrote this book like When Islam Is Not a
Speaker 1: Religion about how Islam is often treated within our religious
Speaker 1: liberty context as like an entirely different thing, more of
Speaker 1: a political system or a political effort than a religion.
Speaker 1: And they're talking about this idea, right that like civil liberties,
Speaker 1: religious liberties are for losers. Like you don't need religious
Speaker 1: liberty or civil or your civil liberties to be protected
Speaker 1: when you are in the position of power, right, you
Speaker 1: need them when you are not in the position of power,
Speaker 1: and when you need sort of safety net to protect
Speaker 1: your rights. And I think certainly, just in terms of
Speaker 1: the elected officials we have in Texas, we have a
Speaker 1: lot of Christians and elected positions. We have very few Muslims.
Speaker 1: As we've discussed, we have very few Jewish elected officials.
Speaker 1: I mean, what is your sense of sort of when
Speaker 1: you hear elect officials talk about religious liberty, you know,
Speaker 1: let's say Republican elect officials talking about religious liberty versus
Speaker 1: you know, you're starting this religious liberty Caucus. Do you
Speaker 1: see overlap there? I mean, are you guys using the
Speaker 1: term the same now?
Speaker 4: I don't think so. But religious liberty isn't a Republican
Speaker 4: talking point, It's an American value. It's trying in our constitution.
Speaker 4: I think what the double standard is, what I'm trying
Speaker 4: to call out by starting the Religous Freedom Caucus is
Speaker 4: that you can use these religious liberties as a sword
Speaker 4: against one religion, but then use the same thing as
Speaker 4: a shield to protect one the other one right. So
Speaker 4: I feel we have had multiple laws in the ninety
Speaker 4: Lestive session that said Christian nationalism or Christianity is sort
Speaker 4: of a more predominant religion and we're going to protect
Speaker 4: that more than any other right. So protecting the right
Speaker 4: of every Texan or Christian Texan to have Bible study
Speaker 4: or Bible prayer time. And what the issue with that
Speaker 4: was that besides just having taking one faith and saying
Speaker 4: Bible is sort of in the code as well. It
Speaker 4: removed one thing that I think a lot of Republicans
Speaker 4: didn't even know. When I was talking to Republicans said,
Speaker 4: it takes out the word encourage. I don't know if
Speaker 4: y'all caught that. A lot of people, like I said,
Speaker 4: even including Republicans, didn't catch that. So there was a
Speaker 4: prohibition on encouraging school teachers and principles and administrators encouraging religion.
Speaker 4: So they literally striped out that bill, struck out the
Speaker 4: word encourage, prohibition on encouraging, which means now you could
Speaker 4: encourage a school teacher can encourage and say these kids
Speaker 4: and say you should become a Catholic or Christian or
Speaker 4: this or that, and so I made it a coin
Speaker 4: in the front mind. As this bill was being discussed
Speaker 4: on the house floor, I went up and I said, well,
Speaker 4: I could say this where what if there's a Muslim
Speaker 4: teacher that comes up and says, hey, you know, if
Speaker 4: those of you who pray five times a day today
Speaker 4: and read the Quran, there's a test tomorrow, math test tomorrow.
Speaker 4: I'll give everybody that does that and shows me a proof,
Speaker 4: I'll give them a five bonus points on that. And
Speaker 4: that's completely legal under this bill now, right, And I said, nobody,
Speaker 4: including myself on the house floor wants that. I don't
Speaker 4: even want that. And or a Muslim teacher goes up
Speaker 4: and says, you know, it's sprayer time right now. I'm
Speaker 4: in math class or whatever class, but it's prayer time.
Speaker 4: I'm going to just start praying right now. And this
Speaker 4: is the direction of the Kaba, and I'm going to
Speaker 4: start and you should join me in praying, right And
Speaker 4: that is completely legal now. And so that is just
Speaker 4: eroding on the religious freedom because I think there's two
Speaker 4: sides to the religious freedom coin, and we just look
Speaker 4: at one side where sometimes and that even that is eroded,
Speaker 4: but that you can practice your faith without any discrimination
Speaker 4: or government interference. On the other side is the state
Speaker 4: cannot mandate of faith because there are atheist community members,
Speaker 4: they are agnostic community members as well, that we need
Speaker 4: to respect and that they also have the same constition rights.
Speaker 4: And so that's where I want to hold the line
Speaker 4: on start, you know, because of this Freedom Caucus, and
Speaker 4: try to make sure that we celebrate, protect and you know,
Speaker 4: just make sure that there are these all these religious
Speaker 4: traditions have rights in the state of Texas well.
Speaker 3: And of course, you know, in that same legislative session,
Speaker 3: the legislature passed to bill saying that you know, every
Speaker 3: classroom in the state has to hang the Ten Commandments
Speaker 3: on its rolls. Right, So there's a question of religious liberty.
Speaker 3: And then there's also I think an increasingly vocal strain
Speaker 3: of the Republican Party that has the opinion that, note,
Speaker 3: the US should be a Christian nation, and you.
Speaker 2: Know, in the separation of church and state is a lie.
Speaker 3: Exactly or or has been misinterpreted for a very long time, right,
Speaker 3: And so I mean that is also just another strain
Speaker 3: to this conversation.
Speaker 1: And I think some of that comes from an idea
Speaker 1: that you know, I think some people feel like maybe
Speaker 1: the courts should reinterpret those, you know, previous decisions and
Speaker 1: then maybe the courts would you know, if you get
Speaker 1: in front of the right judge or something like that.
Speaker 1: So I think some of this is sort of intentionally
Speaker 1: poking the bear to see what the courts might do.
Speaker 1: But then, you know, like you said, I think that
Speaker 1: the end result of that of saying, oh, there's not
Speaker 1: you know, maybe we don't have to honor the separation
Speaker 1: of church and state, is you know, is everyone thinking
Speaker 1: and that should apply to everyone equally. You know, Muslim
Speaker 1: should be allowed to you know, you know, I think
Speaker 1: to your point, the point you've made you make on
Speaker 1: the house floor, a lot like no one is sort
Speaker 1: of thinking that in their mind that that's how that
Speaker 1: should go. They're really going the Judeo Christian only model.
Speaker 4: Yeah, another perspective. It was really interesting when elementary school
Speaker 4: or kindergarten school teacher came and spoke to me about
Speaker 4: the Ten Commandments Bill, because I don't think we hear
Speaker 4: that a lot of it. There is some religious freedom
Speaker 4: issue there, but there's also a practical issue there. So
Speaker 4: now that you know, these ten Commandments are up. This
Speaker 4: teacher was asking, how should I answer a question when
Speaker 4: a five year old comes and tells me, teacher, what
Speaker 4: does it mean thou shalt not commit adultery? Can you
Speaker 4: explain that to me? What does adultery mean? And I
Speaker 4: tell my colleagues, do you want a kindergarten teacher to
Speaker 4: explain to a five year old Let's say your kid
Speaker 4: what adultery means? Or is that left better for the
Speaker 4: parents to be teaching that concept? Right, It's just they
Speaker 4: don't want to talk about these you know, woke culture
Speaker 4: and all that. But then at the end, like they're
Speaker 4: putting things out there to muddy the waters. And so
Speaker 4: that's where, like I've always hesitant to, this is a
Speaker 4: place where you're invite in the public. This is a
Speaker 4: place where you're inviting curiosity amongst the most young, more
Speaker 4: vulnerable Texans. Let this be free from religion, Let this
Speaker 4: be free from any kind of one side it, you know, politics, right,
Speaker 4: and I'm saying for both parties. I think that that's
Speaker 4: why we should make it. Because of the level kids
Speaker 4: can ask questions and feel comfortable even though there may
Speaker 4: be a board. As kid, we don't want them to
Speaker 4: feel left out because they don't see their faith on
Speaker 4: the board.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess when you look ahead, We've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about sort of how it feels like the
Speaker 1: election is fomenting a lot of this. I'm curious, do
Speaker 1: you feel like when we get through this election cycle,
Speaker 1: some of this will sort of recede away and will
Speaker 1: like move on to the next thing to talk about,
Speaker 1: or do you feel like this has been sort of
Speaker 1: a meaningful shift in terms of where the sort of
Speaker 1: bar now is for what people are accepting or even
Speaker 1: like worried about in terms of this anti Muslim rhetoric.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm very hopeful that once the primary season and
Speaker 4: runoff sort of end, the very people that were target
Speaker 4: in the Muslim community will have to court Muslim voters
Speaker 4: because I can tell you how many community members that
Speaker 4: come to me and say we are going to vote
Speaker 4: in the largest number possible. Right. And I'll give you
Speaker 4: a quick example. So during Bedrow's race, I think in
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen, they were I think he lost by a
Speaker 4: few hundred thousand votes, right, And somebody who was telling
Speaker 4: me there were two hundred and fifty thousand Muslims that
Speaker 4: did not vote in that election, So Muslims in that
Speaker 4: election could have completely turned and changed the outcome of
Speaker 4: that election, now, you know, I mean, I feel like
Speaker 4: some numbers indicate that we have like two percent of
Speaker 4: Texans are Muslims, so about six hundred thousand or maybe more.
Speaker 4: And so that's a sizable number where if we can
Speaker 4: come out and influence elections. So I feel like there
Speaker 4: will be somewhat of a shifting of this vetic and
Speaker 4: I hope so again, like I said, I'm very hopeful.
Speaker 4: That's what keeps me coming back to the Texas Legislature
Speaker 4: despite the kind of setback that we had last session
Speaker 4: where I felt, you know, the people across the aisle
Speaker 4: were not giving me the benefit of the doubt. Everything
Speaker 4: that I filed or talked about was looked at it
Speaker 4: a little bit at this with the suspicion that, oh,
Speaker 4: this must be some woke ideology or some Muslim thing
Speaker 4: that you're trying to slide that by. Because I do
Speaker 4: work a lot on religious freedom, right, I mean, I
Speaker 4: had the religious freedom as a freshman. I had a
Speaker 4: religious freedom press conference, making sure that we have state
Speaker 4: option holidays, the marriage parody of Muslim in moms and
Speaker 4: Hindu pundits and sick grunties and Buddhist monks could also
Speaker 4: officiate weddings. And then also no star tests on the
Speaker 4: religious festivals, which I did get to pass, but I
Speaker 4: didn't put anything of any religion. I just said any
Speaker 4: religion that is recognized by the federal government. If they
Speaker 4: have any religious festivals, the kids should be able to
Speaker 4: make make up for star tests. And I think there's
Speaker 4: so much hate against star tests that that's probably foul.
Speaker 4: Why it passed not because of the religious freedom aspect
Speaker 4: of it. I feel like there will be a resetting
Speaker 4: and I feel that these elections midim elections will be
Speaker 4: quite telling. I see a lot of momentum. I see,
Speaker 4: for the first time in what twenty plus years, there's
Speaker 4: been more momentum on the Democratic side, more Democrats about
Speaker 4: it in the Democratic primary than the Republics in the
Speaker 4: Republican primary. So I feel that's something that's going to
Speaker 4: shift the weight. And my first session was actually an
Speaker 4: amazing session. Despite being in the minority. I got a
Speaker 4: lot of things done and you reduced the effect negative
Speaker 4: effects on a lot of different bills. And there were
Speaker 4: sixty eight Democrats and eighty two Republicans. This past session,
Speaker 4: a lot of really good friends of mine on both
Speaker 4: sides of the aisle were unseated, and especially fifteen Republicans.
Speaker 4: There were modern Republicans that were unseated because of private
Speaker 4: school voucher issue. In IFL now we had sixty two
Speaker 4: Democrats and eighty eight Republicans. It was really sort of
Speaker 4: my way or the highway legislation. And I hope that
Speaker 4: the momentum sort of continues because again between now and November,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of time right, and people are have
Speaker 4: a really short term memory, and so I hope that
Speaker 4: this continues to excite them to say, we need to
Speaker 4: come out and vote with people that resonate with us,
Speaker 4: that fight for us, regardless of party politics. Like I said,
Speaker 4: there's no one party that has all the solutions. I
Speaker 4: feel biased that one party has a lot of good solutions,
Speaker 4: but you know, it's just we need to come together
Speaker 4: in a bipartisan manner because their religious freedom issue is
Speaker 4: not a partisan issue. It's something that it's the sort
Speaker 4: of core value that we have. And I'm you know,
Speaker 4: one thing I'll tell you is huplic sharia law or
Speaker 4: sharia that one word is so misunderstood, and I feel
Speaker 4: and I hope that people take the time to learn
Speaker 4: more about that there's a lot of misconception on there.
Speaker 4: So I'm actually working with my staff to produce a
Speaker 4: video to just break it down in very simple context,
Speaker 4: that there's a lot of this vehtic. Oh, we want
Speaker 4: to ban sharia law? Okay, what is sharia law? Let's
Speaker 4: let's take it down, right, is it? It's basically loved neighbor,
Speaker 4: That's what sharia law is. Do you want to take
Speaker 4: that down? Do you want to ban that? Like, it's
Speaker 4: just people don't understand, you know, these these nuances, and
Speaker 4: they just get on the bandwagon. The word sharia in
Speaker 4: Arabic literally means a path, a righteous path, right that
Speaker 4: that you want to follow. It's a personal moral guiding
Speaker 4: principle that we have as Muslims. And we don't all
Speaker 4: believe in the same exact thing. Like there's one aspect
Speaker 4: of it that you know, interest, right, you should not
Speaker 4: give interest or take interest. Not all Muslims believe in that,
Speaker 4: but a lot of them do. And so it's just
Speaker 4: a way that you sort of figure out, how do
Speaker 4: we have sharia compliant way of financing a home right,
Speaker 4: so that way somebody can buy the American dream and
Speaker 4: make sure that you know they have that. So it's
Speaker 4: just I hope that people take the time to learn
Speaker 4: more about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for that, and thank you for this conversation.
Speaker 1: I think obviously an issue that's getting a lot of
Speaker 1: attention and really helps us sort of take the time
Speaker 1: to unpack some of that.
Speaker 2: So thank you for joining us REPRESENTAIBI, Johnny.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: That is it for the Trip Cast for this week.
Speaker 1: Our producers are Rob and Chris. You can find us
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube and we
Speaker 1: will see you next week.