"The Name is Mamdani"

This past week has been a strange mixture of joy and dread at Zohran Mamdani's primary win for the Democratic Party's mayoral nomination. The joy is abundant: it's in all of Mamdani's messaging, whether it's his Hindi/Urdu-language explanation of ranked-choice voting with sampled Bollywood clips, or in vintage videos of his past as a rapper named Mr. Cardamom. The 33-year-old Indian Ugandan Muslim immigrant New Yorker is wearing a multitude of hats, and wearing them well. There is no discordance in the presentation of his complex identity--only highly infectious ebullience.

He is the product of the brilliant Indian film maker Mira Nair, who gave us such films such as Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala, and The Namesake. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, an insightful academic at Columbia University, has written many political books–I interviewed the elder Mamdani several times early in my journalistic career in the early 2000s.

Sonali's 2007 interview w/ Mahmood Mamdani about Darfur

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At a time when being Brown is a high crime, when every aspect of the United States' multiculturalism is under attack, Zohran Mamdani's sweeping upset of an entrenched Democratic establishment--on a proudly democratic socialist platform and with a rainbow coalition of voters, no less–is just what we, the despairing masses needed.

I find myself humming the remixed-viral moment when Mamdani schooled Andrew Cuomo during a debate on how to say his name, and chuckle at the memes flooding my social media feeds.

I marvel at the enormity of Jewish support he received, perhaps because of, not just in spite of, his support of Palestine– Mamdani offered a master class for Democrats wondering how to express their values of humanism while facing intense pro-Israel litmus tests.

I'm thrilled at the unapologetic people-first platform he articulates on bread-and-butter issues, while offering clear, progressive means of paying for them (duh, tax the rich!). His ideas are practical, specific, well-thought out, and popular, from publicly-owned grocery stores to free child care.

(It goes without saying, Mamdani is a human being, not a deity. He is fallible, as we all are. If he wins the mayoral election, beating two disgraced corrupt Democrats, he'll need to be held accountable, just like any politician. If he wins it'll be because he offered voters what they're desperately looking for and it'll be up to those voters to ensure he keeps his promises.)

I've been thinking a lot about Mamdani's platform. This year my 12-year-old is attending a city-run summer camp in Pasadena where he engages in hiking, swimming, archery, arts and crafts, games, and more, in a safe, beautiful environment with plenty of adult supervision. He comes home each day brimming with excitement. I almost didn't enroll him in any camps this summer because of the prohibitively high cost--most privately run summer camps cost on average of $500 a week. But the cost of the city-run camp is only $75 a week. Take out the profit motive, and subsidize services with taxpayer funds, and suddenly basic necessities become affordable for ordinary people.

Mamdani's campaign is a model for what's possible, offering us the ability to showcase his success to the politicos, pundits, naysayers, and centrist milquetoast fear mongers, that a people-first platform can be a winning platform.

So, why do I feel dread?

Mamdani's bold socialist ideals and pro-Palestinian values, are a stand in for so many of us. Now, add in his brown skin, black hair and beard, complex name, and immigrant background, and the MAGA crowd all but has him in their crosshairs. And it's not just the white supremacists who are attacking him, but establishment Democrats and the news punditry. The haters hate his platform. But they'll attack his identity as a way to divert attention from the hugely-popular policies. He faces deportation and death threats precisely because he offers a beautiful vision for masses of people to rally for, along with his complex and intersecting identities.

He faces death threats. Think about that.

White people, we need you more than ever to stand up alongside us. We need you to place your bodies on the line as we are hauled away by ICE agents, to intervene when the modern-day Klansmen use us as target practice, to speak up when we are vilified, criminalized, and otherized, to join us on the frontlines of demanding a better world for us all.

This week on Rising Up With Sonali, I'll be interviewing a candidate in Southern California who offers a similar platform, because, believe it or not, there are many Mamdanis out there. We have to demand they articulate our platforms, vote them into power, hold them accountable, and rinse/repeat indefinitely--that is the work democracy requires of all of us.

And, at minimum, we must all learn how to spell and pronounce their names! ;-)

Meanwhile, as we mark the 4th of July this week, let's remember: