What's new

My Name Is Nabilah Islam. It’s an American Name.

Bilal9

ELITE MEMBER
Joined
Feb 4, 2014
Messages
26,569
Reaction score
9
Country
Bangladesh
Location
United States
‘My Name Is Nabilah Islam. It’s an American Name.’

Islam, the child of Bangladeshi immigrants, is running as an outspoken progressive in an open swing seat for Congress in Georgia.

BY MARCIA BROWN

JUNE 4, 2020

Stacey Abrams won the district in her gubernatorial race in 2018, Islam noted.

“We need a candidate that energizes the base and expands the electorate and gets people from the community to get out and vote,” Islam said. “I think a lot of people don’t vote because people think they don’t see themselves in their candidate.”

The Democratic primary is June 9 after being postponed from its originally scheduled March 24 date. The state has sent primary ballots to 1.6 million voters who requested them, so much of Islam’s campaigning in the final days has involved making sure that voters have their ballots and that they mail them in. But according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, thousands of voters haven’t yet received their absentee ballots. With more precincts closed on Election Day, and officials worried that many precinct workers may quit, safely voting could become a chore. Absentee ballots will only be counted if received by 7 p.m. on June 9.

Your donation keeps this site free and open for all to read. Give what you can...

SUPPORT THE PROSPECT

Islam, who attended local public schools, says her working-class roots and the experience of her immigrant Bangladeshi parents inform her policy positions. “One of the reasons I’m running for office is I’m really inspired by my mother,” she said. “She doesn’t have a high school degree. She busted her butt.”

Islam recalled that her mother frequently worked overtime at a warehouse, picking up boxes and putting them on trucks. Eventually, her mother herniated two discs and her insurance company tried to deny her benefits. Islam said she was on every phone call, translating and pushing for the company to cover her mother. “Had we not won, we could have been like two-thirds of families that go bankrupt because of medical debt,” she said.

In Gwinnett and Forsyth Counties, which comprise the Seventh District, one in four residents are foreign-born. Gwinnett County is one of the most diverse in the Southeast, Islam said. The county also has the highest rate of deportations in Georgia. “We’re seeing a real hunger for reflective representation,” Islam said. She said that a “huge portion” of the district are first-generation immigrants like her and her little brother, raised by immigrant parents.

IN AN ECHO of the grassroots victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Islam has spent the last year wearing out the soles of her shoes going door-to-door campaigning. But with the arrival of the coronavirus, she had to quickly transition to an all-virtual campaign.

“We haven’t knocked on a door since March, which is pretty wild since the election is in ten days,” she said. Instead, the candidate has put on virtual town halls, worked the phones, and spent a lot of time on Facebook Live and Instagram Live. As of May 20, Islam had raised over $600,000 for the primary.

Murshed Zaheed, a Democratic strategist with Megaphone Strategies, said that Islam is set up well to emerge victorious if this were a normal election cycle. “She’s scrappy, she fights, she works hard, she’s tenacious. The challenge right now for her is that we’re in this pandemic,” he said. “We need her to rise up and emerge as part of the next generation of Democrats that the party desperately needs.”

More from Marcia Brown

Zaheed also works closely with Matriarch, a new PAC founded roughly six months ago to support working-class women running for office. The model is similar to Justice Democrats. Nomiki Konst, who is on Matriarch’s board, explained that Matriarch offers candidates the kind of support that more conventional and wealthy candidates might already have. “I’m obsessed with structures and how organizations are structured and it was very clear that there weren’t enough working-class women who were running,” Konst said. Among the group’s endorsed candidates are Samelys López (NY-15), Cori Bush (MO-01), and Morgan Harper, who ran unsuccessfully against incumbent Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH).

Matriarch helps candidates navigate FEC deadlines, campaign and media strategies, and even field training—help that they might not otherwise be able to find. Konst also said that Matriarch might provide briefings or seminars on certain legislation, like the recent HEROES Act pandemic response, and what candidates might need to know about it.

Your donation keeps this site free and open for all to read. Give what you can...

SUPPORT THE PROSPECT

It’s much harder for women of working-class backgrounds to prove that their candidacy is legitimate, Konst explained. And that snowballs when they also can’t get early endorsements that might help “legitimize” their candidacy early in the race.

Just last month, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Courage to Change PAC endorsed Islam, and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) endorsed Islam in February. Other endorsements include Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and André Carson (D-IN), 350 Climate Action, and Our Revolution Georgia.

WHEN ISLAM DECLARED her candidacy, she was taking on a risk—an expensive one. After deciding to run full-time, she lost her health insurance and petitioned the FEC to use campaign funds to pay for coverage. The petition was inspired by Liuba Grechen Shirley, who ran for office in 2018 and got the FEC to approve her use of campaign funds for child care.

Now, Islam is weathering a pandemic without health insurance, and the FEC, which didn’t even have a quorum for nine months until May, has yet to make a decision on her petition. Her mother is out of work, and she’s put her student loans into forbearance, which, she explained, only means she has to pay them later and with more interest.

Nabilah Islam: “I think a lot of people don’t vote because people think they don’t see themselves in their candidate.”

“These are the barriers that prevent so many of us from running and being in the halls of Congress,” she said. “It’s been very frustrating not being able to see a doctor. It was frustrating before the pandemic and it’s scarier now during a pandemic. I work where 20 percent of people don’t have health insurance … and that is one of the reasons that I’m running for office. I believe that health care is a human right.” She hopes the FEC will rule in her favor, helping to create a more representative Congress and a more equitable playing field.

“When you look at Nabilah’s race, not only has she done everything that naysayers said she couldn’t do, she’s doing it with extraordinary challenges,” Konst said. “There’s a tremendous amount of personal pressure attached to it.”

Islam said she believes that the moment is right for someone like her to win. “We’re a country that’s starving for representation,” she said. “You can’t be what you can’t see. Women like Rashida Tlaib were pioneers and made me believe in myself.”

“My name is Nabilah Islam. It’s an American name.”
 
TL;DR figured it's about some Bangladeshi-American running for Congress.


I wish her good luck.


Eid Mubarak to all, Joi Bangla!

This is her. I'd say Beauty AND Brains. Masha-Allah!

headshot.jpg
 
This is her. I'd say Beauty AND Brains. Masha-Allah!

headshot.jpg


Yes, before commenting I looked her up.

Don't randomly wish people good luck before looking them up :).

https://www.nabilahforcongress.com/home


Edit : Irrespective of whether she wins or not, this is all good for women's empowerment, especially for all Bangladeshi American women, supposedly raised in traditional 'Bengali' households.

Interestingly, Bangladesh is full of success stories about women with top jobs and mammoth amounts of responsibility; Be it Hasina, Khaleda, BGMEA chairman Rubana Huq or the N number of female Business executives.
 
Last edited:
Pretty girl. What a shame she is a socialist crazy.

These guys are cool:

Ed5ePDMWAAEXnhu
 
'Bangladeshis for Trump.'

You mean the same guy who wanted to ban the entry of all muslims into America? :sarcastic:
 
'Bangladeshis for Trump.'

You mean the same guy who wanted to ban the entry of all muslims into America? :sarcastic:
they like him, check this:

wo17-Bangladesh-TrumpCafe.jpg

A cafe in Dhaka named after Donald Trump has been attracting Bangladeshis undeterred by his controversial politics and more interested in snapping selfies with a life-size cutout of the US president.

The cafe was opened in January by a self-professed fan of Mr Trump who rejects the notion that the US president is "anti Islam", saying diners at his cafe in the heart of Muslim-majority Bangladesh agree.

"If he were anti-Muslim, he would not have visited Saudi Arabia and had a good time there," said cafe owner Shafiul Islam, adding that none of Mr Trump's decisions had affected Bangladesh's 144 million-odd Muslims.

Politics appears to be last thing on many diners' minds as they pose for photos with a cardboard cutout of the US president, placed strategically at the entrance by its 29-year-old businessman owner.

"Girls are his bigger fans. They come to take selfies with the Trump picture. Children love him too," he said, adding that more visitors snapped photos than ordered food.

The cafe serves Thai, Chinese and Indian dishes, with specials given names like the "Trump burger".

CNN is broadcast to give an extra American flavour, while the wi-fi password is "Ivanka Trump".

But it's the pull power of the man himself that is bringing in curious customers.

Nuzhat Sultana said the cafe - which Islam says will soon include wallpapered images of the Oval Office and Mr Trump's family - was "very fascinating".

"The best part is the sudden illusion when you enter the cafe and see the US president welcoming you at the door!" she said.

https://www.thenational.ae/world/as...deshis-keen-for-selfies-not-politics-1.609345
 
Well all folks are entitled to their own political opinions, you have to respect everyone.

Although I suspect there are not a whole bunch of Trump supporters in the educated Bangladeshi professionals community in the US.
 
Can't stand the Democrats. Bunch of snakes who pretend to "be progressive with cotton wool" but actually just market the global destruction, sinophobia and islamophobia slightly better than the republicans.

I agree. Democrats are hypocrites whereas Republicans are straight shooter. I support Republicans over democrats.

Khula Dushman poshida dusman se behtar hain.
 
What an absurd picture on so many levels.

I have a feeling these folks were not well to do nor educated in Bangladesh. Hence the Trump pooja, like the semi-educated lower middle class H1B's in the US do as well. Well apparent from the photo.

Lack of education and awareness (same in the case of the older white guys in the picture) is the cause of confusion in understanding the intent of Trump, Breitbart as well as the Blanco Nationalists.

If Blanco supremacists had their way - these people would be in a prison camp like Manzanar or be exterminated (gassed) a la 'final solution'. This picture is the perfect example of how less aware and less educated immigrants can make it in the US financially but be blissfully ignorant about their own political certainty.
 
Peasants who got lucky in America love Trump, anybody with half a brain and understanding of the policies and their fallout knows that at the end of the day the democrats are the better choice.


Just look at the kind of 'White' people who vote for trump, same for his non - White voters.



'Bengalis for Trump' - abal goru sorer dol

Good thing though that these folks aren't Bangladesh's responsibility anymore.
 
Back
Top Bottom