(The Atlantic) I Was a Muslim in Trump's White House

In 2011, I was hired, straight out of college, to work at the White House and eventually the National Security Council. My job there was to promote and protect the best of what my country stands for. I am a hijab-wearing Muslim woman––I was the only hijabi in the West Wing––and the Obama administration always made me feel welcome and included.

Like most of my fellow American Muslims, I spent much of 2016 watching with consternation as Donald Trump vilified our community. Despite this––or because of it––I thought I should try to stay on the NSC staff during the Trump Administration, in order to give the new president and his aides a more nuanced view of Islam, and of America's Muslim citizens.

When Trump issued a ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries and all Syrian refugees, I knew I could no longer stay and work for an administration that saw me and people like me not as fellow citizens, but as a threat.

The evening before I left, bidding farewell to some of my colleagues, many of whom have also since left, I notified Trump’s senior NSC communications adviser, Michael Anton, of my departure, since we shared an office. His initial surprise, asking whether I was leaving government entirely, was followed by silence––almost in caution, not asking why. I told him anyway.

I told him I had to leave because it was an insult walking into this country’s most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim. I told him that the administration was attacking the basic tenets of democracy. I told him that I hoped that they and those in Congress were prepared to take responsibility for all the consequences that would attend their decisions.

It was only later that I learned he authored an essay under a pseudonym, extolling the virtues of authoritarianism and attacking diversity as a “weakness,” and Islam as “incompatible with the modern West.”

My parents immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh in 1978 and strove to create opportunities for their children born in the states. My mother worked as a cashier, later starting her own daycare business. My father spent late nights working at Bank of America, and was eventually promoted to assistant vice president at one of its headquarters. Living the American dream, we’d have family barbecues, trips to Disney World, impromptu soccer or football games, and community service projects. My father began pursuing his Ph.D., but in 1995 he was killed in a car accident.

I was 12 when I started wearing a hijab. It was encouraged in my family, but it was always my choice. It was a matter of faith, identity, and resilience for me. After 9/11, everything would change. On top of my shock, horror, and heartbreak, I had to deal with the fear some kids suddenly felt towards me. I was glared at, cursed at, and spat at in public and in school. People called me a “terrorist” and told me, “go back to your country.”

My father taught me a Bengali proverb inspired by Islamic scripture: “When a man kicks you down, get back up, extend your hand, and call him brother.” Peace, patience, persistence, respect, forgiveness, and dignity. These were the values I’ve carried through my life and my career.

I never intended to work in government. I was among those who assumed the government was inherently corrupt and ineffective. Working in the Obama White House proved me wrong. You can’t know or understand what you haven’t been a part of.

Still, inspired by President Obama, I joined the White House in 2011, after graduating from the George Washington University. I had interned there during my junior year, reading letters and taking calls from constituents at the Office of Presidential Correspondence. It felt surreal––here I was, a 22-year-old American Muslim woman from Maryland who had been mocked and called names for covering my hair, working for the president of the United States.

In 2012, I moved to the West Wing to join the Office of Public Engagement, where I worked with various communities, including American Muslims, on domestic issues such as health care. In early 2014, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes offered me a position on the National Security Council (NSC). For two and a half years I worked down the hall from the Situation Room, advising President Obama’s engagements with American Muslims, and working on issues ranging from advancing relations with Cuba and Laos to promoting global entrepreneurship among women and youth.

A harsher world began to reemerge in 2015. In February, three young American Muslim students were killed in their Chapel Hill home by an Islamophobe. Both the media and administration were slow to address the attack, as if the dead had to be vetted before they could be mourned. It was emotionally devastating. But when a statement was finally released condemning the attack and mourning their loss, Rhodes took me aside to to tell me how grateful he was to have me there and wished there were more American Muslims working throughout government. America’s government and decision-making should reflect its people.

Later that month, the evangelist Franklin Graham declared that the government had “been infiltrated by Muslims.” One of my colleagues sought me out with a smile on his face and said, “If only he knew they were in the halls of the West Wing and briefed the president of the United States multiple times!” I thought: Damn right I’m here, exactly where I belong, a proud American dedicated to protecting and serving my country.

Graham’s hateful provocations weren’t new. Over the Obama years, right-wing websites spread an abundance of absurd conspiracy theories and lies, targeting some American Muslim organizations and individuals––even those of us serving in government. They called us “terrorists,” Sharia-law whisperers, or Muslim Brotherhood operatives. Little did I realize that some of these conspiracy theorists would someday end up in the White House.

Over the course of the campaign, even when I was able to storm through the bad days, I realized the rhetoric was taking a toll on American communities. When Trump first called for a Muslim ban, reports of hate crimes against Muslims spiked. The trend of anti-Muslim hate crimes is ongoing, as mosques are set on fire and individuals attacked––six were killed at a mosque in Canada by a self-identified Trump supporter.

Throughout 2015 and 2016, I watched with disbelief, apprehension, and anxiety, as Trump’s style of campaigning instigated fear and emboldened xenophobes, anti-Semites, and Islamophobes. While cognizant of the possibility of Trump winning, I hoped a majority of the electorate would never condone such a hateful and divisive worldview.

During the campaign last February, Obama visited a Baltimore mosque and reminded the public that “we’re one American family, and when any part of our family starts to feel separate … It’s a challenge to our values.” His words would go unheeded by his successor.

The climate in 2016 felt like it did just after 9/11. What made it worse was that this fear and hatred were being fueled by Americans in positions of power. Fifth-grade students at a local Sunday school where I volunteered shared stories of being bullied by classmates and teachers, feeling like they didn’t belong here anymore, and asked if they might get kicked out of this country if Trump won. I was almost hit by a car by a white man laughing as he drove by in a Costcoparking lot, and on another occasion was followed out of the metro by a man screaming profanities: “Fuck you! Fuck Islam! Trump will send you back!”

The morning after the election, we lined up in the West Colonnade as Obama stood in the Rose Garden and called for national unity and a smooth transition. Trump seemed the antithesis of everything we stood for. I felt lost. I could not fully grasp the idea that he would soon be sitting where Obama sat.

I debated whether I should leave my job. Since I was not a political appointee, but a direct hire of the NSC, I had the option to stay. The incoming and now departed national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had said things like “fear of Muslims is rational.” Some colleagues and community leaders encouraged me to stay, while others expressed concern for my safety. Cautiously optimistic, and feeling a responsibility to try to help them continue our work and be heard, I decided that Trump's NSC could benefit from a colored, female, hijab-wearing, American Muslim patriot.

The weeks leading up to the inauguration prepared me and my colleagues for what we thought would come, but not for what actually came. On Monday, January 23, I walked into the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, with the new staffers there. Rather than the excitement I encountered when I first came to the White House under Obama, the new staff looked at me with a cold surprise. The diverse White House I had worked in became a monochromatic and male bastion.

The days I spent in the Trump White House were strange, appalling and disturbing. As one staffer serving since the Reagan administration said, “This place has been turned upside down. It’s chaos. I’ve never witnessed anything like it.” This was not typical Republican leadership, or even that of a businessman. It was a chaotic attempt at authoritarianism––legally questionable executive orders, accusations of the press being “fake,” peddling countless lies as “alternative facts,” and assertions by White House surrogates that the president’s national security authority would “not be questioned.”

The entire presidential support structure of nonpartisan national security and legal experts within the White House complex and across federal agencies was being undermined. Decision-making authority was now centralized to a few in the West Wing. Frustration and mistrust developed as some staff felt out of the loop on issues within their purview. There was no structure or clear guidance. Hallways were eerily quiet as key positions and offices responsible for national security or engagement with Americans were left unfilled.

I might have lasted a little longer. Then came January 30. The executive order banning travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries caused chaos, without making America any safer. Discrimination that has existed for years at airports was now legitimized, sparking mass protests, while the president railed against the courts for halting his ban. Not only was this discrimination and un-American, the administration’s actions defending the ban threatened the nation’s security and its system of checks and balances.

Alt-right writers, now on the White House staff, have claimed that Islam and the West are at war with each other. Disturbingly, ISIS also makes such claims to justify their attacks, which for the most part target Muslims. The Administration’s plans to revamp the Countering Violent Extremism program to focus solely on Muslims and use terms like “radical Islamic terror,” legitimize ISIS propaganda and allow the dangerous rise of white-supremacist extremism to go unchecked.

Placing U.S. national security in the hands of people who think America’s diversity is a “weakness” is dangerous. It is false.

People of every religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and age pouring into the streets and airports to defend the rights of their fellow Americans over the past few weeks proved the opposite is true––American diversity is a strength, and so is the American commitment to ideals of justice and equality.

American history is not without stumbles, which have proven that the nation is only made more prosperous and resilient through struggle, compassion and inclusiveness. It’s why my parents came here. It’s why I told my former 5th grade students, who wondered if they still belonged here, that this country would not be great without them.

I lasted eight days.

1. You fired, laid off or already had a job. You leaving was not a political statement. It was a matter of continuity of income.

You would have moved on no matter your excuse, trope or lie, as presidents regularly remove and replace personnel from a previous administration.

2. You are full of crap. There is nothing that differentiates this ban from the one issued under Obama, for the same “Muslim Countries” and you didn’t engage in your synthetic sophistry and moral preening then.

Duplicitous?

3. Why did Obama issue the ban to these “Muslim Majority” countries?

Because, we have no embassy relationship with them.

And why is that you ask?

Well, grab a tall glass of tea, you may be here a while.

With no Embassy relationship how are we to confirm a person is who they say they are, what their relationships are and the nature of those relationships.

Are they radicals or supporters of radicals.

We can’t look at their life and make some guess as to whether they will be good citizens, amenable travelers or on their way to kill someone,

Why don’t we have an Embassy in these nations?

Well, we Fk’d them up brilliantly.

We overthrew their leaders, participated in their assassination, destroyed their government infrastructure and bombed their people.

We made sure to sew chaos by promoting factional, sectarian and civil wars.

There is no government to get this information from or they really, really, really don’t want to be of any help to us, after all we’ve meant to them.

Here are the countries Trump has banned travel from: Let’s see, if you haven’t been an enemy of the United States since the 1970’s, we certainly made one out of you.

We overthrew your leaders and then bombed the Shiite out of your people, leaving you without a functioning government.

We can do all that but, Gosh Damn, we cannot restrict immigration from those same countries?

Syria. We invented Assad for whatever reason and continue to manufacture Bull Shiite about them?

We then arm Assad’s competition in a totally NOT secret operation, which continues to this day.

Why? WTF did Syria do to us?

How did we get to Syria?

Libya. We led from behind, using France as our proxy, to bomb the Shiite out Mohammahr Qaddafi’s country and over throw Mo.

Now, to be sure, I hated Mo but, loved them crazy ass outfits he wore and his hottie bodyguards.

Still, we bombed them, while running an illegal arms bizarre with Tripoli as our conduit for inflows weapons, which would outflow to our Syrian objectives.

Truthfully, we spent over 20 years bombing this place like a tail wagging a dog.

Yemen. Same effin deal. We Fk’d that up which, to this day, makes no sense to me.

We had agreements with Yemen to refuel at their ports and yeah, they bombed our US Navy Ship, The Cole. Okay, it was Al Qaeda but still.

Sudan. We held Sudan responsible for attacking The Cole but that backwater Shit hole continues to be failed state harboring elements of Islamic Terrorists.

Somalia. Speaking of failed states, this one has been a work as a lack of progress since the 1990’s.

Black Hawk Down?

General Mohamed Farah Aidid saw UN intervention, led by the U.S as a threat to his power.

19 US soldiers died and more than 1000 civilians were killed in Mogadishu as a result of Aidid and then we abandoned the place, so it could devolve even further.

Which brings us to:

Iran. We Effed that place up forever by helping to overthrow the Shah of Iran and what did we get? Ayahtollah Kohmeni, a destroyed US embassy and US citizens taken hostage for more than a year.

Iran uses all the states listed above as proxies for Terrorists world wide to base out of and plan their attacks.

You see, Iran doesn’t really have a conventional capability to enforce their demands. They do have the ability to pay for terrorists to act on their behalf and for that you need a willing partner to base, plan and operate.

So we have disrupting these states making it difficult to have reliable operations for Iran’s intentions, supposedly.

Chaos theory is why pulled that crap on everyone.

Get them fighting each other over their desires to establish a world wide Caliphate and who is going to lead that.

In other instances, you have morons fighting to control territory, with dreams of one day running a country.

Yeah right.

So, there you have it. We can blow you up and destroy your country but, we do not have the right to restrict immigration from these places.

So, you worked at NSC beginning in 2011? Well, then you where there when we began making war, promoting some spring fling in the Middle East and you would know about how we lead to people being get shot in Iran after promising we would come to their aid.

You would have known all this and that Barack Hussein Obama issued the very same ban for the reasons stated about and you would know that too.

Or did you give Barrack a pass because he has a Muslim name?

Pound sand...

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