Free Speech is never free. Especially today, especially for Arab Americans.
Speech is censorship at protests – where proclaiming “Free Palestine” is equated with anti-Semitism and calls for ending a genocide are tethered to terror speech.
Speech is suppressed online – upon social media platforms where modern protests and digital dissent condemning ethnic cleansing in Gaza or the siege on Lebanon is met with shadow-bans on Instagram and crackdowns on Facebook.
Speech is criminalized on college campuses – where our children faced arrest, punishment, and suspension for uplifting Palestinian lives, divesting from genocide, and investing in the futures of our young people.
Speech is tightly policed within the workplace, where Arab American employees are being suspended and fired, demoted and punished, for sharing a humanitarian post online or attending a protest offline.
American is, allegedly, a land built upon the promise of free speech. But speech has never been more unfree – especially for Arab Americans, particularly for Arab Americans during this time of genocide.
Interlocked between a yearlong genocide and a watershed election on Tuesday, we are reminded that freedom and speech are selectively applied. Speech is seldom free, these days, for us – for Arab Americans.
Yet, one of the final bastions of free speech is the ballot box.
That hallowed and private space where regardless of who you are, regardless of what you believe, and regardless of how staunchly you advocate for Palestine and how strongly you condemn current policy in the Middle East, your vote cannot be taken away.
Your voice cannot be silenced.
Your vote cannot be vetoed or vanquished.
Your vote is your most powerful form of free speech.
Voting is the essence of freedom, and it is vital that we exercise it fully and freely on Tuesday.
If there has ever been a time to vote, the time is now.
Vote for Palestine, vote for Lebanon, vote for Arab American, and vote for our future.