YALLA VOTE ‘08 Our Voice. Our Future.

At last week’s Outlandish concert, I had the pleasure of meeting Sarah Malaika, who hosts Radio Tahrir on 99.5 FM WBAI in New York at 7:00PM on Tuesdays. She invited me to be a guest on her program, discuss the Arab American Institute, the Yalla Vote campaign, and my thoughts on Arab American political empowerment as a whole. The interview went very well, and I got the opportunity to spread the petition to the masses via the airwaves. Today WBAI, tomorrow CNN.

The experience was very exciting, and really got me thinking about the importance of involving our community in the media. Too often we are misrepresented or underrepresented, and it is long past time for the articulate voices of our community to speak for themselves. Sure, we are encouraging Arab Americans to use their figurative voice through voting, but it is also of the utmost importance that we use our literal voices to speak up for ourselves in the media. When we fail to do so, the job is left to false interlocutors who do little but create misconceptions about our community and perpetuate hostility and stereotypes. I mean come on, if there were more silky smooth voices like mine representing the Arab American community in the mass media, surely we would be better able to represent our issues, our concerns, and our cultures. Incidentally, I’m just kidding about my silky smooth voice. It’s more like velvet.

Signing off,
Matt Ellias