Essay: Rashida and Goliath - 8.18.09

Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry has been thinking about the inspiring story of one Michigan lawmaker...

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If you wanted to find an amazing personal success story in the Michigan Legislature, you would have a hard time improving on Rashida Tlaib. The odds against her ever landing in Lansing were long indeed. Her parents are Palestinian refugees, Muslims from the West Bank who wound up here when her dad got a job on a Ford Assembly line. Rashida, their first born, arrived in 1976.

She was followed by no fewer than 13 brothers and sisters, whom she was expected to help care for. She got married at age 21, a dozen years ago. She is now a proud mom herself. But unlike many traditional Muslim women, that wasn’t enough for her. She was the first member of her family to earn a high school diploma, then pulled down a BA in political science from Wayne State University. Next, it was a law degree six years later.

By the time she finished law school, she realized her real love was politics and government. So she got an internship with a legislator. A Jewish legislator named Steve Tobocman, the grandson of Polish immigrants who fled the Holocaust. She had met him when she was working as a social worker in charge of helping immigrants.

How did that work out, a young Palestinian working as the lowliest unpaid assistant to a Jew? She so impressed him that when he became majority floor leader, he hired her for a top staff position.

When term limits meant his career had to end last year, he convinced her to run for his seat. She was skeptical; the district is 40 percent Hispanic; 25 percent black; only two percent Arab-American.

She won the primary in a landslide and got 90 percent in the general election, making her only the second Muslim woman in the nation to serve in a state legislature. “I would have never been here today, if my Jewish boss had not encouraged me,” she told Islam Online when she was sworn in to office.

I’ve seen her in action. She works tirelessly for her constituents. But that has made her a powerful enemy - the Detroit International Bridge Company, which owns the Ambassador Bridge.

Matty Moroun, who owns the company, is trying to build a second span next to it, to try and ward off an attempt to build a new internationally owned bridge a mile downriver. Canada opposes the second span, and has refused to give it environmental clearance.

Moroun is starting to build a ramp for it anyway, and has attempted to steamroller opposition. Talib has been a vocal part of that opposition, accusing the bridge company of not caring about the poor people she represents. Now, the Ambassador Bridge owner is trying to take her out. He has apparently hired one of Detroit’s most notorious figures, Adolph Mongo, to lead an effort to recall her. “This is a tactic to intimidate me,“ she said this weekend. "We are going to fight it and succeed and probably be stronger afterwards.“

I don’t know how this will come out. But I do know that years ago, I had her as a student in one class.

And I wouldn’t bet against Rashida.

Comments

[Thomas Dombroski]

I am a good friend of Rashida and admire her for going against Matty Maroun. She will in my estimation prevail against this assualt on her good character and strength. She is the kind of person that thinks and worries about others before she worries herself. I could go on and on about the good traits she has shown from our first contact.

[Thrasher]

What does Rashida religious background and her being a Palestinian have to do with the bride issue? Why is it important to know her former boss was a jew with Polich ancestry relevant??

Clearly Jack's need to invoke a racial wedge issue and the need to demonize this issue by calling Adolph Mongro "notorious " speaks to the shallow nature of Rashida's posture and opposition to the bride issue.

Whenever folks start to attack people and invoke irrevelant facts about race and religion into the fray you know they are desperate and on the losing side of an issue..

[Thrasher]

What does Rashida religious background and her being a Palestinian have to do with the bridge issue? Why is it important to know her former boss was a jew with Polish ancestry relevant??

Clearly Jack's need to invoke a racial wedge issue and the need to demonize this issue by calling Adolph Mongro "notorious " speaks to the shallow nature of Rashida's posture and opposition to the bridge issue.

Whenever folks start to attack people and invoke irrevelant facts about race and religion into the fray you know they are desperate and on the losing side of an issue..

[Khalil]

He was just making the point that Rashida ain't nothing to scoff at.
Matty Maroun happens to be an Arab American, himself. Nobody's driving any racial wedges anywhere.
It's usually the people who are thunderstruck by the mention of race or ethnicity, shocked by acknowledgment of cultural heritage, that are on the wrong side of an issue.

[Thrasher]

Bullshit if that is the case why did she cosign the 'race card' wedge angle with her comments..

"This is a tactic to intimidate me,“ she said this weekend. "We are going to fight it and succeed and probably be stronger afterwards"

Your need to affirm Jack's racism and be his apologist reveals to me you are on the wrong side of the issue..

I will confront her directly wih this concern of mind given I am a Black man with a centuries of ancestry on this soil.....

[Augustas Woodward]

Khalil:

You need to understand that Trasher has infected Jack's blog for several years. He is a charlatan that has attempted to bully many visitors and alas they have moved on to other sites where the discourse is temperate, mature, informed and educated. Trasher is simply a bag of racist wind. Metro Detroit, WDET and other community touchstones all know about Trasher's games. Somewhere in the past Jack must have vanquished this tragic, mouthy scumbag. Jack has a great reputation and Trasher has nothing but a strange fixation on Jack and his careful opinions. Trasher asserts that he has a following and get this-a think tank. This is pure fiction. There is no academic product, no business address, no clients and no expertise whatsoever in any issue. He owns a paltry formal education and has flunked out of law school twice. He simply believes that because his pigment is dark that he will instruct us all on the affairs of the day. The liberal press in town, Wayne State University Trustees and many others avoid this piece of dung like the plague. He has destroyed the dialogue on this site.

[Thrasher]

Augustas,

My old friend "he doth protest to much"..I am just a brother off the block a simple one man one vote being no mor no less..

I used any and all venues to express my views, opinions and brand..Clearly Rashia's feats are nothing special many have done more with much less right here in these zip codes and area codes...

Jack' continues to invoke and play the 'race card" and as such I have a duty and obligation to register my dissent and my alternative perspectives..

I of curse remain sadden that you have over the years demonized me and spit on my personhood simply because I have expressed an opinon on various venues, blogs, newspapers and other forums..

Instead of having the courage to defeat my content, texts and opinions you have continued to make it personal and libel me...

Nevertheless the beat goes on....

[Communications guru]

Another great post by Jack Lessenberry. It’s nice to see a success story Rashida Tlaib. One thing we do know from the actions of the Bridge Company is that they think rules don’t apply to them, and they are clearly spending money from their monopoly to try and keep it and intimidate her. It’s not going to work.

[Thrasher]

I have studied the bridge saga and I simply do not observe any intimidation from MM or his associates...

Jack's post was dripping with wedge issues that encompassed both race and religion aspects including an attack on Mongro clearly an agenda is at play...

Clearly the area deserves more economic development and a new bridge simply makes cents!!!!!!!!!!

[delNorte]

"Canada opposes the second span, and has refused to give it environmental clearance. Moroun is starting to build a ramp for it anyway..."

This is pretty comical - either he's got powerful allies in Canada or he's quite the optimist.

[ruauper2]

Thrasher

A little racism here, a little racism there makes for a little stupidity here and a little stupidity there.

Which, by the way, fits your persona quite well.

[Thrasher]

ruauper2,

Posted like a true intellectual coward hiding behind an alias and a pc..

Racism is not part of my cultural DNA..

[Thrasher]

This really is a backward commentary..There is no discussion about merits of Bridge issues both pro or con...

Jack backhands both Rashida and Steve with his banter and of course he then indicts Adolph as well..

I cannot imagine this kind of journalism is productive on any level..

[ruauper2]

Thrasher

Having never heard of "cultural DNA" perhaps you can enlighten us as to how this gene was identified. Since the building of one's DNA is a biological process are you claiming "cultural DNA" is a similar biological process? If so, please explain and document. Most would believe developement of a "culture" would involve the powers of observation and mental developement.

[Thrasher]

I am not suprised you have never heard of the construct "Cultural DNA" it is not a gene nor a biological process..

I have created the phrase as a device to explain and educate how people bring to a situation the totality of a number of life experiences and how these truths them influence and impact a number of reactions and postures..

Your attempts to explain"culture" reflect a pedestrain perspective and really makes no sense..It appears you are out of your element in trying to fence with me...

Pleae stay focus and try again to explain why you are defending Jack's insertion of the 'race card" on the bridge issue and more importantly why you nor Jack have offered up any logic, facts or merits regarding the pros and cons of the bridge issue..

Again trying to box with me is a losing excercise...You simply do not have the skills ..

[ruauper2]

Yawn

Same ol' rants

Same ol' diatribes

Same ol' prove a negative

Same ol' B.S., over and over and over

[Thrasher]

ruauper 2,

Ditto about your comments and posts..

[Augustas Woodward]

Trasher:

Ruauper is yet another example of an intelligent and informed poster and you have blugeoned him/her away. Please leave Jack's website and take your racist propaganda elsewhere. How about starting a blog somewhere for law school flunkouts. You do have experience in getting booted from law school-not once but twice. Don't forget to take your medications and for income make sure you take your shoeshine box.

[Thrasher]

Augustas,

You were probably one of those angry white males in the crowd in the weekend Birmingham health care protest I ran into ..lol,lol,lol

I thought you got that racist anger out of your lungs by now..I could never leave this site primarily becuase I get so many emails from this site and of course I enjoy educating the shallow ninds of people like Ruauper and others...

I do understand my price for posting on this site is the angry penis envy venom you spit on me but hell you are just a nat and the usual hate that comes with being a Black icon like me ..you are like an occupational hazard hemmoroid lol,lol,lol