Amina Barhumi - Columbus, Ohio

“When elected officials are given very comfortable districts in which they’re all but assured reelection, there’s hardly any incentive to really listen or respond to the concerns of constituents with needs and concerns that differ from the majority.”

I'm the outreach director for the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations known as CAIR Ohio, a civil liberties and advocacy organization for Ohio Muslims. We work on protecting and defending the rights of Muslims, and also empowering Muslims to become civically engaged. 

American Muslims are the most diverse faith group in the United States. So when we talk about the “Muslim community,” there’s no single predominant ethnicity or race but there are shared experiences of religious discrimination. And, while the American Muslim community is not homogenous, Muslims across Ohio are deeply invested in all policy areas including education, health care and civil rights--and we need to make sure our voices are heard on all of these issues.

Unfair maps make it hard for our diverse voices to be heard on issues we care about as individuals and as a community. Research shows that Muslims direct most of their civic engagement through their mosques and community centers, rather than geographic or politically affiliated groups, so it is particularly harmful when mosques and community centers are overlooked or marginalized when maps are created.

When elected officials are given very comfortable districts in which they’re all but assured reelection, there’s not much incentive to really listen or respond to their Muslim constituents who have needs and concerns that may differ from the majority. Our community faces a disproportionate amount of discrimination, and we’re deeply concerned about protecting our civil rights--when our voices are discounted by unfair maps and our elected leaders don’t have be responsive to our concerns, our democracy suffers.

My parents are originally from Lebanon, which was once a flourishing pluralistic country, and most recently mired in political and economic turmoil in large part due to politicians holding onto power for far too long and corrupting the entire system. We often talk about countries abroad, and political turmoil as if that could never happen here in the United States. However, if politicians are allowed to choose their own voters through unfair maps, that’s the beginning of a slippery slope and is extremely problematic for our democracy.