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After Backing Trump, Michigan Considers It's First Muslim Governor
Abdul El-Sayed was a funny, sociable kid, perpetually late with his homework, says his old math teacher Connie Kelly: “He was doing the gentleman’s B, B-minus routine.” And when she criticized the eighth-grader for not working to his potential, she remembers him responding with utmost certainty: “Mrs. Kelly, you have no idea what’s in store for me.”
Michigan is about to find out as El-Sayed makes his first run at elected office, as governor of the Great Lakes State. The son of immigrants from Egypt holds a doctorate in public health from Oxford and a medical degree from Columbia. He has published research on the effects of racial stigma on the health of minority communities related to pregnancy and birth, and shared his insights in the op-ed pages of The New York Times and CNN. But after chasing early aims to be a physician in places like sub-Saharan Africa and as an award-winning epidemiologist, he found both dreams “unsatisfying,” he tells OZY. Which led him to take on the task of rebuilding the Detroit health department in 2015. Now, two years later, El-Sayed feels a deep urgency to expand his influence, in his view to help more people than he can as a health czar — which is why he put in his two weeks’ notice in February to run for office.
Impassioned, but with a dose of collected bedside manner, El-Sayed assesses Michigan’s ailments from a mahoganied coffee shop in downtown Detroit. “It’s the bitter alchemy of poverty and racism,” he says, blaming both Republican and Democratic leaders for choosing business interests over people for decades. The pox-on-both-parties tone — and that from a recent public employee — doesn’t go unnoticed in a state that backed both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in last year’s primaries. El-Sayed believes the challenges here in Detroit are spreading like a virus to the rest of the state. People seek a “dignified job,” he opines, with a living wage, a little money for the weekend and the belief that their children can have an equal or better life. For El-Sayed, policy is the best preventive medicine.
Michigan is about to find out as El-Sayed makes his first run at elected office, as governor of the Great Lakes State. The son of immigrants from Egypt holds a doctorate in public health from Oxford and a medical degree from Columbia. He has published research on the effects of racial stigma on the health of minority communities related to pregnancy and birth, and shared his insights in the op-ed pages of The New York Times and CNN. But after chasing early aims to be a physician in places like sub-Saharan Africa and as an award-winning epidemiologist, he found both dreams “unsatisfying,” he tells OZY. Which led him to take on the task of rebuilding the Detroit health department in 2015. Now, two years later, El-Sayed feels a deep urgency to expand his influence, in his view to help more people than he can as a health czar — which is why he put in his two weeks’ notice in February to run for office.
Impassioned, but with a dose of collected bedside manner, El-Sayed assesses Michigan’s ailments from a mahoganied coffee shop in downtown Detroit. “It’s the bitter alchemy of poverty and racism,” he says, blaming both Republican and Democratic leaders for choosing business interests over people for decades. The pox-on-both-parties tone — and that from a recent public employee — doesn’t go unnoticed in a state that backed both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in last year’s primaries. El-Sayed believes the challenges here in Detroit are spreading like a virus to the rest of the state. People seek a “dignified job,” he opines, with a living wage, a little money for the weekend and the belief that their children can have an equal or better life. For El-Sayed, policy is the best preventive medicine.
I worry that he's going to be "too Muslim" for non-Liberal voters.
1 replies
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