Alleged

I often wonder about democracy in America — and who has it. We know racism exists, and that certain people, typically those with more melanin, do not get to enjoy the same fruits of our alleged democracy as those with less melanin.

But lately, I’ve been thinking more about freedom of speech, and it’s been surfacing in my mind because I’ve been working, on and off since March 2025, on a book on the discrimination, racism, and anti-immigration rhetoric running (and ruining) this country. (not that this country wasn’t founded on the same things and our democracy is an illusion, at best).

And I worry, constantly, whether I should even continue on this manuscript.

Syrian-Americans, no matter how light our skin is, do not necessarily have the same space and freedom to say what we will, the way others (less melanated) in this country may. Since 9/11, which happened when I was eleven years old, I learned quickly to modify what I say, to remain silent when the US illegally and brutally invaded Iraq and Afghanistan under pretenses and lies.

Those habits do not die easily, though, and with the increasingly violent and racist and xenophobic rhetoric rising in the USA, it becomes easy to wonder whether it is safer to remain silent. Whether I am protecting myself and my family, some of who have more melanin than me, certain accents, and speak English as their second language.

It’s a sorry state of the country—and the world—when people are told they have a freedom, only to learn that they do not. With the current administration, it has become increasingly apparent just how tenuous our freedoms are, and how easily not just politicians, but the citizenry, are so willing to trample upon them to remain in power or to feel superior to others.

God forbid one criticizes the country in an attempt to improve it and the state of the world; you are obviously not American, and should “go back to where you came from.”

It’s been over a year of working on this manuscript, being cognizant that it could be seen as problematic. Sometimes I think I’m being dramatic — after all, I’m a no-name author with barely 2,000 followers on Instagram. Who the hell cares what I say?

But once out in the world, this book is out in the world, forever. It will be tied to me forever. And with the dissolution of American alleged democracy, I wonder if this book is a shattering of shackles or a millstone that will drown me.

Certainly, my Arab stubbornness does kick in, and I think, damn it all, I’ll write what I will. But like a mule who kicks and then is beaten, I have to ask: will it be worth it?

The honest answer is that I simply don’t know. I do think the answer is: yes. But even ‘yes’ has a cost to pay.

I don't know what this country will look like when this book is out in the world, or who will be in power, or what the consequences of a Syrian-American woman putting her name on something like this might be. I don't know if my family will pay a price I didn't intend for them.

But I keep writing anyway. Because silence has a cost too — one I’ve been paying since I was eleven years old.

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