![]() Meanwhile, some members of the Black Muslim Leadership Council say Biden needs to take responsibility for the pushback he’s receiving from the “abandon Biden” campaign and better address the trauma motivating its supporters. And the African American Muslim community can say, ‘Yes, that needs to be prioritized, but not exclusively.’” “The larger Muslim community is decidedly prioritizing what’s happening in the Middle East. “This group is well-positioned to help reflect the interests of the larger civil rights community, and I’m talking about African Americans and other people of color,” Ellison said. ![]() And so for me, just saying ‘abandon Biden’ doesn’t work.” “I feel like there are people who want to restore Jim Crow and that their representative is Donald Trump. We have to care about a lot of things, and those things have got to be weighed out carefully,” said Ellison, the first African American and the first Muslim American elected to statewide office in Minnesota. “We don’t have the luxury of just caring about one thing. Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general and a vocal supporter of Biden’s, said in an interview that he has been meeting with members of the Black Muslim Leadership Council as they map out a way forward and that he supports their work. Suswell said she and others hope the group’s formation will lead Biden and other political leaders to engage more with Black Muslim voters and hear about their concerns over issues such as affordable housing, disparities in black maternal health, economic opportunities and education policies for young people. The group will also be open to backing a third-party presidential candidate or endorsing only down-ballot candidates and staying silent about the presidential election options. It will have both a political action wing that will be endorsing political candidates, as well as a nonprofit arm for nonpartisan activities such as voter turnout drives and election education classes. ![]() Suswell said the Black Muslim Leadership Council will focus much of its efforts on turning out voters in three swing states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. She added, “While we’re heartbroken about the humanitarian crisis overseas, we want to be open and available to discussions to achieve the goal of freedom and justice not only for Palestinian people, but also for our communities domestically.” And so Biden, along with every other political leader at home and globally, needs to hear what we need as a community right now.” And so, my duty first is to my community, and it is my job to fight for my community to ensure that the government is working for us. “I believe that we need to continue to have open dialogue and conversations because this is how democracy works. “I am focused on building and definitely not abandoning,” Suswell said. Salima Suswell, founder and chief executive of the Black Muslim Leadership Council, said the group will be focused both on the thousands of civilians killed in Gaza during the war between Israel and Hamas, and on domestic issues such as mobilizing voters in swing states and pushing lawmakers to lay out policies to improve the lives of Black Muslims living across the United States.īiden is facing a backlash for his refusal to demand a permanent cease-fire in the war, and other Muslim groups are seeking to grow an effort they have dubbed “abandon Biden,” which calls for people not to support the president at the ballot box in uncompetitive primaries and potentially in the fall election. ![]()
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