Burn it all down or plant a tree during Armageddon?
Chana Masala, The Role of South Asians in America, & Healing Politics Book Review
For more info about the Why and structure of this newsletter, please refer to this previous post.
This week’s recipe - Chana Masala!
Serves 4 people, total prep time = 45 minutes
Ingredients -
Two medium tomatoes
Two medium onions
One teaspoon of ginger garlic paste
Half a cup of oil
One large can of chickpeas (About 450 grams)
Four green chilies
One teaspoon of cumin
One teaspoon of garam masala
Steps -
Chop onions and start frying them in a half cup of oil until lightly golden brown (about 15 minutes)
Add one cup of water, tomatoes chopped in half, one teaspoon of salt, half teaspoon of chili, quarter teaspoon of turmeric, one teaspoon of ginger garlic paste and then put ten minutes of pressure in the instant pot
Take garbanzo beans out of the can and wash them thoroughly
After the 10 minutes of pressure is over, saute mode on high until the water evaporates and the ingredients make a paste in oil (roughly 15 minutes)
Crush one teaspoon of cumin and put in the paste
Put a half cup of water and the chickpeas to simmer for five minutes
Garnish with Garam Masala and green chilis.
Eat!
Political Discussion-
FIGHT! Chamath Palihapitiya vs Anand Giridharadas
I am a 23 year old Pakistani American Muslim. Two concepts were drilled into me by my parents growing up. Halal Rizq - the thought that God written what you will receive in this life, but you can acquire it through honest means or ill-gotten gains. My dad never pressured me to be a doctor like he was, but he did make it clear he wouldn’t support any decision to go down the wrong route. The second was a parable about the Day of Judgement. Every Muslim believes that they will be questioned about the actions they took in this life. Some people were tested in this life by how little food they given. Others though will be given so much plenty, and their test is whether they remembered the rights of others and didn’t get lost in the pleasures of this world. The later test has scared me. The thought of becoming a doctor, moving back to the suburbs, and going to dinner parties caused me great unease. However, so far I’ve done the conventional route for an Asian American - went to Harvard, did well, and now working for a large multinational corporation. All that background is useful for the following discussion-
Chamath Palihapitiya is a Sri Lankan-Canadian-American Billionaire tech entrepreneur and investor. Please read the full interview, but here are a few key quotes come out from this stood out to me-
“Chamath wants to be an agent for change.” And however trope-ish, that comes as no surprise to those who’ve followed Palihapitiya’s journey from a South Asian island to the heart of modern American capitalism.
…
In it [his 2019 Investor Letter], he talks about the coming end of the gilded age, with its massive economic inequalities, and predicts that an era of reform will replace it, with tighter regulation and higher taxes.
There are a growing number in his class who agree. “I think he’s absolutely right,” says Kapoor. “You can be a great investor and a great capitalist and at the same time rewrite the rules of how it’s all distributed.”
…
““I’m Canadian, so I can rule that out [becoming the U.S. President],” he says. “Thank you, no.” But there is an alternative, he teases.
“Maybe prime minister.”
This article caused me conflicted feelings. When one paruses Chamath’s twitter feed, it could be something a Gen Z kid could write - heavily focused on social justice, a plethora of business/entrepreneurship content, and some “hot takes”. Chamath is the product of the Canadian social safety net and educational system and has morphed into a billionaire American capitalist. The vast majority of his time and energy is spent on acquiring capital and growing his business. In other interviews I’ve watched of his, he stated that he views getting capital and deploying it in ways he sees fits (whether for climate change tech to enterprise software) as almost a moral imperative. While I haven’t read Anand Giridharadas’ book, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, I’ve read enough book reviews to understand the general gist. What scares me about it is how it directly contradicts all of what Chamath espouses in his worldview. How can one truly be a changemaker while living in a golden palace? How does one sustainably and ethically engage with the capitalistic system while staying true to their ethnic and religious beliefs? While Anand doesn’t propose a significant proposal to work towards, the assumptions he shakes about the ultimate impact of the elite are haunting.
For many privileged South Asian men, we can follow a path similar to Chamath’s. It’s the path of least resistance. We can gain capital within the system and join nonprofit boards to alleviate our conscience. We can join a tech firm, but still donate to the NAACP for example. However it isn’t enough. How many of us have truly decided to give up our privilege and fight outside the system? Side note, South Asians love talking about how many top business leaders there are, but the number of South Asian women promoted within the system (GM CFO Dhivya Suryadevara, Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud are a few examples) are much rarer. To rebel and try self-critique using Anand’s framework would be to reject much of the programming we grew up with. My fear is that the path of joining the systems as they currently are would be a capitulation, and it’s not something I could defend on the Day of Judgment. This isn’t mean to be an either/or discussion, but there is something deeper than needs to be considered. I don’t mean this to be accusatory, but truly as a call to action. How has the Bhagavad Gita, Qur’an, etc. influenced your own career decisions?
As a brief side note, the role of Asians in post colonial societies is a unique one, and I’d argue there is a history that can show us a way forward. The role of South African Asians, many of them Muslims, can serve as a model to us in America. Many played crucial roles in breaking down Apartheid, from serving as Nelson Mandela’s lawyers to being jailed themselves for their activism, while staying true to their own culture and religion. In fact, the former South African Ambassador to the United States during Obama’s presidency was a Muslim man who was also imprisoned - Ebrahim Rasool. Their legacy is something I look forward to learning from in the future.
Action Item steps I’m taking -
I organized the entire US analyst class in my company and ensured we all co-signed a letter to the EVP’s about D&I, and the company is making significant changes to the business (from hiring and promoting African American talent, supporting/buying from black businesses across the country, etc.). My company has made an explicit commitment to recruit from HBCU’s, and I’d love for anyone with connections to them to send me contact info!
I’ll be reading works from Dr. Sherman Jackson, Imam Dawud Walid, Frantz Fanon, and Edward Said and will include them in future book reviews. My goal is to use this knowledge to inform a worldview that understands both my privilege in the world and act upon it.
Listen to the diverse perspectives of those reading this and move forward!
Special thanks to Aditya Achanta for clarifying my thoughts on this issue.
Book Review - Healing Politics: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed
Full Disclosure- I’ve known Abdul since high school, and I’d consider him an acquaintance/mentor. While not family friends, my older siblings are friends with his in-laws/immediate family.
Worth Reading? Yes.
Worth Rereading? Yes.
What Chapters would I focus on re-reading/skimming?
Prologue/Forward - Ady Barkan’s Forward reminds you the human reason why this work matters, and Abdul’s forward draws one what it means to be a Muslim American running for office
Chapter 12 (Synopsis of Part 2 of the book - diagnosing America as it were a medical patient)
Chapter 21 (Call to action and review that one can both be privileged and disadvantaged simultaneously)
Abdul is someone I, and many in the American Muslim community, look up to. Yes, he’s accomplished. Yes, he has two graduate degrees. However, what’s most important is that he understood the privilege he grew up and didn’t replicate what the system designed for him. Some may look at his life story as a Pete Buttigieg-esqe race to catch prestige. Unlike this devastating profile published in Current Affairs about Shortest Way Home, I can attest that Abdul is the real deal. When I invited him to give a the Friday prayer to my high school Muslim Students Association in 2014, he cut short time he could’ve spent with family to speak to us. He discussed the Eisenhower Important/Urgent Matrix, and it’s something that’s stuck with me to this day. He has sacrificed for the community in so many ways, and his flame isn’t for self-promotion. While I was personally not on board his decision to run so young for governor (imagine how he could have handled the Covid-19 Pandemic as Detroit’s Health Director), I later came onboard and donated to his campaign.
The book is divided into three parts - Part 1 (Practicum), Part 2 (America’s Insecurity Epidemic), and Part 3 (Healing Politics). The first part discussed Abdul’s childhood growing up in a privileged suburb in metro Detroit, a pivotal time visit to his parents’ homeland of Egypt, his collegiate and graduate schooling, all the way to his running the health department and later for governor of Michigan. Part two involves taking a detailed history of America’s problems, from the underinvestment in housing, health, infrastructure, etc. Part Three is a discussion of the solutions, from building a better political culture in the US around empathy to specific solutions that would improve the issues mentioned in part two (Green New Deal, Medicare for All, etc.).
I believe the strength of Abdul’s writing comes in tying the narratives of those around him, whether childhood friends who now decry his progressive policies to the story of why he left clinical medicine after a patient reverted back to her addiction. These moments tug at your heart strings and make it hard to put the book down.
My one critique of this book is that it tries to accomplish too much in too short a time. It’s one part memoir, one part political manifesto, and one part specific call to action. To read the book in one sitting would be impossible. Either you would miss the history, misread the diagnosis or come to a hasty conclusion about his political goals. This criticism isn’t constructive, as I honestly don’t know a better way of harmonizing it. Overall though I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to listen to a progressive voice on America’s most pressing issues.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and please give me any feedback you have from format to critiquing the ideas presented!