I often feel that tantes and 3amos distract with “Obama supported the MB” and “Trump is good for MENA Christians” without evidence as a means to return the conversation back to an imagined collective experience that excludes their children. 1/

Many of these “pro-MENA Christian arguments” usually include: “You don’t know what it was like.” Those parents avoid discussing issues like taxes, immigration, or living wages—even though this all affects them—so as to center themselves, always. 2/

I’m not as interested in the idea that they spew these claims without evidence because, to me, it’s their understanding that, to survive in the US, you have to participate in white supremacy, so no surprise there 3/

What I am concerned about, though, is what this participation does for Coptic families, to the children who are constantly being discredited of their valid opinions for some mythical perceptions of US foreign policy 4/

What does it do for the children who care about taxes, immigration, student debt relief, and living wages, when their parents continually are tangling their futures to a myth? 5/

Even more importantly, why do we allow white supremacy not only to wreck havoc on Egypt, but also in the US, among us in diaspora, for the sake of an illusionary claim “You don’t know what it was like”? 6/

which is a claim that assumes that their children haven’t felt and undergone racism, xenophobia, and isolation in schools and workplaces. It’s a claim that assumes and superimposes a barrier between generations. 7/

We need spaces to discuss why Coptic parents feel it’s okay to discredit their children’s experiences, why we continually justify suffering as a calling (like with women who are sexually assaulted) until it’s political. 8/

We need to discuss why we continue to harm ourselves. 9/