The Slant: Linda Sarsour, organizing the resistance
How does a Facebook post turn into a nationwide protest in just seven weeks? Linda Sarsour, the co-chair of the Women's March on Washington, joined the Slant podcast on Monday to talk about her rise from Bay Ridge activist leading the Arab American Association of New York to helping organize the largest one-day protest in U.S. history. She talked with City & State’s Nick Powell and Gerson Borrero about what’s next.
“We can’t be fighting these siloed fights,” she said. “We can’t be doing climate justice, racial justice, immigrant rights and everyone sitting in a little corner doing their own thing. We’ve got to be doing this work together and we’ve got to create these allies and coalitions together.”
Would Sarsour, who recently left the Arab American Association to permanently take on a more national role, consider a run for Congress?
“I don’t know. Maybe when I’m older, that’s where I retire just for pension. Like, I don’t know,” she said, laughing. “But I think that I’ve realized that I’m just as influential on the outside as I am on the inside. … I don’t work to be accepted by anybody. I work to be respected.”
Sarsour, who calls herself “an activist born out of the ashes of 9/11” also shared her history as a Muslim advocate, why she thinks “the Muslim Ban 2.0” is so hypocritical, and what the progressive movement has learned since Trump’s election.
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