‘I’m Not Here To Defend Myself’ Abdul El-Sayed’s STRONG Message On Hate & Racism

I think you did an excellent job with that stoop, by the way. That's gone viral. But tell us, what do you draw on that enables you to endure such insults and mischaracterizations? I appreciate the question. I appreciate the support. I'll be honest with you, I'm not in the business of defending myself. I've had a really unlikely good life. I'm my grandmother's grandson. My grandmother is the smartest, wisest person I ever met in my life. She never had the chance to walk into a school building, not once. She was born and raised in mid-century Alexandria, Egypt. She was the ninth of 14, gave birth to eight. Two of her babies died before their first birthday. Her eldest was my father, who watched his two siblings die before he turned five. And I used to spend some of my childhood summers in Egypt, and I would be with my grandmother, and she would impress upon me just how lucky I was. I remember one summer, I'm landing, and when you got family back in another country, you take gifts. So I had two suitcases one for gifts and one for my stuff So I just get done being like, you know, this 13 year old version of Santa Claus giving all my cousins all these gifts I feel pretty good about myself. My grandmother pulls me aside. Have you become sit down points to one of my cousins? That one's smarter than you the other one I don't have to tell you is taller and better looking works harder than you do nicer than you do all of them So i'm sitting here puddle on the floor. I asked my grandmother. I was like, so tata What do I have going for me? So you're the best thing of all, okay What's that? So you get to go back to America at the end of the summer the rest of your cousins stay here Here's the thing my grandmother could never have imagined. I didn't have to go 15 hours to travel 10 years difference in life expectancy. I could go 15 minutes north into the city of Pontiac or south into the city of Detroit. And there were kids whose lives looked a lot more like my cousins than mine. And so I had a front row seat to the privilege that I had my whole life. I got through amazing public schools, amazing public university, my medical education paid for by the federal government. My cousins couldn't have imagined that. There are kids growing up not too far from here who could never imagine that. And so I'm not in the business of defending myself. I've had a nice life. is not about me. It's about a whole lot of folks whose lives have been made so much worse because of politics and hate and racism that affects communities in structural ways. And so I've tried to make my career always about taking whatever I had to try to create opportunity for people who didn't have it. It's the reason when I graduated medical school, I came back to the city to rebuild a health department alongside Detroiters, a department that shut down because of emergency management. It's the reason I ran the first time. It's the reason I'm running now. And so for me, you can say what you want to say about me. That's fine. Say whatever you want to say about my name. Say whatever you want to say about my faith. At the end of the day, it's a distraction. We all know that racism is a distraction. We all know what it's about. It's about trying to distract people from paying attention to the issues. And I'll just tell you this. I've had the privilege over the last 18 months to get to travel across this incredible state, be invited into people's homes and in their basements and living rooms and their churches and there's synagogues. And Michiganders are good people, man. They're good people. And we're earnest and we're gritty. Earnest and gritty. We expect the best and we give the best. And we're willing to work hard. And it didn't matter if I'm up north. It doesn't matter if I'm in the heart of the city. People extend that grace they once want what's good for themselves and their kids. And the thing that I try to channel when I get that is to remember what Michiganders need and deserve. They're trying to distract us because they don't want to talk about the price of gas. They don't want to talk about the price of groceries. They don't want to talk about seeing a doctor. They don't want to talk about why you breathe dirty air or drink unclean water. They don't want to talk about their war in Iran. They don't want to talk about their stupid tariff policies. They don't want to talk about any of it. So instead, they're trying to distract good people from paying attention to what is bad about their policies in their lives. I'm just going to keep talking about what's bad about their policies in their lives and what we can do to actually solve it. Because in the end, that's what my grandmother would have told me to do. And I'm my grandmother's grandson subscribe to One India and never miss an update download the One India app now