A Name Shouldn’t Decide Your Vote

Yesterday, I was watching the news with my grandma when a political candidate appeared on the screen.

Before she knew anything about him, she saw his name and immediately said, “I don’t want him to win.”

I asked her why.

She didn’t have an answer.

So I told her who he was.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a physician and a Rhodes scholar and holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Columbia University, and the University of Oxford. He has spent his career working in medicine and public health and has served in leadership roles focused on improving community health.

After hearing all of that, my grandma didn’t know what to say.

That interaction stuck with me.

It made me wonder how often we make assumptions about people before we know anything about them. Sometimes it’s because of the way they look. Sometimes it’s because of the clothes they wear. Sometimes it’s because of the language they speak.

And sometimes, it’s simply because of their name.

Whether or not you agree with someone’s politics should depend on their ideas, qualifications, and character. Not on whether their name sounds familiar or unfamiliar.

This isn’t just about one candidate.

It’s about the bias that can exist before a conversation even begins.

Islamophobia often isn’t loud or obvious. Sometimes it appears in quiet moments, in split-second judgments, or in assumptions we don’t even realize we’re making. We may think we’re evaluating someone objectively when, in reality, we’ve already formed an opinion based on stereotypes or unconscious bias.

The truth is, none of us are immune to making assumptions. We all have biases that we’ve absorbed from the world around us. What matters is whether we’re willing to recognize them and challenge them.