Pass Interference: The Playbook Against Muslim Voter Mobilization

Muslim Matters

  • 13Sep
    2020

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Pass Interference: The Playbook Against Muslim Voter Mobilization

by
By Nadia Ahmad
We have been had.
And we will continue to be had unless we step up our A-game.
The best defense is a good offense. For the past two decades, we have always been playing defense.
Establishment Muslim Democrats have been steering the conversation and direction of Muslim political engagement for decades. It’s why we have become so ineffective in any level of true policy changes. If we don’t have the courage to speak truth to power, then power is just going to get out and eat us alive. Organizations like Emgage, CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, and MPAC have failed to offer any meaningful reformulation of Muslim American priority goals. They have just become political clubs by immigrant men in late middle-age. Instead of Corvettes and skydiving, they decided to become politically disengaged.
According to Sporting News, the concept of pass interference from football can be illustrative of understating what has happened to our communities. In 2019, the pass interference rule was updated.
Proponents of the NFL making pass interference reviewable will point to the aforementioned potential to avoid poor calls or non-calls. Those who oppose the idea might point to reports about how NFL coaches have been scheming to “weaponize” pass interference
In the context of pass interference being reviewable, though, it’s worth revisiting what the NFL actually defines as PI. Here are the standards, straight from the NFL rule book.
Acts that are pass interference include, but are not limited to:
  • Contact by a player who is not playing the ball that restricts the opponent’s opportunity to make the catch;
  • Playing through the back of an opponent in an attempt to make a play on the ball;
  • Grabbing an opponent’s arm(s) in such a manner that restricts his opportunity to catch a pass;
  • Extending an arm across the body of an opponent, thus restricting his ability to catch a pass, and regardless of whether the player committing such act is playing the ball;
  • Cutting off the path of an opponent by making contact with him, without playing the ball;
  • Hooking an opponent in an attempt to get to the ball in such a manner that it causes the opponent’s body to turn prior to the ball arriving; or
  • Initiating contact with an opponent by shoving or pushing off, thus creating separation.
What this looks like in the political arena for progressive Muslim voices.
  • Contact by Muslims serving narrow interest groups putting up the facade as being representative of the entire community.
  • Playing backroom deals against the Muslim community to advance their own selves and their organizations which do not align with majority Muslim political aspirations.
  • Grabbing anyone who is critical of Establishment Democrats and censoring and silencing them.
  • Blocking efforts of other organizations to associate and actually engage.
  • Cutting off the path of progressive Muslim voices by serving as gatekeepers and campaign surrogates.
  • Hooking up militarism in Israel, India, and Saudi Arabia with calls for democracy.
  • Avoiding contact with any critical voices.
  • Intercepting any potential actionable work being done.

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