May Malik: Can I sing to you

Adam MacLean: Please? Oh my God. This is Zach. Sorry. The intro music is now canceled

MM: Let's take long walk. No I'm not gonna do it. Around the park after dark, no no no I'm not going to go, can I sing your podcast intro jingle?

AM: You know, watch out because gay people will like take that three seconds and turn it into a remix and this summer and fire island, on the eve of the primary, you're just going to be like 'In Fire Island, May Malik is tearing up the dance floor' and you didn't even know get ready, buckle up, girl. That's your future.
Hey Peepadoodles . Welcome to Find Your Light a Post Shame podcast. I'm your host, Adam McLean.
Find Your Light is a show where we shine the light on shame and imagined Post Shame world. In Act 1, we'll meet a Post Shame warrior. Someone who I think is up to something special and has a tool to teach us to help dismantle shame. Then in Act 2, we'll play a little game of armchair quarterback by re-examining someone's public shaming through the lens of Post Shame.
If they had had access to this tool for their downfall, do we think they could have come out a better leader and helped others dealing with something similar? We'll see. And now on with the show,
Hey, Peepadoodles , welcome to episode five of Find Your Light. This week we have an interview with a real live politician running for office in New York.
May Malik is running for New York State Assembly. And if I lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, she'd have my vote. This is going to be another two part episode and the interview with May, we dive in deep on her background and her journey. And during editing, I realized I had some Post Shame stuff I wanted to explore.
So after the interview, there will be some story time. And then next week you'll get Act two, where we dissect a political scandal through the lens of Post Shame. So here's the interview with May Malik.
Welcome everyone to Find Your Light. My guest today is May Malik, who is a fabulous woman running for New York State Assembly. The 73rd district, which happens to be the Upper East Side of New York and girl running for office is hard from what I hear.

MM: It is very hard.

AM: So why are you doing it?!

MM: You know, I'm doing it because, well, first of all, thank you for having me on, this is so exciting.

AM: I'm so excited.

MM: Why am I running? Well, it goes back to my origin story. I am an immigrant from Sudan. I'm from one of the poorest countries in the world, my parents and I immigrated to the US in 1989. I was three years old. My parents had four degrees between the two of them, but for the first 12 years of our time in the states, they're relegated to jobs in fast food and retail.
And of course, so proud of them. But I saw the struggle. I saw how hard my parents had to work growing up. I became an American Citizen in 2000 when I was 15. Thank you. And I just feel a great sense of indebtedness if that's even a word to this country and to New York, like the two places that adopted me and really gave me an opportunity that is not provided to people back home and to my family back in Sudan, you know?
So it starts there, but I've never groomed myself for public service. People used to say to me, oh, you should really consider running for office one day. I'd be like you are out of your mind.

AM: I can't think of a higher compliment though. It's so sweet for someone to look at someone and be like, please step up. It's so chic.

MM: It is so chic and fabulous and also, and so hard, so hard. And so incredibly humbling, like who me can't possibly be me, you know? Uh, but if not me then who, and so I, you know, it had been brought to my attention before I always went against it, but then Dan Court, our current wonderful Assembly Member announced at the end of last year that he was not seeking reelection.
And I woke up to a slew of messages from people asking me to run. I was like, upstate thinking it's New Year's, I'm going to have some fun with friends. And then I spent the entire weekend talking to people about this potential run for State Assembly, all of a sudden.

AM: You had accidentally assembled your trusted advisors, which is one of the steps of Post Shame is to have trusted advisors that you go back to and you say, Hey, I found something I'm getting ready to do something bigger.
So you are already set up the universe had already assembled your trusted advisor.

MM: And you know what I think it is. The California hippiness and me is going to come out. I try to lead with love. I really do. And with empathy and with compassion and my outlook in life is if you work hard enough and you treat people well, it'll come back to you.
And I think because I spent my long public service career, not looking at it as an opportunity to pad my resume and springboard myself into greater power. Not that that's a horrible thing. But there's too many of us that want that. And I think there's not enough of folks like me who are doing it because it's a calling.
And so when I got those messages, it was like, this is a call that I have to answer and the call is to serve. And so here I am, we are killing it. Our campaign is going super well. This morning, former Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch announced his endorsement of our campaign. Also former MTA Chairman. I know, I know.
And we got a slew of elected endorsements coming up and, uh, DC 37 is behind me. And I'm just so thankful. The future of Assembly District 73 is inclusive.

AM: Amazing. So you would be the first elected Statewide Representative in New York who is a Muslim woman, correct. So would you describe growing up in a restrictive household or is that just me guessing?

MM: Oh No. You guessed correctly. You guessed correctly, quite restrictive.. My parents, you know, born and raised in Sudan. My mom is of Egyptian ethnic heritage, but also born and raised in Sudan. Grew up in a conservative Muslim household. You know, no drinking, no smoking. I remember my, uh, homeboy Dominic shout out to Dominic who eventually listen to this.
We were in fifth grade and he'd come over to my apartment for homework help. My dad wouldn't let him inside the apartment. He'd have to sit in the hallway. He wouldn't let him cross the threshold.

AM: This is some true blood vampire, staying on the other side.

MM: I haven't seen True Blood, but I get the reference. Now I'm going to watch it.

AM: Is that what I'm going to be canceled for is equating Muslim fathers to like vampire stuff.

MM: Honestly a lot of Muslim girls would be fine with it. They agree with you. I mean, they're whole Instagram's dedicated to this, really funny. And it was out of an abundance of protection and love and an, and, and a lack of familiarity with American culture, right. They were new immigrants and they were raised a certain way where your Religion and your National Identity are one in the same. And here we are being raised in America.

AM: Where like, I pride ourselves on that separation, but I have to understand that other people have had different experiences. And that is a source of pride for a lot of people.

MM: Yes, it is. It truly is. And my dad being a conservative immigrant from Sudan, he much preferred living in places like Louisiana and Texas, even though he was a black man. Because in his mind, there was a greater,

AM: Camera can you see my face? I'm trying to parse this out. I'm like how come?

MM: This black man with an Afro who stood out like a sore thumb, because he sensed in his words and God rest his soul. He passed away two years ago. My hero said the family values are stronger there than in Los Angeles, which is where ultimately we grew up.

AM: Wow.

MM: Yeah. And some of his closest buddies until the end were guys he worked with in Texas and in Louisiana and in Oklahoma and in these places. Yeah. My dad was in Engineering Operations eventually found a good pathway for himself, but my, I have two younger brothers we grew up and, you know, the rules were the same for them. So thank you, dad, for that. Uh,
Exactly, even application of oppression, uh, oppression rooted in love. Of course. Um, so there were very conservative. I mean, I wanted to go to university out of state and they said, absolutely not.
I was able to convince them to let me go an hour and a half north of Los Angeles. I went to University of California, Santa Barbara,

AM: That 90 minute stretch.

MM: I felt so free.

AM: That was as much space as they can handle, but it was the best 90 minutes of seperation.

MM: It was the best 90 minutes. Um, but you know what? I love them so much. I still came home every weekend.
Um, but it was strict. It was strict. I certainly, I couldn't do the dances. I couldn't go to prom. I couldn't have a high school boyfriend. It's just not what conservative Islamic families want of their first-generation American kids. But the reality is, it's what we're doing. Yeah. You know, cause we're living in the US and we get to explore things about ourselves and our identities that we don't have the space to do back in Sudan.

AM: And you get to meet different folks in cities, especially like LA in New York. And now you're sitting in a room with me and we're talking about, you know, the future and millennials running for public office. So when you were preparing to run, did you do any opposition research on yourself to prepare?

MM: So I did like a deep dive into my social media history.

AM: Okay.

MM: But here's the thing because of the way I was raised, I was raised. Fear three things. My father, God and the US government.

AM: Oh gosh. How do you rank those fears? These are like the three things I'm kind of always bucking up against is Adam MacLean in the world is like, who's your father. Make sure to defy him a little.
What were the other two? Oh God. Yeah. I'm just going to put a big question mark after that one. And then the U S government. I mean, I've been trafficking this world as a white man, so I'm like, I don't know. We'll see what rules apply to me.

MM: In the sense that whatever rules and decrees and conditions come out of my Dad and God and the government we follow, you know, you follow you'd be a good soldier, but my dad would be upset when we jaywalked, you know, like unacceptable.
So because of the way I was raised to, to live. So cautiously, the benefit of that is that someone like me is running. Without having to worry too much about maybe some of those youthful indiscretions that most of us have engaged in that could be seen as highly problematic. And I'm talking about more than just like smoking a little weed or drinking too much.

AM: You're talking about all this stuff on PostShame . org which is literally like material.

MM: The stuff that no one should be shamed for right.

AM: Post Shame is not intended to erase all indiscretions and say that like, nothing is bad. That that would be shamelessness. So being impervious to disgrace is kind of a garbagy proposition.
Uh, someone like, you know, I hate bringing up his name. Yeah. Let's do a counter. How many times I say his name, but our former president, Donald Trump is a person who lives with no contrition just about anything. And that's not really the vibe I'm trying to create.

MM: Yes, and you're not. And you haven't, and we're not going to do it either.

AM: No, but we are going to thoughtfully look at people's paths and say our people full spectrum human beings. Have they, had indiscretions or have they had changing views on things? I mean, one of the things I'm most interested in it, you immediately said social media. I want to hear about all the millennials and gen Z's, who are going to be our next generation of leaders, how they're going back through their social media and maybe seeing the way one of their viewpoints has changed.
There are teenagers who are saying really evil stuff on YouTube and racist and misogynist and sexist, and just really misunderstood statements. When they graduate from high school. And then go to college, I want to hear their stories about how their views have changed.

MM: Right? That evolution

AM: Boys are playing Fortnite on their headsets, saying the N word all day long.
They aren't broken boys, but they do need a lesson. They need Adam and May to kind of come and join their fortnight and say, maybe don't

MM: Maybe dont. My daughter plays Roblox oh my god.

AM: The world of Roblox. Do I need to do a Post Shame,

MM: With my daughter!

AM: How old is she?

MM: Seven, she's a New York kid growing up in the 2020s. Who's like, Ugh. You know, everything is awesome and amazing. And everyone is beautiful. And I just love that, but like, um, no, there was a, uh, you know, I guess there's some unrestricted chat boxes in Roblox and some kids in there were attempting to use the N word and she told me about it and I'm like, oh God, how do I protect you from this?
But that is a good point. Those kids are going to grow up and more than likely regret and be deeply embarrassed by it.

AM: Deeply embarrassed, and because the internet remembers everything, we have a t-shirt that says that, you know, it's almost, it's nearly on sale at PostShame dot org, but the internet remembers everything and it's all searchable and hackable.
So these young kids. Might not realize the ramifications yet of growing up with the internet, really tracking everything they've done. I'm kind of agnostic to that fact, because I just want to start to cope with that fact.

MM: Absolutely.

AM: I wish we could get some meaningful legislation around regulating social media companies. Until we get there. I just want to figure out a way to cope with that reality.

MM: Yes. And then there's also, I mean, I know that's like an entirely different subject, but the world of revenge pornography, it is absolutely frightening and scary and how easily you could be susceptible to it. I was for two years involved in a very abusive relationship that involved intimate partner violence and physical and emotional abuse.

AM: I'm Sorry.

MM: Thank you. I survived it. I sure he's rotting in Hell somewhere. Um,

AM: Work

MM: Can I say that he certainly deserves because what I didn't know was that, you know, I wasn't the only one and that pattern continued unfortunately. And so it absolutely messed with me emotionally and mentally. And with my sense of self for a long time, I was so young, 17 to 19, he was much older and I always worried, like, is he going to release a message or share a photo and a community like mine.
One that I grew up in. Oh, my God, that would have been it's more than just the impact on me that impacts the suitability of my brothers for marriage. Right. That impacts the reputation of my father. And it's an indictment on how he raised me. And it's just, that's the patriarchal culture. That's not the religion. That's the patriarchy.

AM: Well, that's how shame is weaponized so effectively in our culture that if you are able to have this one act between you and a partner, exploited to discredit your brothers, your father. That's what we have to fight against. We've never had a tool as powerful and as rapid as the internet to publicly shame people so fast. So, you know, everyone's talking about cancel culture all the time.

MM: I know, especially the ones who really come on, you're, it doesn't exist for you.

AM: It doesn't really, Yeah. Yeah. The folks complaining about it the most, it really doesn't exist for them. However, the thing that everyone's scared about is just this rapid sharing and not being able to endure the onslaught of emotion that's caused by what that is.
So how you're years away from that abusive situation, but how do you feel that that kind of fear of shaming has shaped you becoming an adult

MM: Shaped me in every way. So this is the perfect podcast for me, filled with shame. Even as I moved away from it and I grew up and I graduated college and I got married and had a child and moved to New York and built a life for myself.
It definitely, I think it was the reason why I got married so quickly because I got married at 24 because I felt, oh my goodness. If he is saying things about me to damage my reputation in this community that I love and that in which my parents are so highly regarded, I need to squash any rumors by quickly proving myself to be worthy of a, of a suitor worthy of marriage.
How archaic is that was raised in Los Angeles? And I couldn't break out of that mind. And I remember my best friend Jav. He was like, you, why are you doing this? Are you doing this? Because you feel like you have something to prove and I couldn't admit it, but a part of me was, yes, it was.

AM: That's a good friend. That's a little guardian angel whisper.

MM: Very good friend.

AM: How long were you married?

MM: We separated last year, January. And let me tell you, you know, he's the father and he's my best friend, he was a good human being, for someone who was involved, like me, in an abusive relationship, I'm thankful that I didn't repeat that, that I didn't manage to get in that again, he is a good kind person and such a great dad, but I emotionally, you know, I think if I had dealt with that shame and I had sought therapy or been more open about it, because who am I going to talk to in my community?
I remember having hushed conversations with other women about it, but very hush, hush. You know, like there's no space for you here to talk. It's different now on social media, there's a group of Muslim women from all around the world who create spaces online to talk about this unfairness

AM: Is there an Instagram?

MM: There is one, there's one Instagram. Oh my God. Expired and fabulous. Y'all follow this incredibly gorgeous human being. She went through a very similar situation like me early in her years was in a relationship with another Muslim man. And obviously not all Muslim men are like this. This is just, you know,

AM: Not all, hashtag not all Muslim men

MM: I love my Muslim. I am a proud Muslim, but a similar situation. And again, it's more cultural than anything else. Um, but instead of, and she was depressed and he, you know, he went on to make claims about having taken her virginity, which is like the worst thing you can say to a young Muslim woman's family. It went around, but she, she was empowered. She empowered herself.
I don't, I'm sure she had a good network of support, but she talked about wanting to harm herself and imagining that life was over. And I remember thinking that too, that life was going to be over for me because that's how I was raised my entire worth depended on my virginity, my perceived purity. I know.
And now I'm here to fight. We're here to find that now I'm a mom to a daughter and I am like, no, I am never going to make her feel that way ever. And it's, again, my parents were a product of their culture. And even if my parents weren't around, it would have been the aunties and the uncles and the Sudanese neighbors and the Muslim uncle who ran the deli down the street, who would have been like, I think I saw you with the boy last week. I mean, that's how deep it got. Yeah. So fast forward I married.

AM: It's so hard to render me speechless, but all I can, I have all these images in my head of like how badly I want to visit that deli with you. Because in some of those environments, I don't read as gay because if they don't have gay as a concept, they're just like, who is that guy?
And you're like, wait, what? Like it's 20, 22 when I was in Cuba. I truly couldn't come out. I tried to come out relentlessly and it was a joke and they would call me la reina. The queen, because it was a bit, but I kept coming out as gay everywhere. I went and I was like, no, no, no, I am gay me soy gay. Oh my God. You know, just like what someone, believe me no one could believe me.

MM: So my wedding took place in Cairo. I had a couple of good friends who came, uh, they were gay and they brought their partners. And I, and I knew it was going to be the first time for them to experience and to meet folks who are gay. And I made a point of telling my family, I want, you know, these are my friends, this is what they identify.
You know, what happens. They, everybody loved each other. There was so much love and kindness. They were hugging and sharing food and it was a beautiful opportunity. Thankfully, I didn't grow up in a homophobic household. I just grew up in a household that put a lot of pressure and misogynistic one,

AM: Right, yeah. It's like, they're like they, those guys can go do whatever they want. We're very focused on our daughter.

MM: No riding car in cars with boys. My dad would call me in college at 11 o'clock at night to see where I was. And to literally ask me if I was riding in cars with boys. So in that Drew Barrymore movie came out. I was like, this is my life minus the...

AM: I kind of want your memoir to be, I was riding in a car with a boy or worse. I was driving the car with many boys and they're all gay and they all have pink hair.

MM: That happened, yes. That was college.

AM: So you're describing this experience of like, you know, this restrictive household kind of creating kind of a squeaky clean past for you.
So that like, as you run for office, There wasn't a lot of opposition research for you to do. However, is this an example of you having to work twice as hard to get kind of like half this far? Who are you in a primary against? The primary will be in late June, in New York.

MM: The primary is on June 28th. It's an open seat race, which is great. There's four other people in the race. Three of them are men. And the reason why I'm not going to go into them is because we've only ever had men in this position. So I think the only two people folks should focus on are me and my other woman, opponent Kelly Leeson. Who's fabulous. So support women, but an opportunity for the first time ever to elect a woman.
And how nice would it be to elect a person of color and a mom, a parent, and someone who can barely afford to live in the district. So let's legislate with some lived experience. So that's, that's the race and the election is June 28th, primary.

AM: And in terms of credentials, do you feel like you have to talk up your credentials in a different way?

MM: Everyone in this race is talented, right? Everyone is going to be bringing something to the table, but if we're talking about someone with real government public service experience, that's me. And I'm the only one in the race that has it now, and more than just a volunteer basis. And I was a volunteer as a community board member, but I was for the last.
The moment. I stepped a foot in New York city and in August of 2010, I've been in service to New Yorkers ever since straight up.

AM: Snaps, snaps for May

MM: Service ever since I developed programs that facilitated life skills, management and development for youth who were in the south Bronx, I've raised millions of dollars in private and federal funding as an individual contributor for workforce development programs across the cities in these programs continue and have positively impacted the lives of thousands of people.
And two groups of those were folks who were experiencing substance abuse and misuse and their family members. And another group were youth who were involved in the justice system. And both groups saw gains in like post-program employment, post-program education. That's what I'm about. When COVID hit. I was one of the leads on the city's response.
So as Deputy Commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, I oversaw at the time that's a title. Thank you. Thank you. I was the youngest Deputy Commissioner in their history. I'm just saying, and their first black one. Um, but, uh, you know, those three years I oversaw the country's largest immigrant serving constituent services operation. And when you're running for office, it's ultimately all about constituent services, how responsive, reactive, and compassionate and understanding can you be to people who reach out to you for help? Because when I'm assembly member, no issues going to be too smaller, too personal, right?
Just bring it to me, I'll help you out. And then I also oversaw intergovernmental affairs for that agency. So I was charged with ensuring that my commissioner and the rest of the executive team and the agency as a whole had good relationships with electeds at the federal state and local level. And that was crucial.
Why? Because when there was a policy or a recommendation that we needed to move these folks in a certain direction on that good relationship building was necessary. So I've done all of that. And that's just a snippet right. Of the work that I've done for the city, because that's a whole other conversation, but I feel like I have to keep, you know, I'll go into a forum and I'll make that statement.
And then someone else will follow up and say, well, I'm the most experienced in the race? And I'll say, would you say that if I were a white man who had said that right now, What is that, that I do wonder sometimes like here I am a black woman telling y'all that I've been in the trenches. I've been working in this service for almost 15 years, seven of which as a public servant to New York City, I took a pay cut.
I was going to go into the private sector and I said, I will take $50,000 less to work for the administration. Because again, back to how I started as an immigrant, I feel a great sense of indebtedness. Again, don't know if it's that a word. Maybe we can check it or repeat it again. Who cares? No shame, no shame. hashtag debtedness, uh, to this country, into the city. I have to say it more times. I have to say it more frequently. I have to say it louder. I wonder sometimes if I were a different right, ethnicity, if I would be able, or if I were a man, if that could come across more easily, And also I'm running against, you know, in, in these races, especially in a district like ours, I love our district.
It's some of the best people I've ever met and true blue Democrats who are pro equity and just want to see their community continue to thrive and flourish. And it's such a charming place, you know, I'm up against people. So great. Like I said, well-intended most of them anyway, um,

AM: Well-intended white folks is fully, fully a vibe as, as a person who's occupying some of that space often.

MM: But truly, 99% of them are. They're really good people, a lot of folks, right. Spend their political careers, advocating for safety nets and supportive services for black and brown communities. Now we have an opportunity instead of continuing to pay lip service and talk about it to actually elect someone from a black and brown community and that's me.
And so my belief is that if that, if, if that is your intention, if you're talking about recovering communities, black and brown, this black and brown, that there is no better way to truly support our communities than by helping us build political power. And how incredible would that be to elect this district's first black woman first immigrant, first woman, first mother first Muslima. I mean, we are doing something that has never been done in this district before, and I'm thankful I'm I'm, I'm so grateful. No matter what happens. This is a precedent setting campaign. I'm meeting immigrants on the street who are telling me, you mean to tell me I'm going to be seen by my state reps.
I'm going to feel seen because they were seen, Dan is a great assembly member, but it's about feeling seen. And that's where representation is important. You know,

AM: When you talk about power. I feel like there's a growing conversation and more and more people are willing to have this conversation. Cause I say the word leadership a lot and I realize it lands differently for everyone.
So I'm working off this idea that leadership means standing up for advocating for and working with, really standing for power with others. Yes. But when you talk about running, because you want the elected office, there's a moment. This is not a criticism, but there's a moment where it is power over.

MM: Totally. It's not a bad thing.

AM: It's just, you are recognizing the power structures we have in our society are founded on power over someone makes a decision. You know, you elect them, you have a voice. However, they go to Albany or they go to DC, you know, where they go to state, capitals everywhere. And then they do things.
They make decisions, but you've entrusted them with those decisions. And those decisions are power over. The Florida don't say gay bill. I don't believe a majority of Floridians are in on that but that Republican state legislature is foaming at the mouth excited about passing that. Anyway. So there's this interplay between truly wanting to lead a power with movement, bring your constituents along.
Like, I think it's so amazing when elected officials get an email about a pothole and then like do something to fill the pothole because it just so literal.

MM: I want that

AM: Ok you are an angel, I love you. I like my least the thing I find least interesting in New York City is potholes. Like I just can't.

MM: I want to fill them all.

AM: That's your campaign slogan. May Malik. I'm filling all the potholes.
Okay so, so I think it's so interesting that you're talking about like a power with model. However you understand the structure that is like a power over, like, I have to be elected. I have to go show up there, but then you go back to power with when you meet immigrants on the streets who say, wait, I'm going to see myself exactly.
That you are going to stand for something. That's something above leadership

MM: That is above leadership. Yes. I have a fantastic group of interns. They're amazing. Uh, shout out to Emma and to Evan and to Tage and to Rebecca, listen, whenever I'm around. I like to shout people out, which is why in my campaign minus messaging you'll notice unless it's absolutely true.
I never say I did this. And I did that. I go, I led I co-lead. I collaborated with others because there's no such thing in government as one person doing it.

AM: I alone can fix it, is the dummest thing that's ever been said.

MM: That means you really either don't know what you're doing, or you'd rather persuade people into thinking you're some kind of magical superhero and it doesn't make any sense.
It's a, it doesn't exist. Know you mentioned the Upper East Side, but assembly district 73 also encompasses Midtown East, Carnegie Hill and Murray Hill. Oh, wow. So it's very exclusive, right? Especially the Upper East Side close to 70% of the population has at least one degree, 60% has at least two that's a 56%. That is really high. Really. That's really educated. And then the, you know, median average

AM: I was going to say really in debt, you said really educated and I'm like 56% of them have two degrees!

MM: I mean, I'm in so much debt. I'll tell you the moment the administration decides to start up those payments again. I'm. You know, I one bill away from living on the streets then.

AM: Oh you're part of that, um, sorry, remind me the name of the program. It's like the public service loan forgiveness.

MM: I need to apply for that because it's so onerous. I don't even know how to do it. It's complicated. Nothing that they, they don't make it easy, but no, the studen loan payments are paused.

AM: I want our taxes on a postcard and I want this application website to be fix my loans.gov

MM: Or just a Google form.

AM: I don't know if that would be secure enough, but I hope, I don't know. Google got a lot of money. They can encrypt it.

MM: But they paused student loan payments and it's like, well, why can't we just get rid of them? Anyway, something like that. If that comes in I'm done. I'm glad that you liked the political power comment, because, you know, again, I talked about the demographics. Half of the businesses in the district are owned by immigrants.
So even though not a lot of them are living in the district, they certainly power the district and serve the district as they always do in every part of the city. Right. As essential workers and all of that.

AM: So you're, you're really giving example of when data is showing you the real mosaic of your District. That's amazing.

MM: And 20% are actually born in another country. But when you look at the

AM: That's kinda high.

MM: You wouldn't think that.

AM: I'm picturing you campaigning on the upper east side where it's literally just white ladies with like purple hair. They're just to me in 40 years. And you're just trying to like convince them of something. Meanwhile, If I saw you on the street, I'd be like, Work Queen! Can I sign that petition?

MM: Oh My God, you should've gone petitioning with me. You went to LA, it's fine.

AM: I wanted to, I wanted to, I was in LA. I was getting my hair colored pink. Clearly I had other priorities.

MM: I go to LA to get my hair colored pink all the time.

AM: So you're describing the neighborhood.

MM: Yes. So then, then you have these clubs that are very much responsible for, you know, developing and entering into a pipeline of like political power, potential candidates. So almost every district elected and city council elected in the area comes back from a club, either started off in that way. Every opponent in my race is backed by a club that they're a part of, except for me.
And you know why? Because when I attended one of these clubs, it was literally one of the only two black people. And even though they're run by wonderful people with the best intentions, it is my view that more needs to be done to recruit more diverse people in the district because we do exist, you know, we are here.
And so it's hard to be sort of an outsider and then to also be an immigrant and to be the only parent and a single parent, I don't have access to generational wealth. So how can someone like me build political power when the institutions don't help? Right. And so it takes someone doing it once and I'm committed to helping other women and men like me find and build their political power in a district like this in the future. Yeah. It's going to be great. It's time for change.

AM: That's great. Yeah. I mean, you're describing a little bit. Like, you know, you gotta make it on your own first. You're going to have to like found the club, but it feels so trite for me to be like, Well what club are we going to found, is it just called the cool people at the Upper East Side, Carnegie Hill and . Murray Hill? Because I'm not hanging out in Murray hill. I aged out of that. That ain't my

MM: For all, anybody listening,

AM: she's leaning into the mic to be like, Adam can say, talk smack about Murry Hill

MM: and district 73 Murray Hill residents. I see you. And I love you.

AM: Amazing. On that note, let's take a quick break and we'll come back.
Raising a child in 2022. Like, what is the most, like,

MM: I love it.

AM: Okay, great. Good. Because climate change has everyone else stressed out about,

MM: And that stresses me out, certainly. Okay. So that aside, like in a perfect, in a perfect New York State where we're actually making good on our hefty climate goals and we invested in environmental justice, then that wouldn't be an issue. But that aside

AM: Exactly, you like have to take, take that, put that aside and that'd be like, what's it like having a seven year old in New York City who sees everything and knows everything.

MM: Yeah. It's beautiful. And I'll tell you when I realized how beautiful it was. My daughter, came home from school. And she was telling me about a friend and I just a friend from a park.
Actually, she went to park after school and then she came back and, and it was, you know, she kept talking about how she was playing with her friend and she gendered her as a girl. Right. And was talking. And I was like, I haven't heard of this person before and what's her name again. And she told me her name.
And she said, you don't remember because they used to be. And it was exactly another name. And I said, what do you, what do you think that means? She said, well, she used to be a boy, but she feels like a girl. So she's a girl, mom. I almost cried. I didn't have to teach her that. So credit to her, the educators PS 267 and other shout out fantastic school in the east side. I love them. Credit to the parents of that young child, to the community that is creating a space where this child can be in second grade and view who they feel and explore that. Right. And so it just made me feel so proud that I have a daughter and I who's living in a time in a city like this, where she can experience that and see it as perfectly acceptable, because that's just who we are.
Humans come in, all sorts of forms. Everyone has different identities, everyone's gender identity and sexual identities and ethnic identities and religious identity. It's all the same, but certainly the stuff that you can't choose, you know, and I, I just, that made me so proud, like it's gonna make it. So, so I'm raising my daughter, A, to be bold and strong and opinionated.
And boy, is she opinionated? And to be, um, not afraid to call out injustice. Right. When I was her age, I was so shy. I was a, a new immigrant, you know, to the country. I just wanted to fit in. I hated having a name that was funny for, for the listeners who don't know my real first name is Maysoon it's not May, and I can get into the naming and how that happened to be later, but I just wanted to fit in like everyone else.
And I have a daughter who's living in a city where differences are embraced. It's a different time. Differences are seen as valuable as a resource for learning from each other for creating better learning environments in school, we are our greatest resources.
AM: How can we get that message to the people of Florida?

MM: Well the Eric Adams is with the gay gay, gay, gay campaign.

AM: Good, good. That's a campaign I can get behind just the gay gay gay gay

MM: We got your back. Um, how can we get that message out to the voters in Florida? Goodness gracious. Should we take this podcast on the road?

AM: I mean, we do have the internet and the internet as our greatest double-edged sword we've ever had. Hopefully this goes viral in Florida, but actually let's stay on naming for a second. That in 2022 , your daughter having that experience, we didn't grow up like that at all. We had left-handed kids being told they had to write with their right hand. We had people saying, no, you can't, you know, gender is fluid, gender just is fluid.
It's a spectrum, just like sexuality. So we will help topple the patriarchy by just admitting that over and over and over again in different contexts and how wonderful that your daughter at seven is having that experience.

MM: Uh, it makes me so proud and that the most important thing to me is to raise a young woman who is confident and smart and kind, and empathetic and loves everyone and sees differences as valuable and not deficits and recognize and respects gender identity and how people identify you can't take that away from someone. But it started early. I remember when she was two years old, we were on the train and she, cause this is what kids do. They're embarrassing, pointed at someone and said, mom, is that a girl or a boy? Very loudly. And in that moment, I could have said, you know, my perception is this, but that's not accurate.
That's not the right way to handle it. And I felt that that moment could have been a teachable, teachable moment. So I responded with, that's not for us to decide. We'd have to ask them if they're a boy or a girl. And so, and then she was like, oh, okay. And she goes, well, I'm a girl. I'm like, great. I'm a girl too. And we moved on. I know I love them so much. If I weren't separated. I would've had like a whole baseball team. I love children.
AM: I'm having a, I don't know where I'm at with children because I, I love being a Guncle so much. And I'm really just leaning in to having so many little ones in my life. How many do you have?

MM: How many do you have?

AM: I'm a Guncle to like I would say I've got like eight little ones that I'm just like obsessed with. I'm not great at gifts though. And I don't know if they even need the gifts. I need to be left the hook on that.

MM: They like experiences

AM: Exactly. I want to take them all to their first Broadway show.

MM: 100% can Nadia even be invited?

AM: 1000000%.

MM: She's fabulous. She's a

AM: I want, I want to take them all to Lion King. I want to have a gaggle.

MM: She's going on Sunday! Do you want to just pop into our thing. Just join forces.

AM: Exactly. I mean, I love any narrative that like really copes with like their daddy issues. So Lion King is lit for me anyway. Okay. So, but in, in naming, I'm just so fascinated by the fact that your name is like this brand. Now you, you have to like live this logo. I mean, your website's gorgeous. The photos are right. I'm so thrilled that

MM: You're being very kind, but the website needs a little work,

AM: But it's perfect. It has all the info I need it, you know, but what does it feel like to have to like own this naming convention that, I mean, you're essentially saying you use the term real name, which I was surprised by.

MM: I know I did use the term real name as if May is fake. It's not fake. It's who I am. I think it's because I didn't choose the name May when I remember very vividly, it was first grade. I was in. Mrs Elijah's classroom. She was very much older. I mean, at that point she was in her seventies. So, and I, I can't imagine that she had any bad intention.
Right. I try to give people the benefit. That's what you do when you're a person of color who deals with a lot of racist microaggressions or like maybe they didn't mean it. And maybe that's not what they meant. Um, you just get that's how you cope. But I, it was, it was the first day of class and she was starting roll call,

AM: Can I just acknowledge that that, must be exhausting that that's something about my lived experience, even as a queer person, that doesn't really amount to the same thing.

MM: I imagine you get your fair share.

AM: I don't know if I would be, it just sounds exhausting. I don't know. I just want to acknowledge that that that's a lot.

MM: It happens all the time. Even on the campaign trail happens all the time. I just have to, and I, you know, my campaign manager will like go, Hey, I heard that. Are you okay? And check in with me? And I'm like, yeah,

AM: Ok good if you have support around you to acknowledge

MM: Very much so thank you. Shout out to Q. She was doing roll call and I knew she got to my name because she was struggling to even begin to pronounce it.
First of all, my, my it's spelled M A Y S O O N literally, pronounced as it's written, May and Soon.

AM: Phonetics and English. I'm going to say that was one of the easier ones.

MM: So she couldn't do it. And I raised my hand very meekly. It was very shy. It's Maysoon and she looked at me and she goes, we're going to call you May.
We are going to call you May. I didn't push back. I've only been in the country for a year. I want desperately to fit in. I'm learning the language. Everyone is white I'm at that time, the school was the elementary school that I went to, especially those early grades, not as diverse. Right. I grew up in a sub, a beach suburb of Los Angeles.
Love where I grew up. Ultimately my middle school and high school were very diverse, but not those early years. And so that name was imposed on me. I had no at the time felt like I had no choice. And then I became May. I ended up as a, as any good immigrant kid, right? Like going to school, doing really well, having a great job, starting a really great career, having that career pathway, my parents who were proud of me, but all of that was as May, never as Maysoon.
And I feel there, I think about that a lot. Like, I, I wish I had reclaimed it at some point. I know you and I were talking like, can I possibly start now? It's too late. Everybody knows me. I'm as May I'm on the petition, I was on the petition as May. My website is May my logo is May I, people are going to be like who the is Maysoon Malik.
And also just Maysoon Malik, maybe it would sound too ethnic. You know what I mean? These things go in your head growing up, you worry about these things.

AM: So in your journey, you know, everyone's on a journey everyone's on their own road to self discovery. Is there a way of reclaiming it in a private way or, or to say like, you know, privately, you can say call me Maysoon

MM: Yeah. I'm starting to do that now. So in ever since you and I last chatted, you inspired me by the way, Adam inspires. That should be an offshoot.

AM: Well, I mean, we had a pre-interview conversation and I was, I changed my name when I turned 18. And so I just have this really warm spot in my heart for people making sure that they can love the sound of their own name.

MM: Yeah, and love my name. My, my father named me Maysoon is a very old Arabic name. It's rare. And it brings me so much joy. It does have meaning it's embarrassing.

AM: Oh, why is the embarrassing maybe embarrassing, meaning like

MM: This is a perfect podcast to say it Maysoon is defined as of beautiful face and body.

AM: How was that embarrassing? First of all, facts on facts. Second. Just. No. That's how is that embarrassing? I wish Adam, all Adam means his first man, which is quite a bold statement. Okay.

MM: Well, that's the meaning. My dad used to say, it's the name of a flower that goes in the desert in which could possibly be true.

AM: That's very survivor right

MM: That was my dad, survivor. You know, so when we spoke and you inspired me with your own story and you just incredible, Adam, um, I had a lot of endorsement meetings after that. I had a lot of meetings with my team and I started to say, I'm Maysoon you can call me May if you'd like to this, the other, you know, like, you know, my campaign name is May, but my name is Maysoon.
You can call me May if you'd like, I'm fine with either, but at least now I'm giving myself that opportunity. Instead of letting people take that from me and people, people are more than happy to call me what I want to be called. Right. But it's just been ingrained in me for so long. And it starts when you're a kid, this is why the subject of like and ensuring that, you know, young kids are confident and feel good about themselves and feel good about other people and respect other people's journeys. And teaching them young is going to help avoid stuff like this in the future. You know, my daughter's name is Nadia. That is a beautiful Arabic name.
And she's named after my maternal grandmother, God rest her soul. She was the godmother of our family. And, uh, I don't want to give her a nickname. Her name is Nadia. She can have one on her own. If she likes, I call her Nana, Nana, just kind of like as a cute nickname, but she's so proud of her name and, and can't imagine calling herself anything else and would correct you if you don't say it properly, where I used to used to just let people walk all over me.

AM: Then that is the, that is the core of the story that we are raising the next generation to say, actually, let's make sure that you feel so secure in your identity to correct people and love it because we all deserve to love the sound of our own name. And as all those YouTube kids that we were talking about and all the kids who were having changing views on things, their names are going to be searchable in a different way.
We have to provide opportunities for people to reclarify their identity at whatever stage of life they're. So. Let's take another quick break and then we'll come back for act two
Peepadoodles, I really admire our girl May Malik, who we now get to call Maysoon when we see her out campaigning, I love her journey. And I just want to acknowledge again how badass she is for sharing so much. So authentically. I know that word gets tossed around a lot authentic, but seeing someone running for office sharing pieces of themselves.
So honestly, it's really refreshing and it's exactly what I want Post Shame to be while going back and listening to the interview and taking notes. There's one little line that I thought deserved a little story time. I mentioned the fact that I changed my name when I turned 18. The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, my father left my family in a very abrupt way.
I'll save the dramatic details of that for another podcast, the aftermath of his leaving resulted in what I'm pretty sure was the fastest divorce in the history of New York State. And during that process, I resolved to change my name. My given name at birth was Adam MacLean borkowski I didn't want my father's name any longer and decided to shorten it and keep only MacLean a family name from my mother's side, with the help of one of my mother's sisters, my aunt Sally, who gave my mom I think like $500.
And she helped us hire a lawyer who made a petition for a name change. When I went away to Bard for college, I was already going by out of McLean. I had made the leap that summer. And when I got to college, I started introducing myself as Adam McLean, despite the paperwork, not really being 100% complete.
During that first year of college, I received word that the name change was denied by a judge. The judge had said that he worried that this action was being hastily decided as part of a feud between the son and his father, and therefore such a serious decision should be reconsidered. And the judge requested I come visit him.
This quote unquote judgment enraged me. And it might've been because it was half true. The first time I saw my father after he left, I just remember the fight being so uproarious and I screamed at him. I'm ashamed you're my father, and I don't want to be associated with you. I'm changing my name. The other half is that I want it to be a performer.
And I thought Adam MacLean was just a lovely name, that alliteration in the middle with the M's and my family had been calling me by my first and middle name, my whole life. So when I started to hear it said back to me in college, by new people, I would smile. It felt so familiar. I loved it. I was busy at college and said, I couldn't come back to deal with this.
I imagined that the judge had a son of his own, that he was upset with and wanted to work out his issues with me somehow. I'll never know. I never met. The lawyer wrote a letter saying Adam is away at school and will not interrupt his studies to visit the court. He is already living as Adam MacLean away at college and wishes you would grant the name change a deeply held desire, having nothing to do with his parents' divorce. There were all sorts of administrative issues. It has to be published in legal journals and a local paper in case you're actually changing your name to run away from debt after many months of nervously wondering if I'd have to go back to my old name at some point. We received word that it was approved and it was complete that summer with a name change decree. In hand, I went to the DMV and the social security office, and then started the process of getting new documents. My passport was the first time I was going to have a passport.
That's a whole different story. It took me like seven years to get that done. And unfortunately it was always because of some kind of mess up on my end, be it with the photo being the wrong size or a form being wrong or sending in copies when it needed to be originals or something. I don't know how any non-English speaking immigrants navigate our convoluted bureaucracies is beyond me.
They're all rock stars for persevering. And I think about May's parents from Sudan, navigating bureaucracy and makes me admire them even more. I'm now. Uh, well, wow. Okay. I'm 22 years away from this story. I've lived more life as Adam MacLean than not. And yet I think about my name a lot. When I go home to visit Hamburg New York, there are still a few folks who call me Burks for short.
When I went to my ten-year high school reunion, I was the only male with a quote unquote maiden name on his name tag Adam McLean, ni Borkowsky. I thought it was funny. I think naming is so important. I don't equate my experience to one of trans people who have a dead name. That experience is unique, especially when hearing their dead name can cause intense gender dysphoria.
The only similarity I feel is a cringe when the issue comes up and I tell someone that I changed my name, and then they say, well, what's your real name? The number of times I've taken a deep breath and said, My real name is Adam McLean. My given name was Borkowsky. Now it's McLean. I cringe when I read profiles of famous people that say things like Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stephanie Germanotta.
It's like her name is Lady Gaga. She does so much as lady Gaga. She makes a huge impact as Lady Gaga, her real name, come on, but there's also the other side of this. Stars like Anne Hathaway have shared how they hate hearing their name. Yelled at them by fans are on red carpets and in private, they prefer to be called Annie.
It scares her less. Julianne Moore prefers her quote, unquote, real name, Julie Smith. She said she only really uses Julianne Moore in business context and everyone she knows personally just calls her Julie. While preparing for this recording. I did have a shock of memory of a time. I may have perpetrated the type of renaming that Maysoon's teacher did.
I'm going to anonymize the following story a little bit because the person in the story is fairly private. We'll call him Jonah. My first year of college, one of my dorm mates was just the epitome of heartthrob. It could have been because the show, my so-called life loomed large in the zeitgeists and Jared Leto's character, Jordan Catalano was absolutely the angsty teenage fantasy I hadn't been able to be open about because I was gay. This story is from 2000. Coming out with still a little scary. We definitely did have Will and Grace, but coming out with still scary. Anyway. So Jonah and I are part of the same friend group in our dorm, and I'm kind of a heart a flutter when he's around, as is everyone he's just handsome and brooding and playing his guitar and had long hair that he kept pushing behind his ear, that kind of guy.
And I had an acquaintance back home called Jonah Mark. And when I see hot college Jonah I'd yell out, Jonah Mark. Even though that wasn't his name and it stuck, it caught on, he was soft-spoken. And you could tell he was made nervous by the kind of attention of a big boisterous gay dude yelling his name across the room or across the quad or across the dining hall.
Jonah Mark. I mean, it's the first year of college. Everyone is nervous, but it became a thing. People assumed it was his name. And in reality it was a very specific type of bullying. But the kind of bullying you do when you have a crush on someone that does not excuse it, I'm just trying to give you the context here.
By the time senior year came around, a bestie of mine was dating Jonah. And one day she said to me, I just found out Jonah's middle name isn't Mark. Did you give him that nickname? I admitted I did. She asked why everyone calls him Jonah Mark and Jonah Marco. You're always yelling. Marco. When you see him, it's kind of weird looking back.
It's this same time that I was internally working so hard to step into my own identity. As Adam MacLean, I was kind of relentlessly calling someone else by the wrong name. So this is where Post Shame comes in. I realized I was about to have an episode of my podcast come out where I, Mr. Self-expression name change champion.
And imagine if Jonah heard this and decided to start writing the comments of my Instagram or tweeting quote, you know, something like this jerk, Adam Borkowsky thinks he stands up for people being called what they want when he was a name bully in college. Like that could happen. That's an example from my past, I worry would leak on the internet.
So let's go to the steps. If you visit PostShame dot org, there are six steps real quick. Step one, discover, two investigate, three confide, four find a way to lead, five share and listen, six stay in the conversation. So real fast, we'll just do the six steps. One discover. Well, I discovered this after my conversation with Maysoon. Step two investigate what would happen if this info came out?
I understand this one is pretty low stakes, but it's an example of something I could have apologized for that I haven't yet. Step three confide. I called two friends from college and they remember this story. They remember me assigning a very nice guy, a nickname, Marco, and they agreed and it was worth investigating.
And if done correctly, apologizing wouldn't upset, Jonah. Step four, find a way to lead just by telling this story. I bet there are lots of folks who are going to remember times in their life that they have made up nicknames for someone and how it might have hurt them. Are there places in your life where you can call and apologize people, if it doesn't do them any harm, step five, share and listen.
So here it is. I called Jonah. We had a great conversation. We caught up. It's been a long time since college, and as it turns out, he liked the nickname. He wasn't upset by it. I didn't share the shades of the story about me having just come out of the closet and all that, that felt like a lot to do to a dad who's taking time with me on the phone while this kids were on the playground, but he shared that it actually made him feel seen by me and that like all of us, he wanted to be liked. So he liked the nickname. After the conversation, my heart was so big. I was so happy. So here's the thing. I considered not telling this part of the story since it has a happy ending, it feels slightly anticlimactic, but I have to say, I really liked revisiting the steps of Post Shame and putting them to work. Step six,
the last step is stay in the conversation. So this step is where the work stays alive for me. In doing so I'm essentially saying if anyone out there is listening to this podcast and they do have a damning story about me, I'm willing to listen. So if anyone listening remembers me as a bully, my DMs are open.
My inbox is open and my hope is that there's an opportunity for meaningful connection down the road. Additionally, if you're a person who feels after hearing this and wants to change their name, I have two links in the show notes. One is to the transgender, legal defense and education fund. And the other one is Lambda Legal and they both have resource pages for how to get it.
Thank you for listening to today's episode. Come back next week for Act two of the conversation where candidate from New York State Assembly District 73 May Malik, and I will discuss a political scandal. Find Your Light is made by magical people who I adore.
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You can text them "the host of this show begged me to send it to one person and I thought of you" A reminder, no matter how you're feeling, up, down or sideways, just Find Your Light, lean into the light, feel the light on your face and get it. Get it, get it. You're gorgeous. I'll see you next time. Bye.