First Amani Al-Khatahtbeh Founded Muslim Girl. Now, She's Running For Congress

Amani Al-Khatahtbeh is aware how to amplify marginalized voices to carry out a usual objective. In 2009, the then-teenager launched Muslim Girl, a digital space by and for herself and her companions, that soon grew into a media powerhouse where Muslim females and ladies are both centered and pushing the conversation forward. Over a decade later, she’s taking the skills she’s learned and applying them to a new sort of national stage: a congressional run.


On April 4, the Rutgers graduate formally reported her bid to resemble the 6th congressional district of New Jersey. She’s primarying 16-term incumbent Frank Pallone (D), who has contained the same seat since before Al-Khatahtbeh was even place on Earth, because she believes that not only is it time for someone new to define the district, nevertheless that she is that person.


While Al-Khatahtbeh isn’t the only person gunning for Pallone’s seat, she’s already navigating challenges that her opponents are not. Her campaign manager was sidelined immediately after he started presenting indications for COVID-19; number of a day or two later, an attorney for fellow challenger Russell Cirincione challenged her petition to run at all. (That challenge was later dropped.) And the 27-year-old is prepared to take on whichever tries to come between her plus a dream she’s had since she was a teenager.


“I've been through so several battles just to get to the first line,” she told MTV News about the hurdles she’s faced to even appear on the ballot come July 7. “It's really incredible to witness, especially within our own progressive movement, the adversity that females and communities of color have to endure just to be included. It's my hope that our campaign really makes a statement that it’s no longer going to be acceptable and that challenges like this will not intimidate us.”


Throughout a recent phone conversation, Al-Khatahtbeh told MTV News about campaigning for federal office in the middle of a pandemic, why social media is like her “first language,” and the conversation she had with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) the night before her history-making launch.


MTV News: What inspired you to run for office?


Amani Al-Khatahtbeh: The experience that the communities I symbolize and I have had, has served as my main inspiration really help to bring about the change we need to be able to see in congress.  We have to push for progressive values harder than ever, especially because of this moment of crisis that we find ourselves in. It almost begs for us to really step up and take on the moral responsibility of taking the lead, and help guide the nation towards that future that will benefit the most marginalized of our communities, first and foremost.


MTV News: there really are so several different positions to run for — why did you pick Congress?


Al-Khatahtbeh: I'm running for a congressional seat in the district where I went to school. I went to Rutgers University and I'm a product of the political science program, and that community is really what made me. I grew up in central Jersey, and my college campus is really where my activism began and where I became acquainted with what is possible as soon as people unite and dream about what the future should look like for us. So it was very, very organic wish to define the place that I call house on a national level.


The congressman who has been representing our district since I went to school there was elected If I was place on Earth, and has been the representative for our district for my entire lifetime. I'm really hoping to make construct a coalition of voices that haven't been spoken to in a very long time, to have that seat at that table.


MTV News: What issues do you care about, and why do they align with the issues young people in the area care about?


Al-Khatahtbeh: Definitely environment. Within the past a number of many years, there has been a divestment coalition forming amongst a lot of student groups, and piece of that initiative has been to really push where we visualize our representative land on these issues because [Pallone] happens to be the chair of the Energy and Commerce committee and he's also been one of the roadblocks to [the] Green New Deal. In the midst of this global pandemic, it's more key than ever for us to prepare ensure that we are holding those leaders responsible.


One thing that I have been personally impacted by, that also impacts the young people in my district, is student debt. I'm really hoping that we push these issues to the forefront. However most importantly, the way that we're seeing our government respond to the coronavirus, it's really crucial that we respond to this moment ourselves as a people, by pushing for Medicare for All, once and for all. I mean what more would be really asked for in terms of having this underlying need — especially for communities that don't have access to the resources they require group in attempt to get the help and the care that they are entitled to?


Editor’s note: In July 2019, Pallone and other Residence Democrats introduced a climate plan with a later deadline to achieve net-zero emissions than as offered in the Green New Deal. MTV News reached out to Pallone on this and other issues spoke in this piece, nevertheless had not heard back as of publishing time.


MTV News: We're already seeing statistics that means that Black and brown people across the country are being impacted by the pandemic, at rates that their white counterparts are not — and that is echoed by the ways systems tend to fail minority groups first. Is there anything that you think Rep. Pallone has done — both right and wrong — by minority communities in particular?


Al-Khatahtbeh: I personally don't think that the current representative has spoken to minority communities for most of them, if not the entirety of his political career. I think that now we're reaching this boiling point where young people across the nation are not settling for just what is beneficial enough or what is being handed to us. We really want accountability, [and for] our leadership to land on the issues the way that we feel is right.


Our generation is so enthusiastic about issues that impact minority communities, like racial justice. We are fast approaching a moment where minorities are becoming majority In America. As well as a belief that I've contained my entire life, is that a society is only as strong as its weakest faction. Once we look at the communities that are disproportionately neglected, I think that that's where we have to begin. If we're not doing right on those issues by those communities, then we're simply not doing enough.


MTV News: You founded MuslimGirl.Com — what lessons has leading that effort taught you that you want to bring to this campaign?


Al-Khatahtbeh: I think that Muslim Girl certainly has instilled in me this deep, deep value of elevating narratives that we don't routinely get to hear from. I come from a community that has been often silenced and sidelined, especially in discussions that directly impact us, especially once it comes to policies that are add onto a lot of misinformation, that don't draw members of our community to the table, as soon as they're literally about us. That has been really the lived experience that has formed a lot of my motivation for making change happen on a policy level.


Once I began Muslim Girl, I did so in the hopes that maybe if we had a space for us to reclaim that narrative on our own terms, then we can potentially shift public advice in a way that will make people more informed, that will increase endurance, that will build bridges between communities that might otherwise have not had that bridge built between them, in a way that could eventually impactpolicies that are directly geared towards our community.


Ultimately it's a win-win, because by including those voices in the discussion, we ensure that we come up with the ideal policies possible, that we are taking into account factors of inequality. One thing that I've really taken away from the incredible ladies that I've gotten to work with and learn from and read through Muslim Girl, has really been the sheer value of that.


I grew up in a post 9/11 era, so I knew firsthand what it does to your sense of belonging in society once you don't feel like you visualize reflections of yourself in the world around you. And I wish I had a space like Muslim Girl If I was growing up. Right now as a young adult myself, I get to have role models like Representatives Rashida Tlaib [(D-MI)] and Ilhan Omar [(D-MN)], national organizers like Linda Sarsour, females that have really paved the path to permit a seat at the table for more girls like myself. The legacy that we're building on, really is just continuing to pave that path and permit more people to follow.


MTV News: You're already making history because the opening Muslim woman to run for Congress in New Jersey. How does it feel to be that boundary breaker? What are your thoughts on the fact that it's 2020 and those barriers still need to be broken?


Al-Khatahtbeh: That's literally what my first reaction was if they notified me that I was the initial Muslim woman to ever run for federal office in New Jersey. I'm like, "Are you kidding me?" It's 2020, I didn't even believe it at first. Yet New Jersey didn't even elect its first Black woman to Congress up until 2015. It's really phenomenal to be able to see what our progressive and feminist movements have been able to carry out, nevertheless ladies of color overall have just been so left behind.


I never really believed carrying that title at all. Our run for these seats is really to just make sure that the perfect people possible are representing our communities. A side effect of that has been breaking glass ceilings and old barriers, in group for us to really keep pushing. Hopefully, titles like that will eventually become obsolete.


MTV News: The coronavirus pandemic is changing a lot in terms of campaigning. How do you count on connecting with voters in light of the fact that nobody can really knock door-to-door, or host town halls right now?


Al-Khatahtbeh: It's because of this unprecedented moment that we are launching a unprecedented political campaign. My entire campaign is going to be digital and one of the things that we're kicking the campaign off with is a campaign quarentour, which is almost a lineup of virtual town halls that we plan to be hosting over live stream with a number of issue-based firms, both at local as well as a national level.


Our campaign has also been directly impacted by COVID-19. Our campaign manager was hospitalized and tested for coronavirus. He had to take a step back away from the campaign that he's worked so hard on. It really underscored just why I'm even running in the initial place. As tough as it's been, it's forced us to think very innovatively about what a political campaign in the 21st century looks like.


There's still so much in terms of the opportunities that we can explore, and why we can use social media to harness political power. It feels like this is our house turf — I imagine social media to be my first language. It really is marking the direction we're headed, in terms of what political campaigning is going to look like for the foreseeable future and why we can evolve soon after that.


MTV News: the world wide web can be particularly dangerous for Muslim and other minority females who use their voice. We’ve seen that happen with Representative Omar a lot. How do you work through that noise, as well as make space to care for yourself?


Al-Khatahtbeh: Interestingly enough, Rep. Omar called me the night before we filed my petition for the ballot and she gave me such an inspiring pep talk. She reminded me that it's going to be hard so you are going to deal with plenty of adversity being who you are and being in such a contentious space. Nevertheless the ways that people might disappoint you will certainly be out balanced by all of the incredible people that are going to come from every corner to step up and stand by you in your fight.


Those moments that remind you what's key. I’m following in the legacy of people like Representative Ilhan and Representative Rashida. As a younger Muslim woman that witnessed what they've had to go through just to break barriers, it might be scary. These spaces were not made for females like us. Fighting for the space that we are entitled to has informed a lot of the strength and confidence of the Muslim Girl community. I think that that's really prepared me for what's to come.


MTV News: The federal legislative body is slowly although surely getting more diverse and younger. How do you hope that your views and dreams will assist inform legislation that will alter the full country?


Al-Khatahtbeh: I am very excited for the idea of actually allowing the people impacted by these policies, to lead the conversation. So several problems in our nation can be resolved if we were to let people lead. That's a philosophy that I'm applying to my own campaign:  Really after the lead of the people that are directly impacted and allowing them to direct how we land on those issues.


I think that speaks to what my lived experience has been growing up, and feeling fully alienated, like I'm not a American although this is the only house I've ever known, and like I'm not seen by the very people that are supposed to be representing my best interests. I think that what this new generation of congressional representatives has been attempting to do and the direction that I hope we continue fighting towards, is putting those people first.


MTV News: New Jersey, for better or for worse, has something of a reputation. What do you suggest people get wrong about New Jersey and how are you excited to resemble the 6th district?


Al-Khatahtbeh: I mean, to the contrary, I think that we live up to our reputation, whichever that shows to you! Yet I do think that especially with Jersey politics, our reputation precedes itself. What it feels like to me is, if we're able to prepare these changes happen within Jersey politics, then they can occur anywhere. It's more critical than ever for us to just go for it and make needed changes happen. However for the record, I grew up on the Jersey Shore — my dad had an organization on the shore throughout the summers. So each summer of mine was spent on the beach there and I plan to will constantly defend the Jersey Shore. That's something I plan to take with me literally to my dying breath.


This interview has been edited for length.