Zohran Mamdani Accused Of Lying About 'Aunt'

My mother only has one sister. I call her “aunt” or “auntie.” There are also several other older women on my mom’s side of the family I call “aunt” or “auntie.” Some of them are technically my cousins. Some of them aren’t related to me at all, but they’re such close friends of the family that, bro, that’s my auntie. The same goes for “uncles” and “uncs.” I had an “uncle” once, whom I called “uncle” even though he was actually the brother of my mom’s sister’s husband — my actual uncle.

Now, if I were to explain this to a random Black person, that random Black person would likely look at me like I was explaining to them that dirt is dirty. However, explaining this simple concept to white people, particularly those of the MAGA world, is like explaining to them the practical usage of wash cloths and why they should be applied to one’s legs in the shower, even though the water is already streaming down their bodies.

You see, apparently, the family dynamic of “aunts” who aren’t necessarily aunts also exists in the Muslim community and in other non-Caucasian cultures. In fact, NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani recently found out the MAGA way that when speaking about family members, one needs to be accurate, following the conventional rules of how family trees are set up, lest cultureless white people get confused and start accusing him of lying.

From CNN:

In the final days of New York City’s mayoral race, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani has faced pushback over a story he told about his aunt being afraid to wear her hijab while riding the subway after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

National Republicans including Vice President JD Vance mocked Mamdani’s story, which the nominee told during a Friday speech criticizing his rival Andrew Cuomo for appearing to laugh along with a radio host who suggested Mamdani would cheer another 9/11.

Accounts on X flagged a LinkedIn profile belonging to Mamdani’s father’s sister in which she is not wearing a head covering.

Mamdani told reporters Monday that he was speaking about “Zehra fuhi, my father’s cousin, who passed away a few years ago.” (Fuhi is a term in Urdu and Hindi that means paternal aunt. Mamdani was born in Uganda to parents of Indian origin.)

And, thus, it began…

The New York Post ran with a headline that claimed Mamdani “didn’t tell the whole truth about his hijab-wearing ‘aunt.’“

Megyn Kelly — the blackface defending, white Jesus protecting, KK-Karen who pretends not to know why HBCUs exist and, somehow, found a way to blame Barack Obama for the killing of Charlie Kirk — also got in on the action.

And, of course, the clueless and hueless MAGA whites are all up and down the internet, purporting to have some smoking gun that proves Mamdani a liar because they looked up his only existing Muslim aunt, found one photo of her not wearing a hijab, assumed in all their infinite wisdom and whiteness that she must never wear a hijab, and that this was the “aunt” Mamdani was talking about simply because she’s his father’s sister.

Here’s the thing: Mamdani didn’t get caught lying; he got caught being a non-white person who made a non-white cultural reference in a country where whiteness represents the default for cultural and social normalcy — if you ask white people.

Meanwhile, on the side of the internet for people who bathe daily, clap on the 2 and 4, and understand that raisins are not a potato salad ingredient, folks are on social media sounding off on how common it is in their communities to refer to “aunts” who aren’t technically aunts.

Look, white American culture is basically just the American flag, the Confederate flag, baseball, American football, racism, xenophobia, and leaving the house unwashed, all but two days a week. It’s not terribly surprising that so many of them are unaware that, for people of color, an “aunt” can be any female relative or non-relative who one is close to.

But here’s the other thing: these people are out here pretending Mamdani needed to conjure up an imaginary relative to illustrate that white Americans are Islamophobic, especially post-9/11.

Just last month, a white man in Texas was indicted for making terroristic threats against Mamdani because “Muslims don’t belong here” and are “not compatible with our Western values.” That happened after MAGA supporters across the internet joined GOP leaders in having a complete MAGA meltdown over news that Mamdani had clinched the Democratic nomination in NYC’s mayoral race, and after a GOP legislator called him “Little Muhamaad,” and demanded that he be deported, despite Mamdani being a U.S. citizen who was 7 years old when he and his parents migrated from Uganda to the U.S.

Prominent Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene don’t even bother hiding their bigoted and irrational fear of Muslims. Greene and her ex-bestie,  Lauren Boebert, refer to Muslim Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib as the “Jihad Squad,” and Greene once suggested that they weren’t “really official” members of Congress because they didn’t take the oath of office on the Bible. She also said they “should go back to the Middle East” despite Omar being born in Somalia and raised in the U.S., while Tlaib was born in Detroit.

Then there’s Greene’s own video of her ranting about an “Islamic invasion” of the U.S. government because Muslims were being elected to office.

For eight years, former President Barack Obama endured constant allegations that he was a secret Muslim, even though he isn’t, which, of course, shouldn’t have mattered anyway.

And our current president, Donald Trump — the guy who has repeatedly lied about seeing thousands of Muslims celebrating 9/11 before his first term — is, during his second term, deporting or trying to deport Muslims who were in the country legally just because they engaged in protests he doesn’t agree with.

It’s also worth mentioning that pro-MAGA brown people are also not immune to the xenophobia of extra-salty white people. FBI Director Kash Patel couldn’t even celebrate Diwali out loud without MAGA melanin-nots telling him to “go back” to India, where people of the Hindu faith can “worship your sand demons” without upsetting white Christian nationalists.

Vice President JD Vance had to fend off MAGA bigots (like himself), who came for his Indian wife and children just for being Indian.

And don’t get me started on poor Vivek Ramaswamy, who has spent the last couple of years defending himself and his faith against attacks from white Christians, who keep grilling him over his Hindu background.

Anti-Muslim hate crimes skyrocketed after 9/11, and cases of anti-Muslim discrimination reached an all-time high just last year.

Again, Mamdani didn’t need to invent an “aunt” just to demonstrate what’s right in front of our eyes. The controversy over his “aunt” isn’t some great political scandal; it’s just white supremacy and Caucasian delusion in action. That’s it and that’s all.

SEE ALSO:

Texas Man Indicted For Threatening Zohran Mamdani

Op-Ed: Black Voters Should Run Towards Zohran Mamdani

Cultureless White People Say Mamdani Lied About ‘Aunt’ Because They Don’t Understand Black, Brown Family Dynamics was originally published on newsone.com