What Does it Mean to be American?

The journey to build a nation of immigrants has led to the strongest, most vibrant society in history. Our creativity and innovation have been unmatched precisely BECAUSE we’re a liberal democracy, are tolerant of outsiders and embrace change. If we want to continue to be a global leader we must follow and embrace this path.

Starting back in 2015 and throughout much of 2016 people started commenting that my blog had become a lot more political. I guess I didn’t see it quite that way. My blog has always been a mixture of what was on my mind and a blend of venture, startup life, tech views and current society events that related to my interests: Venture, startup & tech.

So as societal movements had impacts on startups affecting LGBTQ issues, for example, I was public about my support. In fact, I originally spoke out publicly in favor of gay rights when it was somehow still controversial to do so back in 2010 after California had made some bad political choices. I felt it was both a business issue and a human issue and deserved to have support of non-gay leaders. And when the tides turned towards more inclusiveness I cheered it on whether it was on this blog or through Twitter / Facebook / Snapchat.

Being transparent in 2010 felt like more of an anomaly but being transparent in 2017 feels like more of a requirement to me. So as the election of 2016 swung into full gear with the entrance of Donald Trump and the threats I felt that posed to anybody who wasn’t white, Christian, male, heterosexual and born in the US — my voice got a bit louder until just after the inauguration and which point I moved my blogging onto other topics.

But I figure that if people remain silent or tire of defending ourselves against the onslaught of normalizing anti-democratic norms or normalizing hate based on race, religion, sexual orientation or gender then the other side gets stronger. So I’ve been spending more time thinking about an issue that I’m passionate about — immigration.

You may have noticed that the Trump Administration is delaying Obama approved immigration policies to allow more startup entrepreneurs born in foreign countries to work legally in the US that was due to be enacted starting today.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that not every great rocket scientist will be American born. Our most famous current rocket entrepreneur — Elon Musk — was from South Africa. The co-founder of Google wasn’t born in America nor was the co-founder of Sun Microsystems, WhatsApp, Yahoo! and the founder of eBay and many others.

And what of our most revered tech founder — Steve Jobs? Yeah, he was born in San Francisco. But his biological father was Abdul Fattah Jandali — a migrant who came to America fleeing political oppression in his native country of …. Syria. As you no doubt know, Muslims born in countries targeted by the Trump administration — including political refugees fighting for survival — are being banned from traveling or seeking political refugee status in the US.

America has always been the beacon of hope for many of the smartest and most ambitious people around the world who have flocked to our universities to get a top-notch education. We should welcome each and every one who graduates and encourage the smartest and most talented minds in the world to stay and to create jobs in America.

So it should have been predictable that when Donald Trump kicked off his campaign for the presidency with race-baiting comments against Mexicans after a long campaign claiming that the first African-American president wasn’t born in the US that I would speak up. You should, too. Even if you’re not in the currently targeted groups if you accept the normalization of race-baiting eventually they will come for you.

Trump has spewed race-baiting comments for years.

Sadly, the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and hispanics-a tough subject-must be discussed.

The is the race-baiter we elected as president of our country but these views don’t represent what the majority of us think or feel. What does it mean really to be “American?” After all, Trump’s grandfather wasn’t born in the US and neither was his current wife. So it’s clear that in his mind it’s OK not to be from the US as long as you’re not: Black, Hispanic or Muslim. By vilifying groups of our population Trump and his family have become the source of national division.

Donald J. Trump on Twitter

Hillary's refusal to mention Radical Islam, as she pushes a 550% increase in refugees, is more proof that she is unfit to lead the country.

I have always taken the issue of immigration personally because I am the son of an immigrant from South America. My father is from Colombia and came to the United States for his residency in pediatrics more than 55 years ago. He served in the military, became a US citizen, married a US citizen and raised four children who appreciate the sense of freedom and opportunity that the US has to offer.

I grew up in a household with strange foods (arepas, platanos, tongue) strange music and a father who had no sense of American culture. My family was also Jewish (my father’s father fled Jewish oppression in Romania and his mother from the Ukraine) so in fact I am Jewtino.

Our journey is the quintessential American journey and our progress is the classic American success story. But childhood sure didn’t feel that way. I felt a bit like an “other” in that I didn’t celebrate the right holidays and there was always some goofy music in the house or “Colombian jokes” as we still call them. My dad liked soccer (futbol) and ping pong more than football or baseball. Don’t get me started on hearing my dad ask for a “sheet of paper” or “to go to the beach” but if you have a parent born in South America you likely know what I’m talking about.

Like every first generation Americans I was stuck between loving my father and all of his family and just wanting to “fit in” and be like every other kid. This story is universal for every American immigrant in whatever century one’s family arrived here and the “melting pot” is what uniquely makes America great. I know this first hand having personally lived and worked in many countries in Europe (and Japan) over an 11-year period where the melting didn’t happen.

So I deeply identify with all immigrants and know that there story is my story … is our story. It is the American story. I felt this emotion very strongly in watching the film The Joy Luck Club about a first generation Chinese American family. I hope you’ll take a minute to watch my favorite scene from the movie (also embedded below) and any immigrant of any nationality will knowingly smile at the assimilation of the non-foreign or Christian visitors to our cultural occasions. This scene captures the terror of first-born Americans better than most I have seen — especially the soy sauce!

Two of the best films release this past year tell the same universal story of immigrants to America and that unique desire of children to be just like everybody else.

Yesterday I watched Kumail Nanjiani’s (of Silicon Valley the TV show fame) biopic “The Big Sick” about his life growing up Pakistani-Muslim in Chicago as a struggling, young comedian when his white girlfriend becomes sick and he has to spend time with her family and deal with interracial, inter-religious rituals and norms. It was beautifully written with subtle humor. Predictable Kumail’s parents (who immigrated to the US) wanted him to marry a Pakistani-Muslim woman in an arranged marriage but Kumail just wants to be an American and isn’t sure whether he wants to be religious or not. In an argument with them he sternly says, (approximately, from memory) “if you didn’t want me to be an American then why the hell did you move to the US? I don’t get it?!? It makes no sense!” And in the movie he has to deal with racist taunts as he performs and anybody who follows him on Twitter knows this is a fact of his daily life still.

Interestingly amongst my favorite comedians right now is also a South Asian Muslim comic — Hassan Minhaj — whose family is from India. Interestingly if you add up the Muslims from Pakistan (176 million) and the Muslins from India (167 million) you have a population the size of the entire United States. If you add 210 million Muslims from Indonesia and 134 million from Bangladesh — it turns out that 700 million people from South and East Asia have the four largest Muslim populations in the word. I’m sure you didn’t pick up that nuance in the vilification and scare-mongering coming from our administration. Non-Arab muslims alone represent > 2x the entire US population and globally all Muslims are 1.6 billion or 23% of the world population.

Hassan Minhaj also produced a biopic about life growing up “different” in America called “Homecoming King” that is riotously funny but also very insightful in characterizing racial and religious tensions in America. Below is the Tweet I sent immediately after seeing it.

Mark Suster on Twitter

Homecoming King @hasanminhaj on @netflix is a brilliant, incisive, cutting look at race & immigration in US. It's both touching & hilarious

Hassan grew up in Davis, California about 30 minutes from where I grew up in Sacramento born 17 years after I left. He tells the story of his early experiences trying to assimilate into America and the story of acceptance into a White-Indian relationship and family bond — until he wasn’t. People were accommodating but accommodation only went so far. This must watch stand-up comedy is called Homecoming King.

And it seems that South Asian comedians are getting some well deserved screen time and recognition these days because amongst my favorite series on television this past year was “Master of None” with Aziz Ansari. The writing on this show is some of the best writing in modern American comedic shows. If you don’t know the show do yourself a favor and watch the trailer below (or here). Ansari also takes up the topic of a young African American woman growing up as a lesbian in our society and the family conversations and struggles that go with coming out. It is beautifully done.

Popular media helps break down stereotypes and differences in other populations and helps normalize national views on social issues such a gay rights. The media and demographic trends are in favor of the ongoing melting pot success story that America is and will always be. The backlash that produced Trump is just that — backlash — and the arc of history is on our side. Anybody on either side of the aisle knows that the US is and will become increasingly multi-ethnic.

Anybody who studies even basic demography knows that Asians make up the largest populations on the planet and will become and increasingly important part of the American success story along with Latinos.

And anybody with any common sense knows that Trumpism represents the last vestiges of blatant sexism and accepted sexual misconduct in our country as women play a more dominant role in our workforce and in our government.

We have never been a perfect nation and we certainly aren’t now. It will take every group repulsed by the normalization that the Trump administration has shown towards misogyny and blatant race-baiting to rise up in 2018, 2020 and in the years ahead.

You will need to do your part. Staying silent isn’t an option. Passionate voices win but know that demographics, tolerance and logic are on our side.

I made this little video a few months ago set to the music (rights cleared, huge thank you to WMG!) of Hamilton Mix Tape on immigrants of America. I hope you’ll watch it and share it if you enjoy it. United, We Stand.

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Kumail Nanjiani Photo credit: TheeErin via Visualhunt / CC BY-SA

What Does it Mean to be American? was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Trump. In a week there is enough evidence to know that he truly is the narcissistic child and xenophobic race-baiter we saw during the election and that wasn’t just reality TV to get him elected.

Here is a quote you should regret believing

“The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”

You should all take him literally. He has appointed Steve Bannon (ex head of Breitbart) to the National Security Council and the principals committee attending every meeting whereas the Director of National Intelligence and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are only invited now as required.

Steve Bannon has said the media is “the opposition party” and “should just shut up.” That is precisely what one would say and do if his objective was to centralize government control, make executive decisions themselves, silence critics and do whatever he wanted.

So it is now your duty to speak up. It is an obligation. You saw what yesterday’s collective response to the Muslim ban on our country did. It gave air-cover for more and more people to speak out. It got people to turn up at airports. It got judges out of bed to stop the order. It forced the government to back track. But I still think the administrations strategy is to do outrageous things and then accept the small push back to slightly-less-outrageous things and we say, “oh, ok, they listened.” We can’t accept that.

So Trump has started his ban on Muslims and without even bothering to consult with his departments that would need to carry out this order. He has begun pushing to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which would strip healthcare insurance from almost 20 million people.

He has insulted Mexico and offended China and cozied up to the Russians, hinting that he would consider lifting sanctions. He has announced he will cut foreign aid to countries if they could possibly used to aid women’s productive rights in poor countries who lack access to proper care.

We should take him literally.

“But wait, Mark, you’re a VC — why are you suddenly political? Shouldn’t you just talk about term sheets and funding?”

Aren’t we past that? This is a human issue. We all need to speak out. This is not about Democrat or Republican — this is about an aspiring authoritarian who seeks to control our country.

“But isn’t this all just talk? Don’t we need to take action? Aren’t we just talking to ourselves in our bubbles?”

Stop. This logic is a false. First, for every person who speaks out you give air cover to others to speak and know they aren’t alone. Plus, with your logic then you might as well never vote, either. If we speak — if we ALL speak out — then you will start a movement. Plus, speaking out does not mean you aren’t willing to also take action. Action without words is also sub-optimal.

Think about this — Trump’s entire power base comes from his ability to speak directly to large audiences with no media filter. Isn’t speaking out EXACTLY what we should be doing right now?

“Aren’t you overblowing this? Surely this is just Trump bluster.”

Donald Trump has no attention span and no interest in managing the details of our country. He is assigning this to people like Steve Bannon who don’t share my value system as an American.

As a Jew I am particularly heightened to central authoritarians who preach to the masses of people and incite hatred and violence of “the other.” I grew up being taught constantly about the Holocaust. As a child you read the pages and pages of accounts of smart, successful families who watched what was going on around them and didn’t take action and thought, “Why didn’t they do anything about it?”

Many Jews (and many Germans, Poles, French …) didn’t do anything about it because they simply couldn’t believe after the pain and loss of WWI that somebody was really going to be as extreme as Hitler was. They didn’t believe that their neighbors would abandon them in a time of crisis. They didn’t want to speak up because speaking up always has risks … unless everybody speaks up.

I’m relieved that more of my friends and peers are starting to speak out. Here’s Fred Wilson’s “Make America Hate Again” and Brad Feld in “Unsettled and Disgusted.” Some people like Hunter Walk have written less about it on blogs but has been hugely active in social media and in taking part actively and I appreciate Hunter so much. Chris Sacca, Roger Ehrenberg, Manu Kumar, Jason Hirschhorn — many of my friends are becoming more publicly vocal.

We need all your voices. Words lead to actions. Actions leads to resistance.

Silence cedes the national conversation to Trump. Not today, motherfucker!

Never Let Anybody Tell You to Shut Up was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A room full of some of the top tech leaders in our country: Apple, Facebook, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Amazon, Tesla and so forth. It’s a breath of fresh air to see that Marc Benioff, who has become a beacon for protecting the rights of our most vulnerable citizens, is not in attendance.

But I actually fall on the side of the issue that it’s good that our tech leaders are meeting with Trump for 2 reason:

1. Whether I like it or not (I most certainly do not like it), Donald Trump will be President of the United States and anything we can do to influence his behavior away from what was displayed on the campaign trail and towards less harmful policies the better. No, I don’t hold out much hope now that we have seen his cabinet picks, his Russia posturing, etc, but asking our best leaders to put their heads in the sand is also not a strategy.
2. I also think that as public-company CEOs they have a responsibility to their shareholders not to make governmental hostility a company policy until and unless Trump does enact some of the policies he has proposed by which they will face tougher choices. But a seat at the table is the responsible action if asked — as disgusting as Donald Trump was during the campaign. Being present at such a meeting is not an endorsement of Trump’s policies or Donald Trump as a person.

But.

Donald Trump’s action today are a complete farce and anybody not willing to say so publicly is extremely hypocritical for not pointing this out because I guarantee if this was an Obama or Clinton meeting this would be pointed out in spades.

I looked at this seating map published by Quartz and notice that there are 25 people in attendance. This is a group of our most senior technology leaders and our new government-elect.

25 people. 4 of them — FOUR — are the president-elect’s children. That is 16% of everybody in the room or put differently if I include Donald Trump the meeting consists of 20% family members. This is the definition of nepotism that we would condemn from the least democratic nations in the world.

Donald Trump has not legally separated himself from his businesses and to the extent that he has made statements it has been that his children will run his business for him. His children that are sitting in the effing room with him while he meets the top technology leaders in the country. If that’s not a kleptocracy I don’t know what is.

Let me point out what else is ridiculous.

Trump has been Tweeting negative comments about Boeing and Lockheed Martin and taking all too literally the colloquialism of the “bully pulpit” in a way that directly affects individual stocks and companies. Because we know nothing about Trump’s economic interests we of course can’t know whether this is market manipulation for personal benefit.

But think about this. If we live in a society where the President of the United States publicly bullies companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Carrier you can imagine what’s coming for our sector when they try to stand up to Trump’s autocratic tendencies. That’s when we’ll truly know how our industry will respond to autocracy. For now, they’ve just taken a seat at the 80% of the table not occupied by Donald Trump’s family.

Let Me Point out to you How Ridiculous the Trump Tech Meeting Was was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Yesterday was Halloween in the United States where children dress up and try to scare people as they “trick-or-treat” for candy. Yet the only horror I experienced was watching Peter Thiel stand in front of a national media audience and re-endorse Donald Trump for President.

In his defense he made it clear that he didn’t agree with the all of the things Trump had said (or done?) but that, “The big things he’s right about” and Thiel continued to publicly support the unsupportable.

You don’t get to be “right” about policy issues when you have been a race-baiting, misogynistic, intolerant demagogue. Trump is not a normal politician who can be rationalized and accepting him is a Chamberlain level of appeasement.

You don’t get to pretend for 5 years that the first African American president in US history wasn’t born in the United States and then get a free pass on running for the presidency. This act was not only racist in and of itself but also gave air-cover to the most irrational conspiracy theorists and white supremacist groups in the United States. Peter, this racist act perpetrated over a 5-year timeframe was disqualifying, whatever you think of his other “policies.”

You don’t get to launch your campaign saying illegal Mexicans are “rapists and murderers and some, I assume, are good people.” That is racist and fear mongering and stoking the flames of those who want to vilify “the other” which has been done throughout our country to the Irish, the Polish, the Jews, Italians and yes — the Germans — and every other immigrant population throughout history. Racism is disqualifying. Immigration and assimilation are two of the unique features that have made America so great over its centuries.

You don’t get to call for a religious test to enter our country, potentially denying access to more than 1 billion Muslim people in the world including very large populations in Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. You don’t get to create a division between the 3.3 million Muslims living peacefully in the United States and “the rest of us” because that is called “religious intolerance” and was precisely the kind of governmental prejudice our Founding Fathers tried to protect against.

You don’t get to say out loud that you would kiss women against their will or grab them against their will. That isn’t “locker-room talk” it is sexual assault and you don’t get to normalize that talk and then be president of our country. There are now more than a dozen women coming forward saying that Trump actually did what he said he did and groped them or kissed them against their will. These cases haven’t been proven but it’s hard to discount them when the person who said that Trump did this was … Donald Trump, himself!

You don’t get to pretend that you “just don’t know anything about” David Duke especially when there is this pesky fact of public record that you DO know about David Duke. Legitimizing David Duke and his vile group of supporters in order to run up the score on your votes is disqualifying in running for the presidency of the United States. Yes, THIS David Duke, Peter. This one, from just this past week …

I’m guessing you can imagine but in case your mind doesn’t go there, Peter, that second image is trying to say “Hillary is like the Jews.” Perhaps that nose looks a bit like mine, Peter? Or maybe you need the more explicit comments in the Tweet above it to be convinced?

Trump didn’t say these things, but he legitimized them by looking the other way and pretending they weren’t said and that he didn’t know about David Duke. Peter, this is precisely what you’re doing in legitimizing Trump. You’re saying you agree with him on policy while saying the press is taking him too literally for his 5 years of racist “birtherism” or his anti-Mexican comments or his sexual assault comments.

Or how about if we take what Trump actually says, Peter? Perhaps you’re not as finely attuned as I am to the alt-right references to “international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers” but let me translate in dog-whistle to English for you — that’s referring to Jews. We are the global cabal who control finance, media and governments in the eyes of the conspiracy theorists.

But what about Trump’s policies, Peter, do you find attractive?

The fact that he called on nations like South Korea or Saudi Arabia to have their own nuclear weapons? Or that he would consider a first-strike nuclear policy for the United States? Or is that one of the things you can overlook because we shouldn’t take it so literally?

Are you for “bombing the shit” out of ISIS’s oil operations and then “taking the oil” as Trump says or pulling out of NATO as Trump has threatened? Or is that hyperbole? Do you think if we bomb the shit out of oil fields in Iraq and then take their oil we will create more terrorists who hate us or fewer?

Are you troubled that he hasn’t released his tax returns and we’re one week from the election? Or is this ok and you’re pro the tax dodges he has openly hinted at or the more dubious ones that are now becoming public?

I heard you speak eloquently yesterday about the need to have a competent government capable of building the interstate highway system or the Manhattan Project and the Apollo program. I agree! We need a government that invests in and completes big things like public schooling, infrastructure and scientific research. But how can we fund all of these if we don’t pay our taxes, Peter? Can you see the slightest hypocrisy in supporting a candidate who is a tax dodger and provides no transparency of what he has actually done with his taxes while also saying you want a government capable of completing big, important projects?

Conclusion

I have many friends on both sides of the aisle. I have rabid Bernie Sanders supporter friends — yet I was never persuaded he had the right solutions for our country. He is populist so I see why people find his policies appealing but I find them not to be realistic. You can’t put global trade back in a bottle and pretend all manufacturing jobs will return to the US. You must instead invest tax dollars in helping affected communities through education, retooling, infrastructure investment (like clean water) and job stimulation.

I have many friends on the right side of the aisle who may have policy differences with me on issues ranging from pro choice (which I am) vs. pro life or drug policies or tax structure or our penal system.

I happen to be very socially liberal and prefer our country to move towards tolerance and equality for all people regardless of sexual orientation, gender, race or religion. I abhor policies that make it difficult for low-income women to get reproductive care or that applies religious tests to the kind of care they can receive. I am pro liberalizing failed drug policies and incarceration policies and similar initiatives.

I happen to be fiscally moderate and believe in global trade, moderating the size and influence of government and being careful about the “laws of unintended consequences” of government tax policies and social spending programs. I am pro worker protection and a fair wage and am willing to increase the minimum wage but I also see some of the downsides of unions that make some industries or situations anti-competitive.

I know that there are policy nuances and that my positions aren’t “right” they are positions worthy of debates with my friends who disagree and at times I find myself persuaded and change my views.

I’ve sat in your house, Peter, eating dinner with a small crowd of thinkers and heard you advocate strongly for positions I hadn’t considered and found myself moved by your counter-intuitive logic on some key issues. I love policy debate with smart people because it forces me to figure out where my own lines are. I respect your willingness to advocate strongly for positions and forcing me to think harder about where I stand.

But on issues of racism, race-baiting, religious intolerance, misogyny, sexual assault, white supremacy and demagoguery — there can be no gray area, Peter. These are disqualifying issues and you are completely wrong to support Donald Trump.

If we accept leaders who embrace demagoguery, intolerance and groups of citizens who would turn on each other and vilify “the other” then eventually they will turn on us, Peter. I am the straight son of an immigrant father from South America whose parents on both sides are Jewish and who proudly thinks of myself as an American first and foremost and everything else second. You were born in Germany and an immigrant to the US at 1-year old and are gay and now proudly open about that as you said it on a national stage at the Republican convention.

We both have voices and megaphones and resources but if we appease leaders who have shown a penchant for supporting intolerance, hatred and racism — eventually they will come for us.

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — 
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”

— Pastor Martin Niemöller of Germany in reference to the Nazis

We must do everything we can to stop this nihilistic sociopath — Donald Trump — from becoming President of the United States. Even if that means electing a president that some of you strongly dislike — Hillary Clinton.

Me? #ImProudlyWithHer and look forward to watching a woman break that all-important glass ceiling that I hope will motivate the next generation of female leaders to know that anything is possible in America.

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Thiel Image Credit: Steve Jurvetson on Flickr

And Then They Came for Me … was originally published in Both Sides of the Table on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.