Annissa Essaibi George faces “race hypocrisy” in campaign to be Boston Mayor
Tunisian and Polish American Annissa Essaibi George is fighting to be elected mayor of Boston in a run-off Nov. 2. But her campaign is fighting hypocritical attacks claiming she is not a “woman of color” This column appeared in Arab News Oct. 13, 2021
By Ray Hanania
When Annissa Essaibi George won one of two spots in the race to become Boston’s first woman mayor, everyone thought the main campaign issues would be strengthening the city’s budget, confronting the COVID-19 pandemic and improving Boston’s schools. Instead, the debate has focused on race.
Since 1630, every Boston mayor has been a white male. But the city will, on Nov. 2, elect its first woman mayor.
More importantly, the next mayor will also be a “woman of color.” But Essaibi George — who is half Tunisian and half Polish — has been forced to defend her Arab heritage and status as a woman of color.
Her opponent, Michelle Wu, is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants. Heritage has become a key issue in the nonpartisan election, but because Essaibi George is “only” half Arab, half Polish, she is being criticized for claiming to be a woman of color.
It is not enough to be a woman candidate shattering the glass ceiling that has held women in America back. The same thing happened to another high-profile woman in Massachusetts politics — Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
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Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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