Thread by @WajahatAli

Quick thread about writing your "ethnic story" as if you are "the mainstream." Today, @mcsweeneys is publishing my play The Domestic Crusaders with a new edition, new intro by Hasan Minhaj, new convo b/w me and Ishmael Reed, and new cover. I started writing it 20 years ago...

I was a 20-year-old undeclared student in Ishmael Reed's class. The towers had just fallen. He said Muslims would get hazed for 10 years. Black people have kept fighting back through writing & art. I should write an "American play" with a Muslim Pakistani family at the center 2/

Wrote 20 pages of a play, submitted it, passed the class, & finished the play at age 23 in 2003 as a present to myself. We did a staged reading, did it ourselves, grassroots, at our local Pakistani restaurant. People in my community laughed & said "do something useful." 3/

The play was very well received but many Muslim uncles and aunties worried, "what will the PEOPLE think?" People = "white people." We censor our art, police our own emotions and narratives to cater to the white gaze, always. Also, 2004 was wild. America turned on Dixie Chicks. 4/

I was rejected by all the mainstream institutions & gatekeepers who said America won't dig an "ethnic" play. They told me to remove the Urdu & Arabic and add more torture porn - stories about terrorism and violence. We refused. So we kept on doing it ourselves. Forward to 2009 5/

We premiered the play at the Nuyorican in NYC on 9-11-2009. We broke their box office records. Got great reviews, international press, made a profit. Still, I was told America won't care for "an ethnic" play. I was told to cast Ted Danson...as the Pakistani father 6/

.@mcsweeneys decided to publish the play in early 2011. The play was produced in NYC, Bay Area, Canada, DC and London. It's being taught in schools, it's got people jobs, it helped folks get their PhD's. Toni Morrisson even gave it love. Still, gatekeepers said "too ethnic" 7/

20 years after I started writing it, the play is being republished by @mcsweeneys (they approached me) today, because they said it's topical, and still speaks to our times. Most of those other "mainstream" plays from that era with "the people?" Forgotten. 8/

Sometimes, you have to do it yourself, bum rush the show, ignore the noise about "the people," avoid/evade the gatekeepers, & hope you are lucky to live long enough to get the last laugh & the last word. Hopefully, it will be easier for the next generation of "ethnic" writers. 9/

And, ladies and gents, here is the 10th anniversary of The Domestic Crusaders published today. Thanks for reading my thread. I hope the play is entertaining and useful, or at the very least, a nice, mild distraction.

store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the-d…