in august, you characterized donald trump<u+2019>s anti-muslim rhetoric as <u+201c>a gift to terrorists<u+201d> <u+2014> specifically, you said it<u+2019>s like christmas for isis. would you care to extend that metaphor? donald trump is essentially tapping into the most fearful, racist, xenophobic, fear-based mind-set in this country, but he<u+2019>s also justifying that in other parts of the world. whether it<u+2019>s isis or it<u+2019>s trump <u+2014> what they<u+2019>re basically saying is: there<u+2019>s a reason you should be afraid, there<u+2019>s a reason you should feel disenfranchised, there<u+2019>s a reason that you should feel angry, and it<u+2019>s because of those people, over there. considering trump<u+2019>s vehement anti-muslim rhetoric, do you feel frightened? i<u+2019>m not afraid that trump is going to kick out all of the muslims. what makes me afraid is the trickle-down effect of that kind of rhetoric and that now, suddenly, it has become o.k. to be racist. we<u+2019>re normalizing it, and therefore you see more violence against people of color and l.g.b.t. people. the culture has been given permission to exorcise all of its darkest fears and can now blame immigrants or minorities for whatever problems white people are facing. whether or not trump wins, we<u+2019>ve already been infused with this. this camp has already shown itself. only about 35 percent of americans know a muslim person, and in the past, you<u+2019>ve volunteered to be <u+201c>america<u+2019>s muslim friend.<u+201d> do you occupy that role in your personal life? my friends and i don<u+2019>t really sit around and talk about islam. i<u+2019>m not a very devout muslim. but there is something about it where people ask me about the stuff that is going on in the world. it<u+2019>s not like i have the answers, but i do feel, having grown up inside a muslim-american family and within my dna, i know what the conversation is like. there<u+2019>s something about the conversations i had around the dinner table that is different than the conversations a white family has. the experience of the culture ultimately informs how you see things. you were a correspondent on <u+201c>the daily show<u+201d> for 10 years. were you playing yourself or a character? yeah, aasif mandvi on <u+201c>the daily show<u+201d> is not me. he<u+2019>s as much a character as anything else that i<u+2019>ve done. he just happens to have my name, but he has a team of incredibly funny ivy league comedy writers, and he walks around with a green screen. that guy is much smarter and funnier and, well, better endowed than me. you<u+2019>ve spoken about how the limited number of roles available for south asian and middle eastern actors can put them in a bind about accepting roles that might enforce stereotypes. are there any roles that you regret taking? i don<u+2019>t regret taking any roles. there are roles that i would look back on now and think, oh, boy, i wouldn<u+2019>t do that anymore, but at the time i had to pay the bills. i realize it was actually through that i can, in some small way, be instrumental in trying to move that conversation into a different place, where you have brown characters who actually are the source of the story rather than just adjacent brown people in a predominantly white world. i<u+2019>ve read that you found some acceptance in high school by playing michael jackson, because you felt as if he was transforming himself to something outside race. do you still feel that kind of pull to transcend what you were born as? i do <u+2014> not as much anymore, but i almost try to lean into it in a way to actually make our culture more accepting and integrated. we<u+2019>re not postracial. years ago, people would say, <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t see race.<u+201d> but you do see race, and if you tell yourself you don<u+2019>t see race, you<u+2019>re never going to address your racism. i<u+2019>m not interested in being beyond race anymore. i<u+2019>m more interested in leaning into race and saying that we need to accept that other people are different. that is the multiplicity of the human experience and also what potentially makes america great <u+2014> i completely agree! <u+2014> again. interview has been condensed and edited. a version of this article appears in print on october 9, 2016, on page mm86 of the sunday magazine with the headline: aasif mandvi knows how to make america great again. today's paper | subscribe
aasif mandvi knows how to make america great again
ana marie cox