So, I finally figured it out. You know those epidemic levels of asthma in Detroit and Dearborn? You know those massive, pollution-causing factories and their smoke stacks? Well, I found the perfect, slightly snarky, fix.
Put a hookah pipe on it!
Don't believe me? Let me explain.
Here in Metro-Detroit, the Arab American community is vibrant and thriving. One of the many pieces of culture that Arab immigrants brought is the hookah pipe.
Hookah is a tobacco product, usually mixed with different flavors like strawberry or watermelon, that is growing in popularity not only in metro-Detroit but in college campuses and inner cities across the United States. Heck, they even had a hookah bar near my Navy base when I was stationed in Yokosuka, Japan.
The hookah pipe (stoner nomenclature: bong) has unfortunately become a controversial symbol, and not for the right reasons. Studies have shown that a session of smoking hookah can cause someone to ingest three to six times more carbon monoxide than a cigarette and 46 times higher levels of tar.
However, nobody is banning hookah outright for the health concerns. Rather, it seems people are banning where people can smoke hookah in order to push away the people who smoke it.
Hookah has become so controversial that it's mere presence will cause something to get banned by a local government. Most of this is being driven by visceral reactions from conservative residents.
When Arab Americans added furniture to their garages to smoke hookah outside, the City of Dearborn banned living spaces in garages.
When Arab Americans started going to hookah shops and hookah bars to smoke hookah, Dearborn started cracking down on hookah bars.
And what happened when Arab Americans started going to public parks, laying down a blanket and smoking hookah? Well, now the Dearborn city council is considering banning all smoking in all public parks, except in the City's golf course. Yeah, you read that right.
You know what's the quote-un-quote reason this time? Air quality.
So, here's my humble proposal:
Since everybody in the state of Michigan is so terrified of hookah pipes, let's use that fear for the greater good. We need to make our industrial smokestacks look like hookah pipes.
Maybe then, we would get people thinking about proposals to reduce the pollution here in Southeast Michigan. Whether the legislature considered an insured-loan program to help the factories invest in cleaner tech and cleaner facilities, or if Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI) simply stopped fighting the EPA, I'm sure it would help save thousands of poor, primarily black and Arabic children from cancer and asthma.
Of course, smoke stacks aren't scary enough to inspire action. And since when did Republicans care about minority children? It's time Islamophobia did some community service:
Let's #HookahPipeIt