Abdul El-Sayed

HOUGHTON — Gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed touched on the challenge of a high number of college graduates leaving Michigan while speaking to the Houghton County Democrats this week.

El-Sayed warned that by not doing more to retain educated people, Michigan is losing “its best talent.”

He also criticized the state’s failed tax breaks to large corporations in attracting workers with college degrees to the state. While corporations may come to Michigan, he said, there is strong evidence they are not giving much to the state in return for what the state is giving them.

El-Sayed spent two years as executive director of the Detroit Department of Health & Wellness Promotion following its privatization under an emergency manager. He said he built a culture of accountability, transparency and collaboration at the program, which grew from five city employees and 85 contractors to a 220-person department.

“When we make mistakes and things go wrong, leadership stands up and says, ‘That was my fault, we’re going to fix it,’ he said. When things go right, we give it to folks who are doing the work on the ground and say, ‘That was your win.'”

El-Sayed acknowledged skepticism about his age, 32, as well as his being Muslim. He grew up in a “multi-faith, multi-ethnic” family, he said. His parents, both Egyptian immigrants, divorced; his father remarried a white woman whose family has been in America since before the American Revolution.

El-Sayed was shaken when he found out one of his uncles, a hunter who had learned to prepare venison in the halal method for his family, had voted for Trump. But it wasn’t Islamophobia, he said, but the feeling of being unheard.

“We are doing our homework,” he said. “We are working to understand the issues. We are listening to everyone. I think there’s something fundamental about humanity that allows us to see beyond the color of people’s skin or the way they pray to ask about who they are and what they pray for. I pray for my family, and I pray for my state, and I pray for my country.”

El-Sayed studied biology and political science at the University of Michigan. He said he was motivated to enter public service by his realization of how much where a person lives determines their access to health care, clean water and other essentials.

“If you looked in Detroit, where I worked, versus Oakland County, which is where I grew up, there’s a nine-year life expectancy gap,” he said. “…That has everything to do with failures in our politics.”

El-Sayed criticized Gov. Rick Snyder’s approach of bringing companies to Michigan using large tax breaks. He said he perceived his job as “selling Michigan to Michiganders” by making sure students want to invest in Michigan and opening up opportunities for residents to build small businesses.

Corporations, El-Sayed contended, “are trying to automate their labor force out anyway, and they’re only coming because we’re giving them such dirt cheap tax rates that they don’t end up paying anything to the economy anyway.”

Graham Jaehnig’s email address is gjaehnig@mininggazette.com.