Winning Akron’s mayoral primary wasn’t just a big win for Shammas Malik, it was a big win for political representation, as he is set to become the first racial minority to serve as mayor of Akron.
If racial demographics were the only predicter of votes, the odds were against Malik, a Pakistani American Muslim in a city that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, has less than 6% people of Asian descent.
The Asian American Coalition of Ohio (AACO) is a nonpartisan organization that encourages Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to become involved in civic engagement and political leadership.
“Him being able to win is big,” AACO chair Vincent Wang said. “That means Asian Americans are receiving recognition as far as their capability, their ability to participate and to lead.”
Wang said Malik's win shows a strong desire by Ohioans to have more diversity in their political leaders and represents Ohio's growing diversity, which the 2020 census proved.
“It’s a big milestone. It shows that Asian communities are getting voices heard and they also want to be seen by the community,” Wang said.
Ohio has never had a racial minority in the governor’s seat, nor in either of its U.S. Senate seats. And Ohio’s congressional delegation is predominantly white. It’s easy to paint the picture that Ohio doesn’t tolerate diversity in elections.
Jackie Jerneicic, AACO civic engagement advisor, said Malik’s victory disproves that.
“Minority people can still win an election if you have the right message. It’s really encouraging,” Jerneicic
said.
Wang believes Malik’s victory will encourage other people of color not only to vote in future elections, but to strive for political leadership roles.
“I hope this will start a new era of politics for Ohio, get more diverse groups to participate. That way the politics itself, the policies being made, can reflect the interest of the diverse groups we have right now,” Wang said. “I hope more minority leaders show up and prevail.”
Malik isn’t the first Asian American mayor in Ohio. Aftab Pureval is of Indian and Tibetan descent and became Cincinnati’s mayor in 2022. In the region, Filipino American Ron Falconi has been Brunswick’s mayor since 2014.
Jerneicic said these elections show that people are willing to go against identity politics, the concept of voting solely based on race, religion or other social backgrounds.
“The election of these minority people, they are based on merits,” Jerneicic said. “They have to win over not just minority people, not just the people of the same race, but really the majority of the people.”
Malik said it speaks to the people of Akron to elect a racial minority mayor for the first time. The two other top candidates in the race are also racial minorities, Tara Mosley and Marco Sommerville, both Black.
“I think it means that people in this city understand the need for change and they’re open to change that doesn’t necessarily look like kind of the same thing they’ve seen in the past,” Malik said Wednesday morning on Ideastream Public Media's the "Sound of Ideas."
It’s not lost on Malik that this election was historic, but he said the work to be done is beyond just being Pakistani American.
“It is an important, I think, symbolic gesture as a city, that they would embrace someone who doesn’t look like mayors in the past,” Malik said. “I think it’s also incumbent on me to recognize that making substantive change around racial disparities, particularly, it's not something that is just going to happen because my skin is a little bit darker than someone else."
