In Pennsylvania, all you need is dark hair, and a job teaching Islamic Studies, as this woman found out:
I quit my part-time job today. I got a job in November working as holiday help at a major chain of stores that sells lotions, soaps, and a variety of scented items that are supposed to help us all feel better. I was fairly happy there during the Christmas season, all commentary about materialism destroying the holiday season aside, it was good. My assistant manager called me a freak, a mental patient, and a slut. I was able to deal with it by blocking her out of my head and
enjoying working with my peers. It was not great, but it was okay until she discovered that I teach Islamic Studies.I’m not Arab. I’m not Muslim…. So why am I talking about anti-Arab, anti-Muslim?
Because the assistant manager liked to tell me I “looked like a terrorist.”
In the winter I love to wear my black scarf around my neck. It’s warm and I like the feeling under my chin. I like to play with it and pull it up around my nose. This action makes me “look like a terrorist.”
“Stop doing that, you look like a terrorist,” she said to me over and over and over again.
What the hell does a terrorist look like?
Apparently it looks like 25 year old Anglican college professor with brown hair and auburn highlights who’s so pale that when she goes to fill-out forms about her ethnic background she’s sorely tempted to tick “pink.” […]
Teaching’s a crime now. Teaching Islam is practically a felony. I can’t even get a summer job with my degrees in Islamic Studies and Middle Eastern Studies because people won’t even meet me. I have to say, “Social Anthropology” or “Humanities” because otherwise, people don’t want to have anything to do with you.
You’re a pariah before they even lay eyes upon you.
Not the most important news of the day, but certainly one of the most depressing signs (for me anyway) of what our country has become since the attacks of 9/11. Now even having a degree in Islamic studies makes you suspect in the eyes of some red blooded Americans. Makes you an open object of ridicule and abuse.
Makes you look like a terrorist.
From the woman’s online bio:
This mentality fits right in with what I’ve heard all my life here in white-bread middle America.
He talks really well for a black guy
She’s a hard worker for a Mexican
Those cheap ass Koreans that own the carry out would fight with you over a penny
We had a black waiter and, you know, he was really nice
That towel-head that owns the dry cleaning place smells funny. Did you ever notice that?
Hate to say it, but these people populate a significant portion of our country. I’m not sure what the hell you do with them. The only thing I can figure is to throw their prejudice and bigotry right back in their face. Most times they are very uncomfortable having to defend their idiotic statements. I don’t really know if being called on their views makes them think about it at all, but it’s all I can really come up with.
The irony is that this woman was white bread herself.
True Steven, very true. Americans, particularly white Americans, are running very scared right now. There is underlying fear of being overrun by “them”. And “them” is anyone who is different from their “norm”. Namely non-white, non-Protestant or foreign born. Anything that fits within these categories is often, in their minds, just not quite as good as they are. This mentality runs very deep in a large part of the country and I have seen and heard it all my life. And we are not only seeing it in cases like this, but the increasing acceptance of what amounts to eliminationist rhetoric in the mainstream is truly alarming. It is often coded but it is easy to spot. We have a sordid history in this country of getting rid of those things which make us uncomfortable or are perceived as threats to the status quo. This situation, I’m afraid, is played out every day in towns and cities all over this country. The actions of the Bush administration have only helped to fan the flames of this xenophobia.
Frankly this is worse than the McCarthy era. That mostly impacted Washington federal employees and Hollywood. This is having an effect nationwide among the gullible and the all too ready to return to the 50’s where colored people knew their place crowd. Shameful and frightening, particularly when you have fascist enablers like Michelle Malkin proclaiming her “John Doe Manifesto” to rat out there neighbors for suspicious activity (whatever that might be).
I would agree, Steven. Just a couple of personal observations of what I have seen right here in my community.
There is a Mexican restaurant that opened here in town three or four years ago. And there are people in town who refuse to patronize it because it is owned and staffed entirely by Mexicans. There are people I know who proudly proclaim they have not and will not ever go there because “they don’t want to give their money to those people.”
And lastly my father, who is also sometimes proud of his prejudice (only when he feels he is among like-minded people), actually closed his long held bank accounts with a local bank and changed to another bank because they put up bilingual signs in the bank and hired an Hispanic teller who was bilingual. I give him a little credit, when the bank asked him why he was closing his accounts, to my surprise he actually told them the real reason. When he pointed to the teller and said “That’s the reason”, the bank manager asked if the teller had been discourteous or unhelpful in any way and my father said “No”. My father then pointed around at the bilingual signs and said “Those are the other reasons” The bank manager then realized what my father meant. The manager did not make any apologies and indicated that the response so far had been very positive to the new teller and the bilingual signs. He said the new teller had received numerous compliments from customers for her helpfulness and pleasant personality. He thanked my father kindly for his past patronage and wished him a good day.
Sadly, my father is still quite proud of his public showing of his bigotry and has told the story numerous times to those with whom he thinks feel the same way.
So these are the kinds of things I see happening around me every day. The up side is that the Mexican restaurant, I am happy to report, is doing well and the owner has had no significant trouble from anyone. And recently, there has been a small Mexican food store which has opened and is also doing okay. And the response of the bank manager to my father gives me some hope that there might be some progress being made, albeit slowly.
that wasn’t run by Mexicans, or at least had some Mexicans on staff or doing the cooking. (Big red flag — burritos topped with American cheese!)
Ditto with Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese, and other ethnic restaurants — heck, I’ve been known to ask for a bio on the chef at some of my favorite German restaurants…then again, my maternal grandfather was a chef who emigrated here from Germany back in the 1920s, so that might just be protecting my familial heritage… 😉
Agree wholeheartedly, Cali.
It pains me to admit it, but around here a lot people consider a trip to Applebees for “Oriental Stir Fry” to be a daring culinary adventure.
I guess we people who like the real thing when it comes to our food are just “food elitists”.
The homogenization of our food culture is a sad thing. I have some nieces and nephews who don’t even know what some “real foods” taste like. They’ve eaten so much processed crap that it has become the “normal flavor”.
Applebees for Oriental Stir Fry=’s daring culinary adventure …why do I find that almost funny in a rather horrifying way. Of course that must go along with the authentic Mexican Food at Taco Bell.
It is funny to me that so many Americans are shocked and insulted when people of other countries and cultures, particularly Europeans, see us as self centered, self absorbed, narrow minded and narcissistic.
A co-worker of mine years ago made a two week business trip to Beijing. Having been there myself, I told him about how neat it was to sample the authentic Chinese cuisines. The food all over the country is fantastic.
When he returned he had eaten all his meals either at the hotel restaurant, Pizza Hut, McDonalds or Kentucky Fried Chicken.
‘Nuff said………..
Nothing like a Pan Pizza with a pitcher of Budweiser for the silly Americans. Yum, Yum.
That’s just plain sad isn’t it.
All too familiar.
Hay, I’m actually pretty open with my wallet for a Jew.
It’s even more true now than it was back in the days of “South Pacific”. I was fortunate to escape the majority of my upbringing (when the spouse and I were looking for apartments, my mom questioned me about one certain area by asking, “Aren’t there a lot of [whispered]Mexicans[/whispered] there?”), but today’s racists have the help of FOX Noise Channel and right-wing talk radio in educating the next generation of the intolerant, and many of the upstanding members of the Republican Party to hold up as examples.
Cali, did you just make up that ditty?
I guess I’m older than I thought — that song, “Carefully Taught” is from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, “South Pacific“.
The song is sung by a young WWII Navy lieutenant, Joe Cable, who falls in love with a young South Pacific girl but feels he can’t marry her because she isn’t white, hence the song.
The musical is based on the James Michener novel Tales of the South Pacific; according to Wikipedia Michener claimed that he was pressured to ask Rodgers & Hammerstein to take out the Joe Cable story because of the miscegenation angle. (The musical came out in 1949, a mere 4 years after the end of WWII, and 18 years before Loving v. Virginia tossed out anti-miscegenation laws in the United States.)
At this point, “South Pacific” may seem a bit dated, and borderline racist to some folks…but for its day, it pushed the line quite a bit; not only is Cable faced with a mixed-race quandry, Emile is first rejected by Nellie because he has two mixed-race children from a previous relationship (possibly out-of-wedlock).
And that ends “Music Appreciation 101” for today, boys and girls… 😉
Boy, if she’s a potential terrorist, what does that make Juan Cole?
I’ve had at least two friends detained and questioned by police over the past few years for the suspicious activity of taking photographs of local buildings. They were both determined to be harmless and released fairly quickly, but still…
One friend, who is thoroughly “white bread” (white, male, middle-aged, and rather professorial) is a Federal government employee.
The other, I admit, might be considered to look vaguely Middle-Eastern; he wears a longish beard, and in fact even bears some remote resemblence to Bin Ladin (well, being tall, balding, bearded and dark-eyed, at least). But he’s a cross-dresser. He was wearing a DRESS and HIGH HEELS, for pete’s sake. But all that camera equipment… clearly a suspicious individual, right?
We have enough real kooks in this country who are quite capable of terrorist acts, and they’re all home-grown. And frankly, the police and FBI are more than capable of handling 99% of all such potential troublemakers.
The paranoia and bigotry has always existed, but under the Bush Administraton’s policies of All Fear, All The Time and “report all suspicious activities” mantra (not to mention ill-informed IDIOCY being spouted on talk radio), it has become legitimized and contagious.
That’s far more frightening…
Of all the things that upset me(bush, torture, Wal-Marts/big business, scary fundies-aren’t they all scary and so on)nothing depresses me more than to continue to read stories like this, I just want to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head until ignorant prejudice is long gone..yeah right.
I’ve tried to imagine more than once what a world would be like without prejudice but I simply can’t, it’s so incredibly pervasive that I can’t even imagine a world like that..how sad a commentary is that?
The world of sick sorry racist pricks just goes round and round and seems will never end and forces so many of to have to continue to be affronted by their hideous behavior…and at times do what little we can to combat this shitty, twisted fearful behavior.
Living through the civil rights movement I had begun to have some hope that decency and justice would overcome but as you can tell I ain’t feeling the love today or very upbeat about all this. Can I just throw a fucken temper tantrum and stomp my feet and declare prejudice over? No didn’t think that would work so I’m just going to go take a few extra pain meds today to take the edge off this sickening story.
And try to get Louis Armstrong’s rendition of ‘A Wonderful World’ going in my head today..it always makes me cry for some reason and I need a good excuse to cry after reading this diary.