“This is worse than after the Muslim ban, than after 9/11,” said Abed Ayoub, a lawyer and childhood friend, four blocks from the White House and two decades from the day that changed everything.
Between the prevailing habit of reading and delivering bad news, Abed looked up with a look that said it all. I knew that look well.
Like him, I am Arab, Muslim and American – an amalgam of identities that evokes the “outcast” in the world in which we live. But now it means something different. At this moment, when the horror of mass death unfolds in Gaza and on the screens in our hands, our identity means absurdity.
We see ourselves in the people of Gaza. The people approached share our names, our faith, our culture and our customs. We have friends in that 140 square kilometer open-air prison turned hell on earth, including journalists who were sheltering in the Baptist Al-Ahli Hospital at the time of Wednesday’s deadly explosion (18).
But what we continue to see on our screens is still half a world away. On the other side of our earthly reality and this virtual insanity.
Until last week.
“A Palestinian boy was killed in Illinois,” Abed shared. This foreign-to-domestic murder sequence was familiar. Being American, as 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume was, does not protect us from the stigma of being Palestinian or Arab, Muslim or “Middle Eastern”.
Instead, these latter identities keep the security blanket of Americanness from us, making us foreigners and, in times of crisis, “terrorists.”
Wadea was stabbed 26 times on October 14 with a military-style knife by the owner of his family’s residence, a 71-year-old man, who has been charged with murder and hate crimes, among other offenses. The attacker also stabbed Wadea’s mother more than 12 times. She survived. But what does this word even mean?
What does this mean for a mother who escaped war for the safety of an American suburb? What does this mean for Abed and me: an executive director of a civil rights organization and a law professor, in the crosshairs of American power and an Arab identity conflated with terrorism?
What does “living” mean for millions of Arabs and Muslims living in the United States, burdened with the impossible task of proving their loyalty, time and time again, in response to the screaming demands that bury our humanity?
It feels like we are living on borrowed time, as if we have acquired a contingent citizenship that can be taken away at any moment, due to events unfolding in America or on the other side of the world.
Calling it “Islamophobia” would be a severe understatement. This existential crisis of being Arab or Muslim in America is much more onerous, much more absurd.
See images of the conflict between Israel and Hamas
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
