Hijab Scene #7 by Mohja Kahf from E-mails from Scheherazad (University of Florida Press)
No, I'm not bald under the scarf
No, I'm not from that country
where women can't drive cars
No, I would not like to defect
I'm already American
But thank you for offering
What else do you need to know
relevant to my buying insurance
opening a bank account
reserving a seat on a flight?
Yes, I speak English
Yes, I carry explosives
They're called words
And if you don't get up
Off your assumptions,
They're going to blow you away
A friend I grew up with once told me that I was one of the few people he knew who had been raised color blind. He meant it as a compliment to my parents, who taught my brother and me that everyone deserves respect because they are human, not because of their social status, race, gender, sexual orientation, age or any other label that is so often used to wedge human beings into separate categories. My friend happened to be African American and openly gay so he knew what it was like to have the weight of people's assumptions thrown at him based solely on his outward appearance, a lesson I had yet to learn.
Flash forward a few years to a conversation with another friend. We also went to high school together but our orbits didn't cross paths very often in those days. He was captain of the football team, president of the student government, the typical all All-American boy next door who also happened to be African American. We ended up working together, part-time weekend jobs, me to help pay for a mission trip to Grenada and my friend, who was studying for his LSAT, to help pay for law school. One day we took our lunch break together and went to the nearby pizza place. It was uncharacteristically uncrowded so I was surprised when the owner, an older man who usually greeted me with a warm smile and jovial chit chat, completely ignored us. He busied himself behind the counter as we waited patiently and then not so patiently. My friend finally said he'd go next door to get drinks and meet me back at the store where we worked while I picked up our food. After he left, the man begrudgingly waited on me without meeting my eye or speaking to me. Back in the break room I wondered out loud about what had happened, theorizing that, perhaps the owner was having a really bad day.
My friend looked at me and shook his head,
"It's because he thought we were 'together' together," he said. "Stuff like that happens to me all the time but congratulations. You've just had your first first-hand experience of discrimination."
As we ate lunch, I asked my friend to share more of his experiences with me. He told me the story of how on a recent Sunday he decided to head downtown to a local university law library to study for his upcoming exam. As he got off the metro and headed up the escalator, there was a white woman in her early 30s ahead of him. As they left the nearly empty station they headed in the same direction. Every now and again, she'd glance over her shoulder and begin walking more quickly. My friend noticed this and thought there must be someone threatening behind them so he picked up his pace as well. The woman looked back and sped up and so did my friend, too frightened to turn around to see who was following them. By the time my friend reached the law library a few blocks away, he was so scared he raced to the safety of the doors. He turned around to see what threatening figure had been chasing him, only to see the street was empty.
In my exegesis class in seminary where we learned to critically unpack a text in order to interpret and then reinterpret it for an audience, the very first step in the process was to identify our social location, in part to help us overcome our color blindness and realize that we all carry identity baggage with us that effects not only the way we see the world, but the way the world sees us.
As a white, heterosexual, Christian woman I have never been run away from on a deserted street. When I stand next to someone on the metro they don't pull their purses closer or check to see which pocket their wallet is in. A lone person doesn't get off an elevator if I get on. When I get on an airplane no one hesitates to sit next to me because of the way I'm dressed. I virtually fly through airport security. No one looks at the name on my passport and stops me for questioning. I don't worry that I may accidentally appear on a no fly list because of the affiliations of some other person with my name.
I have never once thought that I didn't a get a job, a promotion, a loan, a good grade or any other achievement because of the color of my skin, my sexual orientation, my ethnic or religious background.
Speaking of religion, I've always gotten the religious holidays I celebrate off from school and work. Society decorates for them and count downs to them. Radio stations are now playing songs I grew up singing in church, albeit much too early in the season for my liking, and all those holiday movies on the Hallmark Channel at this time of year. . . they celebrate my heritage and traditions. In fact, most TV shows, most movies, and most images in most magazines show people who look basically like me (diversity of not only race but also age and size in the media is best left for another discussion).
If I say I pray regularly or am part of a religious community, people don't think I'm a terrorist.
I never had to "come out" to my family, friends or any one else as straight.
If I get stopped by the police, on the rare occasions it has happened, they never ask me where I've been or where I'm going and I usually get off with a warning. In fact, when in the wee hours of the morning, some friends and I were hopelessly lost in an east Baltimore neighborhood after a concert and were approached by a patrol car our first feelings were of relief, not fear. (They actually escorted us back to the highway.)
I blast the radio in my car and am not worried about getting shot because people find Bauhaus, Kasabian or yes, sometimes even old school Public Enemy, threatening coming from my minivan.
As far as I know, no one has ever uttered this statement about me:
"She's white but she's . . . well spoken, well educated, literate, cultured, fill in the blank.
That's not to say people don't make false assumptions about me based on my appearance. (When was the last time you heard a dumb brunette joke?) But those assumptions don't tend to affect how I walk in the world-- my sense of security and self-worth, where and how I feel at home, where and when I experience hospitality, if I am respected as a human being. And that, for me, is what white, heterosexual, Christian privilege looks like in this country.
And since I have recognized it, there's no way I can truly be color blind any longer.
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