Photo © Faruk Kaymak, Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, Esfahan, Iran, unsplash
“AND AMONG HIS SIGNS ARE THE CREATION OF THE HEAVENS A N D T H E E A R T H, A N D T H E D I V E R S I T Y O F Y O U R T O N G U E S A N D C O L O R S. S U R E L Y I N T H I S T H E R E A R E S I G N S F O R A L L M A N K I N D.”
— T H E R O M A N S, Q U R A N, 30:22
Dismantling Racism BY SERENA ABDALLAH
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s the daughter of Lebanese Muslim immigrants growing up in post-September 11th Virginia, I have experienced my own share of prejudice from people who did not understand my background or faith. Though I have now grown into better understanding my identity, both within and separately from American politics, I never questioned marking “white” on government forms or standardized tests as a child, because that is what I was told to do. I did not then understand the history that led to this choice of identification, or the fact that it did not fully extend its sup1 posed protections to Middle Eastern and Muslim people. People could usually tell that my family was “something,” but they could not always pinpoint that we are Middle Eastern. Most of my classmates had never heard of Lebanon and had never heard the Arabic language. Furthermore, my family and I did not wear religious dress, we did not go to mosque, and we celebrated Christmas and Easter. We would also attend festivals honoring the Virgin Mary while visiting family in Lebanon, and I have always found comfort in incense my mother gifted me 1
I use this term generally for the sake of easily following along in this article, though the identifier of “Middle Eastern” is a colonial term that does not properly reflect the various ethnicities in West Asia.
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from the shrine of a Maronite saint. I endlessly confused my white classmates and their families who did not understand the overlap between Islam and Christianity, especially in Lebanon where Muslims and Christians have lived together for centuries. Though I felt isolated by my peers and was occasionally on the receiving end of racist and Islamophobic remarks, overall my family and I were able to move through life without fear that who we are would bring us harm. I feel this is in great part due to an Arab and Middle Eastern alignment with whiteness. Not just because there are many of us who are white-passing, but because of a cognizant choice that Syrian and Lebanese immigrants made decades ago to align with whiteness, and what whiteness means for quality of life in the United States. My father was a man who embodied what I understood to be the American dream; he came to the United States with nothing and built a life for himself and his family with my mother. While my parents always emphasized the importance of our Lebanese culture and Muslim faith, my father was also tirelessly interested in and knowledgeable about American politics 2
Editor’s Note: Both Muslims and Catholics share a devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus A M AT T E R O F S P I R IT
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