All Arabs Look Alike
By Sally Bishai (02/27/06)
As many of you know, my new documentary, “Children of Kemet: The Copts, Culture, and Democracy of Egypt” is finally on DVD and on sale, and so is my documentary about racism in America (“Back to Square One? Fifty Years After Emmett Till”).
I’ve dubbed them “Emmett and Kemet,” as though they’re one unit, or, perhaps, a pair of Cocker Spaniels, and bring them into all of my conversations, class lectures, and writing. (I guess that’s how it feels to be a grandparent!)
It wasn’t always thus, however. Meaning, these weren’t my first documentaries.
No... If I’m being completely honest, which I always am, I have to ‘fess up to having made one previous broadcast-length documentary, even if I never actually bring it up in conversation...
It’s called “Strange Behaviour: How Westerners Feel About Gender Roles In the Middle East.”
At thirty minutes, it’s JUST long enough to tell you about what it’s, erm, telling you about, but short enough to keep you from falling asleep.
I know what you’re thinking, by the way: “When do you plan on explaining the reason all Arabs look alike, anyway, missy? Snap it up already!”
Sheesh. You’re in a feisty mood today, aren’t you. (Relax, I merely jest. I jest because I love.)
ANYway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, my first documentary is all about the opinions of Westerners on the way things are “back home.” (My home, not theirs.)
The interesting thing, however, is that some of the (non-Arab) people I interviewed would get very upset if they heard the term “Fob,” which actually stands for “fresh off the boat” and is generally used as a noun; “He’s a fob, so make sure to keep two yards between you at all times,” “She can’t go to the slumber party because her parents are fobs,” and my favorite one of all, “He can’t go because he’s grounded... Why? Well, because he only made a 97 on his exam.”
You don’t even need to bring the word “Fob” into that last one; anyone on earth would probably recognize that the “he” in question belongs to an Egyptian family, whether fob or otherwise. (This is probably why the children of Egyptian immigrants to America were found to be either the most intelligent or the most successful, in a recent study. All bias aside, I’m sure they’re both true..)
At any rate, another “interesting” thing I found was that my subjects had no differentiation in their “knowledge” of the Middle East.
Meaning, they saw all Arabs as one. Furthermore, the “one” that they saw wasn’t even accurate! Here’s what I mean..
When I asked my subjects to describe an Arab woman, most invariably flocked to the image of “dressed in robes that cover her from head to foot, tan, with a pack of children trailing behind her like Mother Goose.”
In an interesting twist of fate, they also described these women as having “long, straight, beautiful black hair that flows down their backs.”
Now how in America would someone with a veil over her head be displaying long black hair? I ask you!
It occurred to me that my young friends must have been superimposing an Indian woman in a sari over their image of “an Arab woman.”
Another fatal mistake that the subjects made was the fact that they assumed that all Arab women were Muslim (since Christians and Jews don’t wear the higab, or veil).
On the other hand, such ethnic groups as Copts don’t consider ourselves to be Arab in the first place, although we’re sometimes rolled into the category of “Arab Christians.” I don’t happen to mind this moniker, but some people get pretty riled up when you label them that.
Back to the responses I got, I’m not going to even mention the fact that everyone thought that all Arabs were tan with black hair, and laughingly told me that All Arabs Look Alike.
Or the fact that they got mega-offended when I said “Sort of the way people sometimes say that all Blondes or all Asians look alike, kind of?”
All in all, however, I’d have to say the biggest cause for dismay was the set of answers I got when I asked whether they thought Arab women were upset by their lack of freedom in such a male-dominated society.
Their responses?
“Well, it’s not like they have a choice, right?” and “That’s just the way things are, so even though they may not be happy with it, I’m sure they’re used to it,” my respondents said, as though we don’t have satellite TV in the Middle East.
Or, as several people unthinkingly but ethnocentrically said in the most matter-of-fact tones you could imagine: “Well, Miss Sally, I’m sure they’re fine with the way things are over there. They have to be, because it’s all they know. It’s how they’ve grown up. They don’t know any better...”
As though we were from a lineage that hadn’t built the pyramids, or invented math, orthopaedic surgery, the wheel, the measurement of time, etc. (The ancient Egyptians, Akkadians, Arabs and Chaldeans were really very brilliant.)
At any rate, check out my blog (link in my profile here at the American Daily) for a quiz that will see if you’re as misinformed as my students were..
Don’t worry, I’m not taking names.. not this time, anyway.
But here's to becoming better-informed about all corners of this beach ball called "our world."
Cheers!
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