Unwelcome Here
By Sally Bishai (03/20/06)
Everyone knows how Black Americans were barred from certain lunch counters and water fountains in the recent past. But what people may not realize is that this appearance-based discrimination has not gone the way of the cavemen—even though the whole “judging by looks” thing is obviously a relic of more Neanderthal times.
See, the “cavemen,” whom I do NOT believe came from apes and tadpoles and whom I am not even sure I believe in, had to judge at first sight because if they didn’t, they could be eaten by some scary animal, or else killed by a poisoned spear or arrow or whatever weapons they had back then.
Makes sense, doesn’t it?
In the world of communication theory, we also have several notions that fall nicely into step with the aforementioned cavemen one, although my modern brethren generally tend to couch positive and negative discrimination in such terms as “energy-saving frameworks for determination” and the like, suggesting that a person may shy away from a person of certain races because of their previous negative experiences with them.
As with the cavemen thing, it makes sense, although this “assuming the worst” (or best, for that matter) mentality may cause us to miss out on a wonderful friendship or opportunity.
But that’s not what today’s topic is (surprise, surprise).
Rather, I wanted to share a tale from my last trip to Egypt. Don’t tune out just yet, the moral of the story is actually universally generalisable.
Anyway, there I was. In the city of my dreams, the place I’ve been haunted by since childhood, and longed for twice as long. Alexandria!
Despite a 6-year absence from my honorary hometown, not much had changed there.
The foul (fava bean, pronounced “fooool,” not like “foul,” as in, erm, horrible) sandwiches at Lotfi’s cart were still kind of horrible, the scent of jasmine still assaulted my nostrils in the best possible manner, once I got within a mile of Abdo, a flower-wreath vendor whom I’d been seeing next to my friend’s apartment since I was about five.
Some things changed, however. The percentage of women who had elected to don the higab (veil) had leapt exponentially, and more of those women than I had expected were cloaked in head-to-toe black (abaya/shroud, face mask, gloves... check my blog for a photo), in the Muslim Brotherhood style.
A friend there even told me that over 97% of Muslim women were veiled now, making the unveiled—either Christians or tourists—stand out even more.
I didn’t realize the implications of this until my friend Samia and I went shopping. I had determined to buy a new blouse to wear under my favorite black suit, and Samia immediately whisked me off to the most fashionable store she could think of.
While I didn’t find anything that caught my eye just there, I did find some shoes in the store next door. The store owner, whilst wrapping up my new 3-inch-heels, referred me to yet another store, when I told him what I’d been looking for.
He was right. I fell in love with an orange sequined tank top in the store window and bustled in for a closer look.
I pointed the shirt out to the lady behind the counter, who’d been eyeing me and Samia suspiciously since she first laid (beady) eyes on us.
I didn’t know what the problem was... After all, Samia and I were not only better-dressed, but obviously more wealthy than any of the dour-faced, veiled women around us. And I don’t look SO foreign that someone would automatically peg me an American or non-Egyptian.
The lady behind the counter shook her head and frowned sternly at me.
Maybe my accent was worse than I had imagined? I nudged Samia to say it for me.
“No, that shirt is not for you,” the lady said. I was speechless. How did SHE know? And furthermore, how did she know it was even for me?
“Uh... well, it’s not for me, it’s for her,” I said, struck by a flash of insight; maybe the matron didn’t think the shirt would fit me, so I foisted it off on my anorexic-looking friend, Samia.
No go.
“No, that is not for you. How about that?” she asked, gesturing to a navy abaya. I frowned, not bothering to tell her that I was unveiled for a reason, and that reason was that I wasn’t Muslim.
I must’ve hesitated too long, because a girl came up and snatched the shirt from me, after a token “You’re not getting that, are you?”
My jaw struggled to stay off the floor.
The lady turned away and rang MY tank top up for the girl. Who was veiled.
Samia grabbed my arm and steered me outside before I could give the matron a piece of my mind.
“Look, there’s nothing you can do. That’s just how it is. You knew that,” she said in a quiet voice.
Yes, I knew that a Christian couldn’t be the dean in a college, I knew that a Christian could be kidnapped in a village, or shoved on a city bus, but I had no idea that my being unveiled could make me less likely to buy an orange-sequined tank top!
The more I thought about it—the more I was able to picture the thousand little indignities that Christians in Egypt have to go through in the course of a normal day—the angrier I got.
Until I realized that I’m usually on the other end of the very same equation; when I go shopping for a Chanel lipstick, the attendants trip over themselves to help me out, but snub someone who’s wearing tattered jeans and a t-shirt.
When I go into a store in a less-exalted part of town, the owner looks infinitesimally less on- his-guard, upon seeing my benign countenance.
And the greeters at Sam’s Club never even hazard a glance at my store membership card. (Oh, they don’t look at anyone’s, do they..)
So why should I be so annoyed that, for once, my race (or lack thereof), my financial status, or my relatively non-threatening appearance didn’t save me?
Because.
Being denied a job or the guarantee of safety makes the discriminated-against feel like he’s suffering for an actual cause. But there’s nothing noble about being denied an orange sequined tank top because I happen to have been the only girl in the store who wasn’t veiled. (Apart from Samia, obviously.)
Don’t ask me what my point is in shedding the light on this maybe singly-occurring event, and don’t expect me to be able to give you any form of statistic on its happening within The Dear Land (as Egyptians call their home).
Although I should tell you right now that a non-Samia friend in Alexandria has recently informed me that this is actually beginning to happen a lot, and that people are starting to call the higab “the mark of the beast,” hearkening back to Revelations (in the Bible) where it says that you can’t buy or sell without the mark. (Hey, it could be true, and just because I think that may be taking it a bit far doesn’t mean that I’m right...far be it from me to stand in the way of anyone’s imagination..)
Do expect me to keep up my campaign of shedding the light on these inequalities, no matter how small they may be.
And expect me to keep praying for and working towards the day when all citizens of Egypt will be treated equally, when all religions will be equally accepted in America (ahem, ACLU..), and when all humans are valued for the mere fact that they were made in the image of a Creator who has carved us in the palm of His hand.
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