Cairo Hyatt no longer sells alcohol…this must be…

May 24, 2008 · Filed under Rants, racism, stupidity

…a sign of the growing Saudi conspiracy that is taking over the Muslim world! Or so it appears in this BBC article. Nevermind, that all Muslims are instructed by the Qur’an not to drink. [sarcasm]Maybe the Saudis have a more strict version of the Qur’an.[/sarcasm] I’m sorry but that article is crap and I’m really tired of these covertly islamophobic articles that pop up on the BBC’s site like every other day. One sentence is given to the position of the supporters of the move while the rest of the article discusses the position of the opponents of the move. From the article, you would think that Egypt’s tourism industry is built on having alcohol available to Western tourists in their hotels. I guess the Nile, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the tomb of Hussein, Muhammad Ali’s mosque, and more are just footnotes in Egypt’s tourism industry. If all the hotels in Cairo stopped serving alcohol (which they haven’t by the way), then apparently all the Western tourists would stop coming to Cairo because they couldn’t drink. This would be utterly disrespectful to Western tourists according to the article: “But critics say just as Muslims expect to be served Halal food on international flights, they should be prepared to respect the desires of their Western guests (I like how no “critics” are actually named btw).” Yes, because religious dietary laws are definitely on the same footing as the optional luxury to drink. *rolls eyes*

Please spare me this ethnocentric crap. Just like I have to contend with the grocery stores in the US that sell beer and wine because I live in a society where it’s sold, sometimes non-Muslims will have to contend with not having alcohol available if they’re in a society where alcohol is prohibited. Is it really so horrible if a bunch of Europeans and Americans won’t be able to drink in their five star hotel for a two week holiday?

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Women locked up in their homes

May 23, 2008 · Filed under gender issues

I saw this on Muslimah Media Watch. Some women in Saudi are locked in their homes during the day by their husbands. I’m sorry but this is definitely domestic abuse. Even if he doesn’t hit or strike her this is still domestic abuse and terror since these husbands are exerting control over their wives in such a horrible way. May Allah help these women.

For 30-year-old housewife Marwa, imprisonment starts every day when her husband goes to work. He keeps her locked inside. Marwa says she doesn’t even have an escape route, which would be tragic in the event of a fire.

“My husband says he’s worried I might be fooled by some thieves into opening the door,” she said. “He says it’s for my own safety.”

According to Saudi Civil Defense spokesman Gen. Tamer Al-Harthy, this is not a unique situation. “Every months we encounter two or three cases where there are people locked inside a house,” he said.

“These people can’t escape even through the window because most homes have iron security bars.”

In case of a fire even a minute’s delay could be the difference between life and death, said the Civil Defense spokesman. “We urge against locking family or servants inside the homes.”

However, if you “consent” to being locked up, the police can’t help you. I really want to know what constitutes consent btw.

Umm Adnan says that while she disagrees with this domestic policy, she consents to it.

“I’ve tried to convince my husband that there could be a fire, or the kids might get sick, but he doesn’t listen,” said Umm Adnan.

“I don’t want to fight with him, so I agree.”

Police official AbuBakr Ebrahim Al-Abdaly, of Jeddah’s Al-Balad police station, says there are no laws against locking people inside their homes if they consent to it.

“If the wife consents willingly then the law cannot interfere,” he said. “But if she is being threatened or beaten, or locked by force then it is against the law. And it should be reported to the police.”

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graduation…a reflection

May 14, 2008 · Filed under college, thoughts about the future

Alhamdulillah! Commencement is taking place in four days and I have arrived at this point with my brain and my sanity in tact. Anyone who knows me really well, knows that it took a lot for me to get here. In the past six years, there has been a few up and downs both personally and academically but I’ve come out on top. I feel more confident than ever. I’m graduating with honors.

Although in a lot of ways, college was hard, I’m glad that I went. I know it sounds cliche but college really helped to think critically about life. It helped me to think more critically about religion, race, gender, class and so much more. College has taught me that life is very nuanced, more nuanced than most people claim it to be. College has helped me to be more aware. College was the first place where I was exposed to feminism. Before college, I really didn’t think about gender much. I didn’t really think about class much either. So I send a big shout out to all the Gender Studies professors and the Sociology professors I had over the course of my college career who made me think about those issues more critically.

I also think about Islam more critically and I feel that I am so much better for it. During these last two years especially, I have learned about the rich intellectual tradition in Islam-the intellectual tradition that is unfortunately downplayed or not discussed often among traditional Muslims. I’ve also learned to think differently about the importance of gender in Islam. I’ve gotten away from the pretty slogan and learned to reflect on my role as a woman in Islam.

I thank college for all those things and I hope that during my lifetime, I will be able to impart all those things to whoever I meet in my life.

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Iron Man: a culturally sensitive review

May 12, 2008 · Filed under Hollywood, Muslims, Rants, media portrayals, race, racism


This past semester (yep, it’s in the past now because grades are in), a professor said that she didn’t enjoy going to the movies much because she could always see these covert messages being sent in a film. At first, I had no idea what she meant. However, I have lately begun to see exactly what she means and I saw it most with the film Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr., Gweneyth Paltrow, and Terrence Howard. I went to see the film with my husband this weekend. The audience for the film was a mixture. Right in front of us was a white family that consisted of a mother, four boys, and one girl. They seemed to enjoy it especially one little boys who sat in front of my husband. One scene where Iron Man killed Afghan terrorists made him jump out of his seat. Of course, there’s the whole idea of masculinity that could be discussed in that scene and in the boy’s reaction to that scene but that’s not the point of this post. For now I just want to focus on cultural messages in the film.

The first thing that leaped out at me in the film was the mixing up of cultures. The movie starts in Afghanistan. The future Iron Man is kidnapped by terrorists. When the terrorists start speaking, my husband and I notice immediately that they’re speaking Arabic. I had no idea that Arabic was now one of the official languages of Afghanistan. Maybe that’s because its isn’t. The fact that they made the characters speak Arabic instead of Pashto, Dari, or any of the other languages spoken in Afghanistan shows not only an ignorance of the Afghan people but also the really bad habit of equating Muslims with Arab culture. Now, I know Arabic is spoken by a really small percentage of Afghans but I doubt that is why writers of the film had the characters speaking Arabic. I can only imagine the director or producer saying “Well, the characters are in Afghanistan so we’ll make them speak Arabic! No one will know the difference!” For a film that cost millions of dollars to make, you would think the studio could have hired one person to google the languages most commonly spoken in the region and hired another person to actually find actors who can speak them.

The second issue I took with the film is that Iron Man’s epiphany about his weapons often come at the expense of the people of color in his film. As he is held hostage, he is taken by his captors to their stockpile of weapons. He see his company’s logo on their weapons and he has an epiphany. He realizes that his weapons are being used by the “bad guys”. His fellow captive, a man whose nationality remains a mystery throughout his brief time in the film, tells him how the shrapnel that enters the bodies of his fellow villagers, kills them in a week. For some reason this doesn’t provoke the same reaction as Iron Man learning that his weapons are being used by those terrorists. His entire ordeal makes him realize that he is making money off of misery and that he needs to stop selling his weapons. His weapons are being used to kill Americans! I guess the Afghans weren’t quite as important nor were the Japanese civilians killed by the atom bomb his dad made (in the storyline, his father worked on the Manhattan Project). This didn’t sit well with me at all because I felt that the lives of Afghan and perhaps all Muslims were being devalued. Shouldn’t his epiphany had come first by realizing the damage caused to Afghan civilians?

Iron Man does later feel some guilt when he sees an Afghan village being held hostage by those terrorists and he decides to use his Iron Man getup to kill the terrorists (the scene I referred to earlier) and save the villagers. I had two issues with this scene. The first is that this scene just completely glosses over the West’s, including America’s role, in the conflict and subsequent suffering in Afghanistan. It’s the terrorists who are ultimately the bad guys. Second, the scene reinforced the whole idea of the white man’s burden. Iron Man is the savior. He has to save Afghans from the brutish international mixture (apparently some of the terrorists spoke Hungarian too-what a joke!) of terrorists. No matter what people of color will always have to rely on America and her goodness. This is the wrong message to send to our children, especially in a world where we will all have to become more culturally aware of everyone.

I appreciate Iron Man’s anti-war, anti-weapons message (although even this isn’t without trouble since various conflicts in the film are still solved through violence and weapons). However, I do wish the message was delivered in a way that had more respect for Afghans and Muslims. For all of its liberal, anti-war messages, Hollywood still has a long way to go in giving more human and more accurate portrayals of Muslims and people of color.

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Whiteness among Muslims

May 5, 2008 · Filed under Islam, race, racism, social issues, ummah issues

As I was going through a thread on an Islamic board, a user posted a link to a video of a convert on hajj. I have to be honest and say that I wasn’t quite sure why she was chosen to profiled. However, one thing that I noticed about the convert immediately was her race. The convert profiled was white and female. The video brought back a thought that I have had for a long time now and that is white converts are coveted among Muslims while black converts are take for granted and increasingly ignored.

As I think about white converts who are given much attention among Muslims and non-Muslims, most of them seem incredibly un-extraordinary. I can often think of no reason why they have gained the positions they have or the attention they have other than their whiteness. An example is Yvonne Ridley. I read her articles and I’m often left underwhelmed. One reason is because much of what she writes is not very original. What she is saying has been said for decades now by Black, Arab, South Asian, and Asian Muslims. Muslims have spoke for years about Western imperialism and its impact on the Muslim world. So why is the message suddenly different when it is delivered by her?

Now, I know Muslims will constantly speak of the racial equality that Islam advocates and say how Muslims were light years ahead of others in the racial equality department. However, actions speak louder than words. The actions of Muslims has made me wonder if, as a whole, we’re no better than whites who claim they are colorblind and brag about their black friends yet still would not want a black person to marry their child. In other words, are we being hypocrites in regards to race?

It seems that most of us are unwilling to critically look at how we treat black and white converts. When a white Muslim accepts the deen, it’s seen as such a great achievement. I think this is because in the minds of a lot of Muslims of color, white converts are a big “slap in the face” to the white, non-Muslim world that has oppress Muslim societies for centuries. At the same time, it’s a way to gain more legitimacy among mainstream societies. I suppose that’s why we have immigrant masajid that allow white ex-felons who have no formal training but speak some Arabic give khutbahs. I can tell you right now that there are plenty of black ex-felons who learned Arabic while in prison too but they will not be allowed to be the khatib at immigrant masajid. White reverts are given speaking engagements at various Muslim conferences, even if they no expertise in any Islamic field and even if they speak down to their audiences. We love hearing about they accepted the deen. We make them the faces and voices of various Muslim organizations that claim to speak for all Muslims in America.

Black reverts, however, are seen as incredibly commonplace. They’re taken for granted and even looked down upon. An immigrant recently told my husband to be careful of Muslims in our neighborhood because they beg. Can you imagine this being said for white Muslims or other non-black Muslims for that matter? Black Muslimahs are seen as being good for running “the mosque daycare” while Black Muslim men are seen as being good for maintaining the mosque.

I do not want to make it seem as if I don’t like white Muslims or that I think white people should not become Muslim. That is not the case at all. However, I think that white Muslims should be seen no differently from other Muslims in the ummah. We should all be equal.

We need to careful about issues of race in the ummah. We’re doing what is being done in mainstream society. We’re making ‘whiteness’ exceptional while belittling everyone else. We are recreating white privilege. This harms not only black Muslims but other Muslims of color as well as white Muslims. It makes it harder for Muslims of color-black, Arab, South Asian, and Asian- to be judged on their merit and it places a burden on white Muslims who are put on a pedestal. It ultimately dilutes the racial equality that we all claim to be so proud of, the racial equality that is actually religious duty for us all.

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Reason for the lack of posts

April 11, 2008 · Filed under Rants

Have you ever had a time when you just couldn’t think of anything useful, new, interesting, etc.? I feel this way right now. I just can’t think. I’m wondering how the heck I’m going to get through the papers and the projects that are due these next three weeks because my brain is fried. Six years of college and my brain is fried.

In addition to brain death, my iman has been so low for the longest. Perhaps it’s the sociology courses that have made me think humanity is one big mess that I should always be cynical of, maybe it’s the feeling that all the rituals I do are just becoming rituals and nothing more, maybe it’s all the blogs I read that make me want to throw darts at so many people. I don’t know. Ok, I do know. It’s the disappointment with Muslims and people in general. I just feel like my anger at the lack of social justice actually made me forget God or perhaps even angry at God and that’s not good. You should never be angry at God. My soul’s gas tank is almost on zero. So basically, I’ve taken a step back from my blog and blogs in general. I just need to patch up my relationship with Allah and with myself. I need to enjoy my husband, my family, and my cat and Spring. Basically, I need to let Faith enjoy the blessings of Allah, the simple pleasures of life and not always feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders and that no one is there to help me. It’s been getting better. I’ve been feeling happier, enjoying my hubby and the cat, and most importantly, patching things up with Allah.

So my posts on the blog will probably be slim to nothing for a while. I apologize for that but I need this time. I just feel that if I feel like a mess then how can I comment on the issues surrounding me? I’ve got to get my house in order first.

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Interracial marriage…still a threat?

March 31, 2008 · Filed under race, sexuality

Often, when I go out with my husband, we tend to get stares. Not always but often. Today, going to Wal-Mart we got stares from two black men, who happened to be with significant others, and one elderly white woman. We get stares from blacks, whites, and South Asians typically. I know why too. My husband “looks” like an immigrant, a South Asian immigrant. I imagine they’re usually thinking a lot of thoughts but for different reasons. The elderly white women may have been afraid of us as Muslims and especially my husband since he looks like an “immigrant” Muslim. The black men, I do wonder what was going through their heads. Part of me thinks a bit of indignation that I had the audacity to be with a man who isn’t “black” and maybe the fear of Muslims too. However, I don’t think the second option applies as much simply because I think AAs have much more exposure to Muslims in their inner circle by way of family and friends, than whites.

That wasn’t the first time we received stares from people or even rude comments. One time, while on the bus from downtown to home, a black man made some really rude comments to my husband after he tried to flirt with me and realized that I was already “taken”. He kept talking about his sexual prowess and told my husband he shouldn’t be with me because he wasn’t black. The irony wasn’t lost on either of us. Even now, I think that man felt a threat to his sexuality because I, a black woman, decided to be with someone who he perceived was not black. I know there are historical reasons for this. I think part of the reason why black women being with non-black men, especially white men, still strikes a cord among many blacks is because of the history of sexual abuse of black women during and after slavery. So perhaps when black women date men of other races, it makes some black men “relive” that terrible time in history and perhaps it makes some black men feel that black women are being “taken” again. It made me wonder how many men of all races think in this type of manner, how many men tie race and sexuality in a strong link.

Because my husband looks South Asian, we also tend to get a lot of stares from South Asians in public and I have gotten a lot of angry stares from South Asian women. One time, we went to a store in a mall owned by South Asians. The woman at the counter gave one of the hardest stares I’ve ever gotten in my life and then proceeded to deal with my husband even though I was the one buying the stuff. We have gotten some pretty hard stares from South Asians here in Cleveland and in my hometown of Philly. I think part of the reasons for the stares is because of I’m black and it’s probably a bit surprising that my husband would be with me instead of a South Asian (even though he actually isn’t South Asian). I often wonder if I represent to some South Asian women what my husband represents to some black men?

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privilage

March 23, 2008 · Filed under class, social issues

I found a meme in the Racialicious series about race and class. If you get the chance, you should definitely read it. What you do id bold all the things that apply to you. I found this meme to be interesting but also flawed (read my answers) below. It made me realize the privilage I do have that I often don’t think about. Yet, I think it can also be misleading as well. Most of all, it shows that privilage is really in the eye of the beholder. Certain things on the list (having books in the home, going to free art and natural science museums) aren’t sign of privilage to me. A commentor on Racialicious pointed out that some of the items on the list are classist because they assume that poor people don’t do certain things, such as having books in the home. I agree with that assessment. I did have a lot of books in my home and my mother always read me to me. That being said, I definitely was poor as a child. I got a lot of books, in addition to clothing, from the second hand store . The books would come in a little bundle for about a dollar and I would ask my mother to buy them for me. I went to museums but often the museums were free. I didn’t get a computer until hs and the first computer we had was given to us. In my junior year of hs, my grandmother and mother brought a new computer on credit. I took figure skating lessons for a few months but stopped when my coach told my mother that I wasn’t going to get very far in the sports and that it wasn’t worth the money that FS costs to keep pursuing it in a serious manner. I also took gymnastics at the local YWCA for a bit. I lived in Germantown all the way up to my marriage and if you know anything about Philly, you know that Germantown is not one of the upper or middle class neighborhoods of Philly. When I went to HS and especially college, I never felt privilaged compared to my classmates. I encountered people in college who went to prep schools that cost the same tuition as a university, and not a state university but a private university that ranks high in US News and World Report annual list of best colleges and universities. I saw classmates who drove Lexus’s, Acuras, Range Rovers, and the whole gamut of luxury cars. Not used cars either but new ones. Everyone knew their parents were paying for them because those kids never had a job a day in their lives. I didn’t have a car because I usually took mass transit to school and places I wanted to go. So I definitely didn’t feel privilaged compared to many (most) of my classmates.

Then again, the fact that I looked at the lists in US News and World Report may say something about my class too. Attending college was never a question for me. I knew I was going to college. There were people in my high school who weren’t sure if college was an option for them. They were in the minority but they were there. In my neighborhood, most people didn’t attend college. Most people in my family haven’t attended or completed college but I knew I was going to college.

I took other things for granted as well. The trips to the Jersey shore seemed like nothing to me. Yet, I remember watching the local news in Philly a few years ago and seeing a story about a group of kids in North Philly who were going to some type of tournament out of town. They were thrilled because most of them hadn’t been off their block unless they were going to school. I thought that was so weird because I seriously took for granted that people went to museums, downtown, and to the shore. There were other things I thought were normal too. When my mother married my stepfather, we always went out to dinner every Friday because he said that my mother should have a day off from cooking. It was nothing to go to the Olive Garden or get some subs. As a kid, I seriously thought these things were normal for everyone, including poor people, because I considered myself poor. Now, I know that there are a whole lot of people who don’t take these things for granted at all.

So am I privilaged or not? I guess the answer is really in the eye of the beholder. In some ways I am and some ways I’m not. Even now, I feel as if I’m stuck in the middle. I have one foot in the door of the middle class yet one foot in the door of the working class. I guess it’s a different type of double consciousness for me.

If your father went to college, take a step forward.
If your father finished college
If your mother went to college
If your mother finished college
If you have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
If you were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
If you had a computer at home
If you had your own computer at home
If you had more than 50 books at home
If you had more than 500 books at home
If were read children’s books by a parent
If you ever had lessons of any kind
If you had more than two kinds of lessons
If the people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
If you had a credit card with your name on it
If you have less than $5000 in student loans
If you have no student loans
If you went to a private high school
If you went to summer camp
If you had a private tutor
If you have been to Europe
If your family vacations involved staying at hotels
If all of your clothing has been new and bought at the mall
If your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
If there was original art in your house
If you had a phone in your room
If you lived in a single family house
If your parent own their own house or apartment
If you had your own room
If you participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
If you had your own cell phone in High School
If you had your own TV in your room in High School
If you opened a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
If you have ever flown anywhere on a commercial airline
If you ever went on a cruise with your family
If your parents took you to museums and art galleries
If you were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

In childhood:

If your body does not bear long-term signs of malnutrition. (For example, my teeth are marked up from poor nutrition when they were forming.)
If you had orthodontia.
If you saw a doctor for anything other than emergencies or school-mandated shots.
If you heated your home with clean-burning fuels or had properly vented heating.
If you grew up in a house without vermin.
If you had running water.
If you had a basement or foundation under your house.
If you had an indoor toilet.
If your parents and immediate family were outside the criminal justice system.
If you yourself remained outside the criminal justice system.
If your parents had a new car.
If you never went barefoot so that you could ’save your shoes for school.’
If your parents never argued in front of you about having enough money for food to last out the month.
If you ate hunted and fished meat because it was a recreational activity rather than as the major way to stock a freezer.
If your laundry was done at home in a washer rather than in a lavandaria. (Laundromat)
If your hair was cut by a professional barber or hair stylist instead of your parent.

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"B**** is the New Black"…ugh!

March 4, 2008 · Filed under politics

I found this video on Rachel’s Tavern of Tina Fey telling us why we should vote for Hillary. “B**** is the new black!” Puhleeze! I kinda wish some white liberals would just get a clue and shut up. That’s all I’m going to say on that ridiculous clip.

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Not feeling comfortable with my vote

March 4, 2008 · Filed under politics

It’s Primary Election Day here in Ohio and I cast my vote for Obama. Honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Hillary for a lot of reasons but I’m not feeling so good about my vote for Obama either. Ever since that debate last Tuesday, I’ve been feeling more and more weary about him. Watching the debate, I just kept getting this sense that the idealism I thought he was about was just an image. That in reality, he really is just another politician. I admit that I fell for the hype, the change hype. But you have to admit that it was so easy to fall for it. Obama is so charming, so young, so fresh and his commercials are awe inspiring. I mean seeing those commercials on TV just seem to invoke the coming of the mesiah. “Don’t tell me we can’t change! Yes, we can!” I really wanted to believe it. Yeah, I fell for it until last Tuesday. I watched the debate and realized that Obama is a politician. Damn! I mean between the really lame response to Somali picture incident, his unequivocal support of Israel, and his really oversimplistic and rather unrealistic views of NAFTA and its effect on jobs here in Ohio, I realized that Obama is not really that different from the rest. I know saying Muslims actually are good people who we shouldn’t be afraid of and criticizing Israel would probably be political suicide. However, it would’ve been nice to have one politician put politics to the wind and put priniciples to the forefront of his/her political agenda.

While Obama disappointed me, Hillary aired an ad that definitely hit below the belt. This is just one of the many reasons why I wouldn’t vote for Hillary. It’s fearmongering at its worse.

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