America the Pitiful

In the greatest country in the world, where diversity is celebrated and lives are daily improved, there lies a slimy sludge at the bottom of the placid pond we call America. It's not clearly visible, and if you don't know what to look for, you'll miss it, however you step in it every day, you track it into your home, and even your kids are exposed. Many of you contribute to it's growth every day, some voluntarily, some inadvertently, but all who do not speak out are feeding it. This sludge has been here for hundreds of years, but has taken different forms when the climates suit it. However in modern times, we have been provided with the tools to eliminate this sludge, but yet we do not use them, we sit idly by, and why? The answer is simple, because it is easier to sit and watch it fester and grow than to work together and rid the nation of it. As well as the fact that, sadly, many Americans are so bored with their lives that watching this filth spread is considered good entertainment, and many subject their kids to it as well, further perpetuating its continuity. What is this sludge? This sludge is called RACISM. The forms it has taken over the years have been well documented through history, and the keepers, the spreaders, and the starters of it are the media and the sickos who dominate it.

This sludge recently manifested itself in the form of Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment. It was small and subtle nuances at first, but has quickly grown into the most disgusting and alarming creature to date. Yet so many feed this creature with a willingness that makes me question the humanity of the average American. What started this is a mystery, what it will result in is nothing short of utter chaos. As an American of Arabic descent, I am regularly asked if and when I will explode myself into a million pieces, and my family receive stares and points when we venture out into the great unknown to do menial things such as buy food, clothes, go to the movies, cook out, you know....HUMAN THINGS. Things you do, your mother and father did before you, and your children as well as their descendants will do for millenia to come. Yet ours is always subject to unwanted attention and scrutiny. Sometimes criticism and intimidation follow. In laymans terms we can't take a shit without our neighbors counting the kernels in our turds. Any way you slice it, this is wrong. This is racism. This is immoral. This is pitiful.

This is un-American.

My family came here from parts of West Bank and Gaza to make a better life for their children, thinking that though Israel did not want us, the United States would gladly accept us, you know, the whole “bring me your tired, your weary” thing. Well they were as tired and weary as it gets! It’s bad enough these poor people have had to go through what they did, but their children must endure worse! My grandmother on her deathbed said to me that America isn’t the country she came to over 30 years ago, nor will it be that way again. She apologized to me for this, and told me to ‘go out there and fight the good fight’ wherever that may be. Now that I am about to be a parent myself, I’ve felt the sting of the racism against Arabs that permeates this society even more intensely than before, and am ashamed as an American and a Palestinian that I will not be able to raise my Palestinian/American children in a peaceful and comfortable society, and am further disappointed that people like Malkin are given a platform to justify this racism which my children will endure, not to mention that the fact that this may escalate is ever-so-evident, especially if John McCain becomes President. My brother-in-law, a Palestinian immigrant himself, actually forsees internment camps in the future for us….which is disappointing, as he has contributed hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to this administration, which might ironically be used later to detain and torture him and his relatives, I can’t even bear to think about that plus the fact that my children might grow up in one of these camps as well as myself….it’s really a far cry from what the founding fathers had envisioned.
I am disgusted that a corporation like Dunkin(which many of it’s franchises are actually owned by Arabs) would stoop to this level when they could have just been more grown-up about it and thought this through. Nobody is going to boycott them because of that scarf, it’s evident it’s not a keffieh, keffiehs don’t look that rough! Plus Americans consume junk food at an alarming level….Dunkin wouldn’t be affected, plus it’s Rachael Ray, who’s known much more for her food than fashion, and Americans generally identify her with that. Let’s face it….there’s no threat I think they were just doing what almost 90% of America has done over the past 8 years—making mountains out of molehills. And it’s people like Malkin that spearhead the campaign.

Racism should not be acceptable in any form. If it were Jewish people being insulted, there’d be weeks of firestorm about it till someone payed up–literally. If it were blacks, there would be rallies and demonstrations, as well as many high-level religious figures making a fuss and dominating the airwaves for weeks upon weeks, they wouldn’t let it rest. However it wasn’t—the people attacked were Arabs. Not just any Arabs–Palestinians! So this will get maybe a few days of attention and will fade into history like every other anti-Arab action in the past. Even the rape of that 15 year-old girl and the murder of her ENTIRE family got less publicity, while the Natalee Holloway fiasco still gets attention to this day. The fact is, if you’re Arab, you’re not human. Live with it, nobody gives a damn. I have one question–who started this? What fuels their ideology? Really this is a question. I’ve been asking it for a long time. If someone can answer me please tell me. I’d like to know what was the spark that started the flame. It’s not terrorism because this started long before that, it was something else, and I will keep digging till I find it and obliterate it from history forever. Racism in ANY form is unacceptable.
And that’s JUST what this is–in it’s most classic and obvious form to date. And it should NOT be present in America. Haven’t we come so far to go beyond this?

Apparently not.

It’s time for a change.