My Culture is Not a Slur
When I started to think about what I wanted to share in this #30DaysArab post, I initially wanted to write about my love of my culture, how enamoured I am with Arab and Palestinian food and dress, how I adore our music and sense of humour, how much I love the Arabic language and the beautiful sayings and poetry that can never be fully encapsulated or appreciated when translated into the English language.
But almost as soon as I started writing, my attention was repeatedly drawn back to an encounter that has stayed with me for several years, a memory that has lingered, unwelcome yet ultimately important to name. It took place several years ago, during my doctoral program. Another graduate student and I were chatting about needing coffee. I joked about how, as an Arab woman, I love my coffee super strong.
My colleague looked at me with surprise and asked, “Don’t you mean as an Arabic woman?”
Confused, I replied something along the lines of how the Arabic word ‘Araby’ can be translated as both ‘Arab’ and ‘Arabic’ depending on where and how it’s used … but typically I only describe something using the word ‘Arabic’ when I’m referring to the Arabic language.
She paused and then said, “Oh okay, I actually thought that using the word ‘Arab’ was offensive, like a slur.”
At that moment, the exchange from a viral video of John McCain responding to someone on the 2008 campaign trail flashed in my mind. In the video, a woman said to McCain at a town hall meeting: “I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him, and he’s not, um, he’s an Arab,”
McCain took the microphone from her and responded: “No, ma’am … He’s a decent family man … citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what the campaign’s all about. He’s not.”
Several commentators lauded McCain for his response because it was storied as “defending his opponent” whereas I remember watching the video and being frustrated because:
1. Calling someone an Arab was used as a slur and attack against someone’s character, and
2. Replying “no he’s not [Arab]” was celebrated as a way of defending someone against being called an Arab.
With this scene flashing through my mind, I asked my colleague, “why did you think it was a slur?”
My colleague seemed to struggle to form an explanation, and in truth didn’t really give a sense of much other than that she has come across some instances where it has been used as such.
Why am I sharing this encounter? Why didn’t I choose to write about all the amazing parts of my culture, the parts that sustain me, my family, and so many others? Why didn’t I choose to write about growing up with Fairuz serenading me, my Mom, and my siblings during our Saturday deep cleaning days? Why didn’t I choose to write about how my Dad would tell us stories in Arabic from the Qu’ran and sometimes of popular Arab folklore characters? Why didn’t I choose to write about how my Sittee, Allah yerhama, would prescribe (either alone or as a mixture) olive oil, lemon, and honey (preferably from Palestine of course) to support our health and healing? Or how I grew up with my many Aunties all talking and laughing over one another as they gathered in different homes to make ka3k or ma3mool? Why didn’t I write about how much I love seeing videos on social media of people making and flipping maqluba, wearing the Kuffiyeh, and dancing dabke because this is the beautiful reflection of myself that I never saw in Western media growing up? Why did I instead choose to focus on anti-Arab racism?
I think the answer is likely because I am currently researching alongside Palestinian Muslim youth and families into their curriculum-making experiences (by “curriculum-making”, like other educators and scholars, I am referring to the curriculum that is composed both in formal schooling contexts, but also the curriculum they co-create alongside others in familial and community places). Through my research conversations alongside these youth and families, I am learning of many instances of curriculum violence that they and other Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim children and youth are forced to encounter and navigate in formal schooling systems and other places. Stories like how a Palestinian elementary school student was told by his teacher that he can’t do a school project about Palestinian culture because “Palestine is not on the world map,” or how a high school student was told by a teacher facilitator that the social justice club can’t raise awareness about the violence Palestinans regularly experience during Ramadan at Masjid Al-Aqsa because it’s “too controversial.”
So I felt the need to write this and make some of this violence and the overlappings and intertwinings of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian racism visible. (It is important to note that not all Arabs are Muslim, and not all Muslims are Arab … in fact the majority of Muslims are not Arab). I continue to be bothered that my grad school colleague thought that using the word “Arab” is an offensive slur not only because I am an Arab woman, but also because that colleague was a practicing teacher at the time she spoke those words. I continue to wonder: What does it mean for Arab students when a teacher thinks that the word Arab is offensive and/or a slur? How many others think this? How many others are confronted by this type of comment and perception? How many others believe this but don’t actually say it aloud or otherwise express it? What does it mean for Arab students, families, communities, and educators when naming ourselves and our culture is perceived as offensive? As a slur? What does it mean for Palestinian children and youth in particular when their culture and very beings are storied as inherently controversial and thus to be avoided, silenced, or erased? As one youth in my research stated after sharing a story of experience in school: “It’s like we’re not even allowed to be Palestinian.”
I really wanted to share a beautiful story in this post. But as I write this and look over at my children, I knew I needed to write this post instead. Because our children and youth deserve better. At the very least they deserve educators and systems that don’t approach their cultures and identities as something offensive, taboo, and/or unmentionable. They deserve educators and systems that uplift and sustain them, that hold them in the beauty and brilliance of all of who they are.
Muna Saleh is a Palestinian Muslim woman, an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Concordia University of Edmonton (CUE), mother to three, (grand)daughter to Palestinian refugees, and the author of “Stories We Live and Grow By: (Re)Telling Our Experiences as Muslim Mothers and Daughters.”
This blog post is part of the #30DaysArabVoices Blog Series, a month-long movement to feature Arab voices as writers and scholars. Please CLICK HERE to read yesterday’s blog post by Deanna Othman.
