Exploring Identity and Stereotypes

I was born

Arab.

And as one, I won't repeat the word.

I’m fine living with it,

In the name of God.

I really, truly wouldn’t care if

I weren’t sick of hearing again

and again and again the same sentence. “What?

Really?

You don’t even look it.

How pretty, how beautifully you dress,

I never would’ve guessed.”

Thank you.

What do you think goes through my mind

when I hear a sentence like that?

Maybe, “Wow, that’s flattering, she must mean it.”

I mean, just two days ago I shaved

my mustache, and forgot my

galabeya and hijab, and meanwhile, I hid both

knives very well in my socks.

Look, I’m not just saying this, I really am fine with being Arab

and even to the point that I don’t mind

looking a little Arab, because

you know, well, that’s what I am, Arab.

And I even admit that more than once

I even got a job this way. I call it the

political correctness effect.

Because what’s better for your image than hiring

an Arabic speaker?

And what boosts your image more effectively

From hiring some pet Arab who,

how do I put it, doesn't look that Arab?

Look at Lucy Aharish, Yousef Sweid,

Nur Mar Issa, Mira Aharon, Mir Ben- On.

Oh, that's awkward. Sorry.

He does look a little Arab, actually. It's not that—

appropriate.

Yeah.

Anyway, what was I trying to say?

That we can skip all the usual rituals of,

"How amazing, how wonderful.

You're not only not Arab- looking,

you're different from them in character, too."

I'd have guessed at most that you

were Yemenite or a Moroccan mix,

Egyptian and Persian.

And skip straight to the second question,

which, by the way, almost always comes up.

"Oh, tell me, and are you—

uh, Muslim?"

"No," I whisper back. "I'm Christian."

"Ohhh."

"You're Christian? Now it all makes sense.

Christians are fine. It's much

less serious."

Much less serious, you say. Is that so, then, if I let you

marry your son? Because they used to call us

by names, some unflattering,

some even worse: minorities, dark- skinned,

cousins, Amalekites,

spitting into the well we drink from,

terrorists, may God avenge—

Shut up. But their knafeh is great, you bastard.