[Newspoetry] gaining a little coherence...

[Ranjan Banerji]

Brothers and sisters,

I'm in shock.  I went to the gym today and couldn't concentrate, constantly
looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone to decide that the color of my
skin was something that reminded them of the people we're being told brought
death and destruction to New York City and Washington, DC.  I tried
concentrating, tried thinking just about my breathing, and then slowly began
to fail.  I turned down, then off, my CD player, and then just stopped.  And
looking over my shoulder again, cautiously went home.

Reprisals against Arab Americans and foreigners are going to happen, and I
am angered to have to be worried about it.  Not because I'm Arab (I'm not),
not because I'm not Arab and people will mistake me for it (I've accepted
it), but because I just don't know what to do.  I don't know how to pretend
to be a foreigner, to be invisible and self-effacing, to be happy and
grateful that a country that I was born in is generous enough to let me
stay.

Even now a mosque in Bridgeview is surrounded by local police dispersing a
300+ strong group of flag-waving people bent on storming the mosque as a
symbol of Arab and Moslem tradition in the United States.  Even today a
Molotov cocktail was thrown at an Arab school in Chicago.  Which is worse,
that the bomb was thrown at the school, or that the school was prepared
enough to have all their windows made of Plexiglas instead of plate glass,
and that as a result no one was injured?  All Muslim schools were closed
today even as Chicago public schools remained open, as they were closed
yesterday, in a tacit vote of no-confidence in the ability of the city's law
enforcement agencies to guarantee the safety accorded so easily to others of
more comfortable backgrounds.

I was surprised to see CBS rebroadcast portions of a segment they ran about
two months ago in which they interviewed several militant Moslem activists
based out of Pakistan.  Several people interviewed explained, without
justification, thusly.  The American people would be outraged and would
demand retaliation if thousands of Americans were killed in a systematic
attack.  So why are the people attacked by Americans, by American allies and
client states, by students of American military doctrine, supposed to be any
different in their response?  They were asking for it, perhaps?  Try using
that defense against a rape victim, if you're unclear about how stupid
*that* is.  The answer is the depersonalization and dehumanization of our
enemies into nothing more than a cliché, in this case the enigmatic and
inscrutable Muslim "fanatic".

Perhaps it would be easier if they wore uniforms, or if we saw them with
their children, or if we heard from them more often than we do.  If our
media is so liberally biased, then how come the only way an Arab can get on
TV is either

-- to be accused of a terrorist act,
-- to be asked about said accusation of another Arab or Muslim,
-- or to be caricatured.

If we trust the television reports, not a single foreign physician seems to
be working in New York's hospitals today; every healthcare facility is
staffed with less diversity than the hospital in the show "ER".

This morning I went shopping and my palms were sweaty walking around.  I
found myself trying to smile at people hoping that they wouldn't take me for
one of those people.  Last night my brother (who has a medium complexion,
black curly hair and a full beard) went out to get some fresh air and forgot
his mobile phone.  I nearly lost my mind calling him, eventually calling a
friend of his and finding him there.  When he got on the phone, through my
fear and my wish to invoke my older-brother privileges, I had the composure
just to recommend that he find a safe way to get home and to call me once he
was there.  If I ordered him to go, I would be telling him that they won,
that the terrorists have made me afraid to let my brother go out and walk in
his own country, in his own hometown.

More later, I can no longer continue.

Quote of the day:
"Let’s mourn, let’s grieve, and when it’s appropriate let’s examine our
contribution to the unsafe world we live in.
-- Michael Moore, http://www.michaelmoore.com/2001_0912.html

--Ranjan


--
Ranjan Banerji              "I know you believe you understand
ranjan at banerji.net          what you think I said, but I'm not
Luminary, Sage, Thinko      sure you realize that what you heard
The system shall evolve.    is not what I meant." --Hiyakawa