Links: HULK SMASH edition
Feb. 25th, 2010 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ajnabiehThis links post could substantially be called "Links that keep me on the bare edge of psychotic rage." Seriously, it's a full-palm-button-smash of everything I hate in Arab-American/Muslim-American discursive relations. I need a big tray of kanafeh and two hours with a Nancy Ajram album to fix this, people. (Note: don't read the YouTube comments on that video, or you'll undo all the good you'll have just done by watching it.)
Passenger who had Arabic flash cards sues over his detainment
I am going to say this very slowly and clearly: words on a piece of paper cannot kill anybody. (Even if they're a death sentence, they still require a body to carry them out.) A college kid flying with his handwritten Arabic flashcards and Middle Eastern Studies books is probably not a threat to national security.
I once spent a flight to Chicago translating a newspaper, Hans Wehr on the lap table next to me, yellow legal pad on my lap. I don't think I was very popular that day. (But it was JetBlue, and I wasn't barred from flying, so maybe I should count my blessings.)
What Happened When a Professor Got His Students to Participate in His 'Veil for a Day' Project
On the one hand, I think that the reactions that these students got are fascinating, and I hope they learned something from them--or that their peers did. On the other hand, I'm profoundly skeptical of "veil-for-a-day" or even "veil-in-solidarity" projects. The Muslim women, including the muhajjabat, I've talked to have all been fine with the idea--either from a "hijab is good no matter why you do it" or "let them see what it's like" perspective. But I'm warier--I don't think you learn that much about being "other" from dressing like the "other," not if it's an act of dress-up. I like drag a lot; I used to do drag in college with some regularity, complete with binding and applied facial hair; I don't think it taught me anything about being a man, either bio or trans. (It did teach me something about my relationship to my body, and the social construction of gender, but that's different.)
Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing what you think about these questions of cultural drag--would you think it would be useful? Would you assign a project like this to your students? Would you find it offensive?
The Smearing of Rashad Hussain
One of the core parts of my dissertation is developing the notion of discursive misrecognition: that the attempts of political speech by Arabs and Muslims are pervasively discounted, such that their actual arguments go unheard in the service of ideological constructions that cannot be moved. I see it whenever I spend time looking for discourse around organizations or individuals I'm profiling for my research: fully half of the Google hits for many of them are from sites aiming to "expose" them for their radical leanings, tendency towards violence, or affiliation with terrorist organizations. Many of those affiliations are to organizations that are mainstream institutions in Arab and Muslim America; some of them include having relatives with radical politics, even when you disagree with them. And, sometimes, like in this case, it's for having made statements that disagree with the mainstream American consensus on an issue, for advocating for a minority point of view that's linked to an Arab/Muslim identity.
Anti-mosque clamor grows in Sheepshead Bay (Brooklyn)
You know what? There's this church three blocks away from me. They ring their bells every freaking morning at 8:30 AM to announce morning mass. Isn't that terribly disruptive of the neighborhood? Don't they have respect for their neighbors? Plus, they used to have a giant anti-abortion sign. How do I know that they aren't harboring radical Operation Rescue operatives there? I think we should get the NYPD to raid them, and prevent them from building new churches. After all, we don't want people like that in this neighborhood.
Or, you know, we could all calm the hell down. *headdesk*
Oh, look, here's a nice one:
Being White in a Muslim World: Interview with Two Girls Working in a Muslim Office
I'm highly amused by this article because it describes my former fieldsite, the Arab-American Association of New York in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Even though I was only in the office two days a week, I recognized much of these girls' experience--being asked if you're Arab, if you're married, what in the world you're doing there. Actually, I got asked a lot if my husband was Arab, which always amused me to no end. (Answer: no, she's Latvian.) I also definitely experienced the change in dress code. I taught over the summer, in an unairconditioned space. I'm normally a wearer of tank tops; in fact, I'm wearing one right now, despite the fact that it's snowing. But whenever I went to teach, I had to pick through my shirt drawer to find a shirt with sleeves that wouldn't ride up too high around the waist (I also generally wear low-rise jeans). It was a delicate balancing act.
I also think it's interesting that it's unproblematically described as a Muslim office (which probably is in part because of elan's focus), even though it's an Arab office in name. The truth is that almost everyone in that office who is an Arab (and lots of the folks who aren't) are Muslim; Islam is a part of the culture of the place, from distributing Eid presents to kids to the use of a side office for a prayer space to the near-ubiquity of hijab on adult married women. (Younger, single women have more variation.) I did meet Arab Christians there--but only a few.
Now I feel a little better. But, still, where's my knafeh?
Passenger who had Arabic flash cards sues over his detainment
I am going to say this very slowly and clearly: words on a piece of paper cannot kill anybody. (Even if they're a death sentence, they still require a body to carry them out.) A college kid flying with his handwritten Arabic flashcards and Middle Eastern Studies books is probably not a threat to national security.
I once spent a flight to Chicago translating a newspaper, Hans Wehr on the lap table next to me, yellow legal pad on my lap. I don't think I was very popular that day. (But it was JetBlue, and I wasn't barred from flying, so maybe I should count my blessings.)
What Happened When a Professor Got His Students to Participate in His 'Veil for a Day' Project
On the one hand, I think that the reactions that these students got are fascinating, and I hope they learned something from them--or that their peers did. On the other hand, I'm profoundly skeptical of "veil-for-a-day" or even "veil-in-solidarity" projects. The Muslim women, including the muhajjabat, I've talked to have all been fine with the idea--either from a "hijab is good no matter why you do it" or "let them see what it's like" perspective. But I'm warier--I don't think you learn that much about being "other" from dressing like the "other," not if it's an act of dress-up. I like drag a lot; I used to do drag in college with some regularity, complete with binding and applied facial hair; I don't think it taught me anything about being a man, either bio or trans. (It did teach me something about my relationship to my body, and the social construction of gender, but that's different.)
Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing what you think about these questions of cultural drag--would you think it would be useful? Would you assign a project like this to your students? Would you find it offensive?
The Smearing of Rashad Hussain
One of the core parts of my dissertation is developing the notion of discursive misrecognition: that the attempts of political speech by Arabs and Muslims are pervasively discounted, such that their actual arguments go unheard in the service of ideological constructions that cannot be moved. I see it whenever I spend time looking for discourse around organizations or individuals I'm profiling for my research: fully half of the Google hits for many of them are from sites aiming to "expose" them for their radical leanings, tendency towards violence, or affiliation with terrorist organizations. Many of those affiliations are to organizations that are mainstream institutions in Arab and Muslim America; some of them include having relatives with radical politics, even when you disagree with them. And, sometimes, like in this case, it's for having made statements that disagree with the mainstream American consensus on an issue, for advocating for a minority point of view that's linked to an Arab/Muslim identity.
Anti-mosque clamor grows in Sheepshead Bay (Brooklyn)
You know what? There's this church three blocks away from me. They ring their bells every freaking morning at 8:30 AM to announce morning mass. Isn't that terribly disruptive of the neighborhood? Don't they have respect for their neighbors? Plus, they used to have a giant anti-abortion sign. How do I know that they aren't harboring radical Operation Rescue operatives there? I think we should get the NYPD to raid them, and prevent them from building new churches. After all, we don't want people like that in this neighborhood.
Or, you know, we could all calm the hell down. *headdesk*
Oh, look, here's a nice one:
Being White in a Muslim World: Interview with Two Girls Working in a Muslim Office
I'm highly amused by this article because it describes my former fieldsite, the Arab-American Association of New York in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Even though I was only in the office two days a week, I recognized much of these girls' experience--being asked if you're Arab, if you're married, what in the world you're doing there. Actually, I got asked a lot if my husband was Arab, which always amused me to no end. (Answer: no, she's Latvian.) I also definitely experienced the change in dress code. I taught over the summer, in an unairconditioned space. I'm normally a wearer of tank tops; in fact, I'm wearing one right now, despite the fact that it's snowing. But whenever I went to teach, I had to pick through my shirt drawer to find a shirt with sleeves that wouldn't ride up too high around the waist (I also generally wear low-rise jeans). It was a delicate balancing act.
I also think it's interesting that it's unproblematically described as a Muslim office (which probably is in part because of elan's focus), even though it's an Arab office in name. The truth is that almost everyone in that office who is an Arab (and lots of the folks who aren't) are Muslim; Islam is a part of the culture of the place, from distributing Eid presents to kids to the use of a side office for a prayer space to the near-ubiquity of hijab on adult married women. (Younger, single women have more variation.) I did meet Arab Christians there--but only a few.
Now I feel a little better. But, still, where's my knafeh?