DISQUS

Your blog's almost as cool as the Bob Loblaw Law Blog. Marry me!

Yeah, I could say to Ralph that he's not really an Arab because he doesn't talk like one. A radio producer said that to me at a left-liberal station in San Francisco last year. For real. I was born and raised here, my mother is a WASP from Virginia, and I talk like I went to a very good Eastern liberal arts college, which I did. Guess that means I'm not really an Arab.


Somebody diaried this at Daily Kos and I expressed my disgust in comments. Yuk, Ralph, ick, ick ick. But I've been disgusted with Nader since 2000.



This Arab-American says Ralph Nader does not speak for me.

I once asked my Arab-American brother, half-WASP like me, if he thought he was white. "At 2 oclock in the morning when I'm stopped by a North Carolina State Trooper, I'm as white as I can be. The rest of the time, not especially."


I think that on a traffic stop at 2 a.m. no racist white state trooper is going to care who raised Barack Obama. White folk who talk about being beyond race haven't tried to catch a cab with a person of color in New York at night. (and they haven't walked through airport security with any Arabs lately, either - or dark-skinned Jews with beards, or Pakistanis, or , or)



another story - a colleague twenty+ years ago was having a secret affair with the scion of a prominent NY African American family; nobody who was mentioned around here lately so it ain't Paterson. Anyway.



She was Italian from a very racist Queens family. He was Ivy League all the way, and her biggest cultural issue was the class difference - his was so much higher than hers. She had never been around people who owned big yachts, limos, and had tailgate parties at the college game.



One time she was in an elevator with the Scion and three of his other Ivy League, AA, gorgeous, conservatively dressed, rich friends, all of them ex-basketball players from Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Whatever. The doors opened to show a white woman waiting for the elevator. She took one look at the four guys, stepped back and said - uh, no, I'm waiting for somebody. My friend said she looked terrified. It was a pivotal moment for my friend - she was outraged. How could that woman think that her Scion and his buddies were bad guys? Of course the guys laughed it off.



Meanwhile my friend never could bring the guy home to meet her parents - didn't matter how rich he was or how important his family - he was the Black guy (you know they said worse) and that was that. Believe me his heart was not broken - he was just playing around.



Most white folk in America don't get a chance to see this sort of event play out so they are utterly clueless.



Very interesting to read the comments here. It's waking up my awareness... so easy for me to blend in as a light-skinned half-Arab. "Oh, you aren't really an Arab, you don't wear a veil, you don't sound like an Arab, and you aren't ANGRY like they are. And of course you're a feminist from a feminist family, who ever heard of Arab feminists?" - heard it most of my life.



This is what people of color talk about when they (we?) say that white people are trying to erase us, erase our identities. If we play by the rules of the dominant culture then we get told we aren't really Black or Arab or Chinese at all, we're just honorary white people.

I really, really love Obama, probably because of all the ways he is "like me" - 3rd world dad gave him a funny name, white WASP mom from middle class, heartland America; good colleges etc.


However, this Arab-American smelled the pandering as soon as I heard about the Father's Day speech. I am sorry to say it reminds me of what he's been saying to AIPAC and that splinter constituency about Islam, Palestine and the Middle East question.



Look, in 2006 when Israel was pounding the **** out of Lebanese civilians, killing over a thousand, destroying infrastructure and A MILK FACTORY THAT JUST WON A U.N. CONTRACT beating out an Israeli firm... while all that was going on, Obama was cheering it on. Go get 'em. Kill those ragheads. Anything to support Israel.



I realize he has to do what he has to do to get elected, but I am indeed taking note. Will I vote for him? Yes. Will I be all starry-eyed about him? No. He is a masterful politician and he's playing to the national stage, which includes a lot of awful, awful people with unevolved ideas.



He is still going to get pounded from the right for being somehow too radical, foreign, liberal or Islamic. So he will still have to send MIchelle out to talk about pantyhose and he will still make some choices that will strike me as sour. Like this Father's Day speech.



Never invest any politician with your hopes and dreams. One thing about Barack that resonates deeply - he says we (the people) are the change we are waiting for. As a corollary (I believe) he says he is flawed. He isn't just "aw shucks"-ing. He means it. He can't be the vessel for every one of my aspirations, or yours. We have to be that vessel ourselves.



I have to hold the vision - for justice and peace in the Middle East, for racial and economic justice in this country. I have to be the change I want to see. Barack is leading but he is also reminding us that in a way he has to follow us. We lead him.



So keep on giving the feedback even when it's not 100% positive. This is a democracy, and no leader is above us. He's a citizen like we are and we must let him know what we think.

PS the hair thing is moot at the moment, since I'm in chemo. If you find my blog, the hair in the picture is a wig. My real hair has never been that straight in my life. Now that I am bald I am planning to have henna tattoos done all over my scalp for summer. Talk about de-colonized. They won't let me out of the Bay Area get up like that.

It was Aya de Leon, writer and performer extraordinaire, now director of Poetry For the People at UC Berkeley, who once told me: "Leila, you have de-colonized hair." Google Aya for a look at her own de-colonized self and work.

I am really proud of and happy for Michelle Obama too, and in examining the feeling and reading comments I realize it arises from the complexity of my identity as a half-Southern-white, half-Arab woman.


Growing up an outsider ethnic white in the South, with consciousness of my white mother's civil rights activism and the history that came before my integrated public schools, I had a relatively unique window into race relations in America. My father taught at a traditionally Black university for 20+ years and I got a window into Black bourgeois society that way... going to faculty parties where we were the only white people in the room, hanging out with the children of my father's colleagues, who were all headed for top colleges, etc.



Later in NYC I tended to work in public agencies and bank departments that were very integrated - I think my weird Arab name meant I got steered to diverse offices, which I didn't really understand until much later. Had I possessed a WASP or Jewish name I might not have found myself working with so many high-powered African-American corporate and governmental types - I might have landed more WASPy jobs. It was fine with me, believe me.



Michelle Obama's class and power are no big surprise to me - she arises out of a familiar world. I'm just really, really happy to see that world represented in the mainstream media. About damn time.



The discussion of color above reminds me of my Arab family, who have a complicated relationship to skin color and race. Arabs are technically and officially white in this country, but skin color among us ranges from Anglo-Saxon to African. In my family the skin color ranges from light Hispanic to dark Hispanic, with an occasional blonde and quite a few red-heads.



I was shocked to hear my relatives discussing dark skin as a bad thing when I was growing up. I got my WASP mother's pale skin, and I worked really hard to get a tan and be darker. I have always wanted to look more Arab than I do. My cousins on the other hand worked hard to make sure they didn't get any darker than they were, and they discussed each other's beauty openly based on how "dark" they were. I have a cousin who said of her four year old daughter, in front of the girl "Americans are always telling us how beautiful she is, but we don't think she is beautiful. She is too dark." This just horrified me. I was just stunned. And by the way, that child is now 24 and she is indeed dark-skinned and gorgeous, like a movie star. (with a double degree in finance and international relations, and a moving-up-the-ladder job in corporate America, despite her funny Arab name). Dark skinned in this case means dark olive; she looks Latina or Arab.



So I don't understand this illness about rejecting our selves and our children for the color of our skin -guess we have to blame the racism of our cultures (Arabs are racist too, believe me).



In conclusion, I am just really proud to be an American when I see Michelle Obama leading us. I love these images. I do note that she has straightened her hair and gone for the tailored corporate lady look (big pearls, dresses) but I think that's appropriate for the national audience she's addressing. Her earlier style from old photos was more like how professional women of all colors dress around here in Oakland, with floaty skirts and ethnic jewelry. I relate to that look 'cause that's how I dress, but the presidential stage requires a different costume. She's smart to adapt - and she carries it off really well.



PS on the hair - I loved her hair more natural and I don't need for it to be straightened like that but if that's what it takes to get White MIddle America to "feel comfortable" then I admire her for making the change. My own hair is wild frizzy curly and I would get a hairdresser to "colonize it" as my friend says - if I had to do something big and public and corporate/institutional like she is doing.

I just want to talk about the stick. My Arab-American father was always carving up walking sticks. He collected them - he had a few from his father in Lebanon, my grandfather. At my father's funeral I brought one of his walking sticks up to the lectern to hold as I spoke about him.


I love this picture and I love the man who carved the stick. Go Obama.

(even though I am very, very disappointed about his speech to AiPAC this week. Whatever. He's a politician, he isn't the Messiah and I never thought so)

Re: WEbb as enforcer - the way folks are describing him here, I can see he and Obama could play bad cop/good cop. Obama as the good cop naturally. He could keep on playing the gracious, aristocratic, good sport, rise above the fray role, while Webb goes in and breaks kneecaps when needed.


There are worse combinations.



Also, Obama/Webb is easy to fit on a bumper sticker. Obama/Sibelius no way; Obama/Richardson still too long.



I say this as a born-and-raised Abu-Saba; my brother and I are also (formerly) skinny kids with (still) funny names. One funny name is enough. Two are too many.



I had a friend named Seidenheimer a long time ago and I used to say it would be good for us to get law degrees and go into practice together, just so we could have a door painted with Abu-Saba and Seidenheimer. We had a good time imagining who else we could invite to be in the firm, like Mmes. Yamamoto, Villaraigosa, Shalikashvily, and so forth. This would be lots of fun as a Brooklyn or San Francisco law firm, but not so good for a presidential ticket.

As a sort of white person (half Arab, white American mom, kinda like Barack but light skin so I pass more easily) I am pretty sick of hearing white people say they "aren't comfortable" with BArack and "need for him to reassure" them somehow that he's not some kind of scary black radical who Hates America and wants to Tear White People Down. And yet that's the rumble and the buzz.


I think that's some of what drives Hilary's die-hards, along with the "we're feminists and we need a woman president to feel good about ourselves as womyn" crowd.



I just think Obama is sticking to the message: unity, class, grace, rise above the strife.



I think he will find a way to let Hilary know how he really feels. Did you ever see that clip of him walking out to talk to reporters on his Caribbean vacation this spring? Just how he walked down the path let you know that he was Not Amused at being stalked by the press. His first few exchanges were extremely... clear. He said nothing untoward but he vibed "why the hell are you miserable rats bothering my family with your telephoto lenses? You are intruding."



But then he went right into his spiel about how they worshiped on Sunday (it was Easter I think) and relaxed etc. The words sounded easy and casual but in his eyes he was still saying - back the fuck off, I am giving you your sound bite even though you don't deserve it.



I think Obama is a true prince, a Leo, and he will make his displeasure known, but at his own time and in the manner of his choosing. Meanwhile, Hilary is still Senator of a big and powerful state so the President will need her as an ally.



This guy is not where he is because he acts like I would. He is a politician, remember, and a very good one. And we're going to need those diplomatic skills when he's leader of the Free World (if God wills, insha'allah as the Arabs would say)