Racism

Lets start by examining what I have heard in Egypt over the last couple years on the subject, from my students, from my co-workers, from my host families, etc., in Arabic and English:

"There isn't anything like this racism in Egypt. As Muslims we believe that all people are equal and treat all people as equals."

"I think Black-African people are impatient."

"She hates Chinese people because they are always selling things."

"Egyptians respect foreigners more than they respect their own people."

"Muslims are good, Christians are good, but not Jews. I cannot love them."

"If a Black African has something bad happen to him in Egypt it is his own fault, he won't respect our traditions."

"Gulf people are arrogant, they think they are better than everyone else."

Ok so I have heard these things, I have seen religious, gender, and class conflict and discrimination, but racism I haven't been particularly personally confronted with. Of course there's always the small things like paying higher prices, being yelled at on the street, that differentiate me from Egyptians in a negative way, but that has never really annoyed me all that much, or really struck me as a supreme injustice.

Today the subject somehow came right up and slapped me in the face. Maybe I have avoided it before by not knowing that much Arabic or just hadn't been here all that long, I don't know, or maybe it really is as rare as my students would lead me to believe, I don't know. However, today I was a little late in my trek to work and metro rush hour is earlier because of Ramadan, leading to a ridiculous shoving mob/line for metro tickets. This nice man tells me in English that I can go to the woman's line (which is much shorter) for my ticket. I've never seen this before because I've never seen the metro so busy before I guess. I gratefully move over to the significantly smaller mob of women and am almost to the window when this woman starts speaking to me in Arabic. I didn't quite catch what she said except something about Arab. I take off my sunglasses, ask her to repeat herself and listen attentively. It seems she's telling me this line is only for Arab women. I incredulously look at her (I mean are you serious? People actually think and talk that way?) and ask, "feeh mushkillah?" (is there a problem). She assures me there is and stares me down, I can see other women looking at me at this point, no one's really jumping to defend me, so I give a kind of incredulous look and step back from the line. After a couple steps back I regain my spine and sense of justice and remember all the people I was proud of in American history for fighting against crap like this. I'm not leaving this line cause of one woman who has a problem sharing the ticket line with a non-Arab woman! Seriously! So I step back in front of her and she glares but doesn't say another word. I feel a strange mixture of depressed and proud. I feel perhaps a tiny fraction for a tiny moment of what must be felt by minorities in America their entire lives. Are people seriously wanting to deny me something or avoid me because I look different? You feel downtrodden and dirty and helpless but at the same time a need to fight it. How many times in history were people told they couldn't stand in this line or sit in this bus or drink at this fountain or be in this country because of racial reasons? How overwhelming is the temptation to despair that must accompany that?

So I make it to work and then, while finishing up Iftar (breaking fast), the subject of Jews comes up again. A says Jesus was from Palestine, there were no Jews in Palestine. My fellow teacher points out that Jesus was a Jew in Palestine. A says this is not possible, he hates Jews and he loves Jesus. "How could Jesus be a Jew? Jesus was a Christian right?" Umm no, Jesus was a Jew, only after Jesus were their Christians. Jesus being Jewish seems almost harder to stomach than Jesus being the Son of God "And Mary?" he asks. Yes she was a Jew also. "What?! But I love Mary so much! She was a Christian right?" No she was a Jew, and then maybe a Christian. We didn't even get into all the other prophets that were Jews. Where as he hates the American government but loves American people, this is not the case with Israel. He maintains that all Jews are evil, conniving land grabbers bent on Egypt's destruction. I'm no fan of the State of Israel, but you can still acknowledge the humanity and goodness of the Jewish race right? We argued this point for probably an hour before acknowledging the futility of it all.

So how do these things change? How will the world get to a point where these things don't exist? My students keep asking me if racism still exists in America. They thought it was gone, something of the past, but see it in movies. They hear about gang violence, about inequalities and ghettos but they don't understand this. I ask them if they think people will inherently discriminate against other groups of people, some say no, some say yes, some deny that Muslims would ever do this while simultaneously saying they think black people shouldn't be allowed to have the jobs that Arab Muslims want, because there aren't enough jobs for non-Egyptians in this country, while simultaneously telling ME, a blatantly unskilled foreigner, this and paying me to teach them English. Is there any amount of reasoning and attempts to open minds that will change someone's ideas about another group of people or that will convince someone they do not belong to the most superior group of people on the earth? Is there enough strength and hope and determination and unselfishness in the human race to combat this obvious weakness of our species? I pray with all my heart.