SIX RIGHTS THAT EVERY HUMAN BEING DESERVES AND SHOULD FIGHT FOR
written by Sabina England

Poetry is Dangerous

Kazim Ali
 
On April 19, after a day of teaching classes at Shippensburg University, I went out to my car and grabbed a box of old poetry manuscripts from the front seat of my little white Beetle and carried it across the street and put it next to the trashcan outside Wright Hall. The poems were from poetry contests I had been judging and the box was heavy. I had previously left my recycling boxes there and they were always picked up and taken away by the trash department.

A young man from ROTC was watching me as I got into my car and drove away. I thought he was looking at my car which has black flower decals and sometimes inspires strange looks. I later discovered that I, in my dark skin, am sometimes not even a person to the people who look at me. Instead, in spite of my peacefulness, my committed opposition to all aggression and war, I am a threat by my very existence, a threat just living in the world as a Muslim body.

I thought I should share this, this was a statement released by SALDEF (The Sikh American Defense and Education Fund):

On Friday March 30, 2007 at around 3:00pm, Mr. Kuldip Singh Nag, a Sikh American who was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in the U.S. Navy during the first Gulf War, was at his home in Joliet, IL when a local police officer noticed that a van parked on Mr. Nag’s private property had expired registration tags. Upon being confronted with this, Mr. Nag’s wife, Vera Kaur Nag, informed the officer that the van is parked on their driveway and was inoperable.

Mr. Nag then came outside to answer the officer’s questions regarding the van. The Joliet police officer then demanded that Mr. Nag park the van inside his garage and not on the driveway, to which Mr. Nag responded to the officer that it was not possible and that regardless, the van is parked on his private property and he has a right to park it on his driveway.

At this moment, the officer pulled out his pepper spray and attacked Mr. Nag. As Mr. Nag screamed in agony, the officer removed his baton and violently struck Mr. Nag numerous times until he fell to the ground. While the assault ensued, the officer was reported by both Mr. and Mrs. Nag as saying, “You f****** Arab! You f***** immigrant, go back to you f****** country before I kill you!”

Mr. Nag’s wife and six year-old child both witnessed the violent assault, which resulted in Mr. Nag immediately being admitted to the hospital where he stayed for five days due to complaints of intense pain and head trauma. Mr. Nag also received numerous bruises and a serious head injury which have caused him to go blind for several minutes at a time.

Now the whole world is agog with abject fascination and horror at the Imus debacle – as if he never said a racist remark before – and yet I avoid the whole subject like a treatise on 1950’s air conditioning unit repair. Why?

On September 12, 2001, I was walking across campus to my Politics and Film class when a guy bumped into me, sent my books scattering across the tarmac and then called me a raghead.

Since then, I’ve been subjected to similar forms of racial epithets, even though I’m not Arab (I’m of Indian descent). My fellow Muslims have faced similar reactions from Americans, most notably white Americans, who seem to think that anyone with brown skin is a potential terrorist.

We’ve been through this discourse before. Islamic Horizons, ISNA’s magazine, had a recent article about it. We call it by different names: Islamophobia, xenophobia, racism, and so on and so forth.

I call it ignorance.

On both sides.

These caveman Geico commercials are fantastic critiques of racism.

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On Eid al-Shukr, We thank God for the nourishment he has provided us and also thank God for the strength to act against injustice with our hands, our voices, and through prayer.

As a community, I suggest we work with Native Americans to ban racist Sports Mascots. Through grass roots activism, Native American groups were able to persuade the NCAA to ban the use of racist mascots and team names. Their activism provides an admonishment to us and a good example.

Sunday's UK Observer had a good story about ethnic and religious polarization in France, which provides a useful context in understanding the current fuss over Zidane's red card.

It's hardly surprising that more right-wing elements of the press would come down hard on Zidane's head-butt; one has to find racial epithets and religious stereotyping objectionable in the first place to understand how upset the guy must have been. 

Folks, I'm with Ali on this one. We need to show our support for Zidane.

The idea that he has somehow "damaged" his legacy, currently being spread by thousands of gadfly reporters (such as the one here) simply drives me up the wall.

Racism has polluted the spirit of football for too long. Perhaps everyone can learn something from all of this, and instead of pointing a finger at Zidane, look inward.

Somehow, racism seems to come with the territory. Somehow, it's still "OK" to call the opposing team's players "monkeys," "rag-heads," and so on.