Beacon Broadside

by Laila Halaby

During
graduate school, I worked at the library with an African American girl named
Carmon. One quiet Saturday morning, she
asked if I would mind trimming her hair. Carmon had handfuls of thin braids that she wanted layered in the back so there would be a cascading effect.

We sat
outside the library–our fifteen minute break–and I snipped away as
instructed.I was curious about the
texture of the braids and she explained that in weaving you could choose what
kind of hair you wanted, synthetic or human and that human hair was usually
Asian. When I wondered aloud why I
almost never saw braids on White women, she explained that Black hair was very
dry, which was why it was more suited to adding braids to than White hair that
tended to get oily.

Over the years, this conversation
evolved into a larger look at hair choices made by African American women and
what it meant politically and socially to have braids or an afro or dreadlocks
or to use a relaxer. I learned a great
deal about African American culture during those conversations (because it was
never only about hair) and I have always been grateful to Carmon for being so
open with me.

During
those same years, she asked me a lot of questions about the Middle East, about women, and particularly about Islam. I was happy to offer whatever knowledge I had
and was often struck by the overlap in what we each had to say: personal
decisions often carried larger social or political reverberations; and you are
always an ambassador for your culture. To
this day I am thankful for those years of talking we shared and I firmly
believe that we widened one another’s horizons with our conversations.

In the
intervening years, the last few in particular, I have been approached with all
sorts of questions about the Middle East and Islam–some of the very same ones
Carmon asked me, though usually presented in a rapid-fire sort of way, without
any context or conversation to go along with them. The questions range from the simple (why do
women cover their hair?) to the more complex (how can you tell the difference
between Sunnis and Shiites?–which sounds like it’s going to be a joke rather
than a question) to the personal (how are you raising your children?) to the
ignorant (does your husband wear a turban?) to the blatantly racist (how can
you show that Islam is not a violent religion?).  I am always happy to offer any understanding I
can to offset American “jahiliyya,” or generalized ignorance of other cultures,
but more and more I am struck by the assumptions that are made in the asking of
these questions, first and foremost that any and all questions are acceptable,
and second that Arabs/Muslims are almost solely governed by their ethnicity/religion.

It has been very difficult since
9/11 to be an Arab or a Muslim and not be forced to think often about your own
Arabness or Muslimness. Many times there
is a context, a conversation, but quite often there isn’t. Not long ago our mailman, Clarence, and I were
having a conversation about race. He
said that someone had asked him once how it felt to be the only Black man
working at the post office. “I thought
it was strange,” he said. “I was just
thinking about myself as Clarence working at the post office.”

Which makes me think there needs to
be a Dare I Ask? Book of Etiquette regarding Arabs/Muslims (or any Others).

It might only need to include five
rules.

Rule One: Pause first.

Rule Two: Ask yourself a few
questions: Do I want the answer to this
question or am I looking for an opportunity to share my own agenda? Would I be prepared to offer equally candid
information about my own cultural, ethnic, and religious practices?  How would I feel if this person asked me the
same question, except instead of Arab or Muslim, it was about Black or
Caucasian or Latino or Baptist or Hindu or Jew or Asian?

Rule Three: Rephrase if necessary.  Is there a context to your question?

Rule Four: Listen to what the
person is telling you and not just the sound byte answer.

Rule Five: Enjoy your conversation.

Most people are patient and truly
want others to understand their culture, but at the end of the day we Arabs/Muslims/Others
are just like Clarence, thinking/hoping, that our selves override the label or
stereotype that has been assigned to us. 

Laila Halaby is the author of Once in a Promised Land, which was named one of the 100 Best Fiction Books of 2007 by the Washington Post. Halaby was born in Beirut, Lebanon, to a Jordanian father and an American mother. She speaks four languages, won a Fulbright scholarship to study folklore in Jordan, and holds a master’s degree in Arabic literature. Her first novel, West of the Jordan, won the prestigious PEN Beyond Margins Award.