Or rather- Is Caring Out?
I found myself pondering that question this past week. Looking at this country’s shit-tastic economic state, the impending passage of an equally shit-tastic health care reform bill that will do more harm than good, and ironically (or perhaps not so ironically) the hipster culture that’s gone mainstream in America; it seems like a valid conclusion.
I attended a conference for PNHP (Physicians for National Health Program) two weeks ago, and I had the honor of hanging out with Dr. Margaret Flowers, a member of the PNHP Board. Dr. Flowers was one of eight doctors arrested at a Senate Finance Committee meeting last spring for protesting the exclusion of Medicare-for-All (single payer) advocates from the discussion. I remember wondering to myself if I could be moved to do the same if necessary. This doctor cared enough about her cause to put her degree and her livelihood on the line.
But Dr. Flowers and the like are an exception to the rule. A majority of Americans have seemingly abdicated taking any personal responsibility for what’s happening around them. Caring about society has become passe for a whole generation. Yeah, we have people fundraising and working on political campaign (Obama’s campaign is a notable example) but how many people are willing to put their careers and lives on the line? In the eminent social scientist George Lipschitz’s groundbreaking work Possessive Investment in Whiteness, the opening chapter describes the story of Bill Moore, a white postal worker from Baltimore who undertook a daring political action for the sake of civil rights in the 1960’s. Bill Moore was murdered by pro-segregationists as retailiation for undertaking that action.
Idealism is a powerful vehicle of radical change. But it only works if one believes wholeheartedly in it. If not for the brave actions of a few like Bill Moore, we would’ve lived radically different lives from what we have today. The longer we stay apathetic, the bigger of a hole we dig ourselves in. In recognizing that the problems of society at large filter down to the individual, we realize that self-centrism is inherently flawed: for, in the words of John Donne: “No man (or woman!) is an island”.
My opinion? Apathy is out.


Bones and Double Consciousness
Posted in arts, social commentary with tags religion on November 8, 2009 by SultanaBones, for those of you ignore your TV, is a Fox (Yes, that Fox) show that I happen to be a big fan of. It features a forensic anthropologist, Dr. Temperance Brennan (aka “Bones”) and her partner FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth. They find dead bodies, solve crimes, and mayhem, romance and violence ensue. It’s good stuff.
A few weeks ago, before the MLB World Series so rudely interrupted the Bones’ run of new episodes, the show featured a storyline about a Muslim character at Brennan’s forensic lab. In “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”, the team finds out that the Muslim character, Arastoo, is not a recent immigrant from the Middle East like they believed. See, the guy always spoke with a heavy Arabic accent, and one day he gets pissed off and that accent slips–to show his actual, American-as-apple pie upbringing. Why? Well, as he explains to a psychologist later, if he pretended to be an immigrant, his coworkers wouldn’t ask him to explain his religious beliefs and would simply chalk it up his “Islamic-ness” to being foreign!
It’s funny, interesting, and completely understandable. I’m shocked that a known culture-killing apparatus like Fox would actually aired a show like Bones in the first place–and this episode to boot. But hey, stranger things have happened right?
Anyway, back to the Arastoo character. I totally got where this guy is coming from. In some ways, being a complete foreigner in America is easy. No one expects you understand anything or have any allegiances to this country. No one questions your different style of dress, language, or belief. Yeah, it’s not a walk the park of course, but people have no qualms about what you represent: foreign-ness. Difference.
However, if you are an American- born or raised in this country- and speak flawless American English, it’s a whole different ballgame. You live the double life, an idea eloquently expressed by African American philosopher W.E.B. DuBois a century ago in The Souls of Black Folk in reference to the unique situation of the Black American:
It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
Double Consciousness. American and something else: in this case Muslim. You get questions: If you are a fully an American, can you be a Muslim? Why have you chosen to be different? Why do you believe differently from what what most “real” Americans believe? Where are your allegiances, and what is their order? Foreignness is easy to explain, but one of “our” own? Who are you?
As a Muslim American, you get to live out the above questions day after day, year after year. We straddle that seemingly widening chasm between the “Islamic World” (I use quotes because considering the huge numbers of Muslims living in non Muslim states like India and China, this is a problematic term to begin with) and the United States. Our very existence perplexes people–and the everyday stress of knowing that your allegiances, your faith, is constantly being questioned by everyone around you is draining.
We all cope in different ways. Some of us cover, like the Arastoo dude from “Bones”. Others of us make our Islamic identity come to the forefront. Others push it to the back of their minds. Many, many more of us struggle with it- day in and day out.
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