Posted by Alli (160.129.27.22) on January 21, 2002 at 10:55:07:
In Reply to: How can a girl resist? posted by Melody on January 20, 2002 at 23:46:27:
: I wonder why are there so many conservative people amongst us?
i have a hypothesis that so many of these people are really scared, perhaps traumatized (in a small way). it's the culture many victims seem to adopt... my dad isn't like them - he's not racist - but he does tell me to watch out who i talk about my heritage with (he warns me that non-Mid Easterners don't understand these issues so easily or well). even my mom, who's Finnish, tells me to watch out, b/c you never know what's on anyone's agenda or where their allegiances lie here... my parents get scared - my dad's been interviewed by so many CIA/FBI agents b/c he's a rocket scientist who, until very recently, used to be an integral member of the US-Japan aerospace-technology alliance - they'd interview him every time he left the country for conferences just b/c he was born & raised in Iraq. & our family has been threatened repeatedly because we live in a military town (Huntsville) with a lot of gun-toting, racist whackos. but all in all, it's not so bad... i think. there've been a few unexplained incidents that i prefer not to think about. besides, i have a few connections that i'm not afraid to pull if anyone tries to hurt my parents...
your story is fascinating! & i am a devoted Said fan! i don't think that i have ever felt discriminated against by Muslims, but i've only known Muslims who have immigrated to the US. i think that some of the "southern Arabs" i have met have a harder time dealing with the concept of Christian MidEasterners than the "northern Arabs." i don't have a problem with them, though. whatever floats their boats. it was kind of funny - soon after Sept. 11, i attended a discussion on "fundamentalism in Islam" at the request of a friend of mine heading the MESA here on campus. & it turned out that besides me, this (beautiful & brilliant; worked for the Palestinian cause before she came back to school) Coptic law student & a (very bright & handsome) Turkish undergrad, gave the panel a hard time (they were almost all giving the "Arab" world a bad name - there was only one man on the panel, an African Muslim professor, who was not bashing the MidEast - the rest of the panel was American - pro-US at all costs).