In the words of Ani DiFranco, “I am 32 flavors, and then some,” and in the words of former Chronicle columnist Faran Krentcil, of these 32 flavors, “bitch” is the tastiest… though not the most constructive.
While at Duke, I have been mean and I have been bitter. I have protested. I have attacked. And in many ways I have added to the divisiveness of this campus.
My high school counselor once described me as a person who “forces us to focus on those things that others walk by.” As a writer and as a journalist, I consider myself first and foremost a friend to the disadvantaged.
In an echo of Che Guevara’s message, “If you tremble indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.”
It has hurt me in recent weeks to see that the Jewish students who could once take off their yarmulkes—those who have been able to define themselves as more than just “Jewish” on this campus—are no longer able to because their identity as a Jew at Duke is the first thing others notice about them.
It has been the first thing I have noticed as well. For this, I am horrendously ashamed. It used to be the woman in pearls who worried me, and now all I see are the black and white titles of “Arab” and “Jew.”
Growing up Iranian-American in white, suburban Orange County, and then going to a college that I, myself, have described as whitewashed, it has become painfully clear to me that I cannot take off my racial-yarmulke; because my race, whether I want it to be or not, is obvious.
At age 5, I had my first brush with racism. My next-door neighbor Megan and I went to kindergarten together. She became my best friend. As innocent as she was, she had learned to hate on the basis of race. And at age 5, she directed this hatred at me.
Megan taught me many things. We played on the monkeybars together; I gave her my snack sometimes. She invited me to her birthday parties; I invited her to my slightly-more ethnic ones. Yet, the most vivid memory I have of Megan is the bitter dissatisfaction that she left. I just wasn’t good enough. And I soon realized that I could never be.
Megan insisted that I abandon my Persian heritage and adopt a more “American” self. She asked that I stop speaking Farsi and that I no longer associate with my grandmother because momon-joon wore hijab. Megan also asked that I trade in my beloved rice and kabob for what she called “normal” foods: hamburgers, pizzas and tuna casseroles, and she asked that I dye my hair blonde so that I could be “beautiful.”
At age 5, I conceded to Megan’s demands. She even made me do a schoolgirl-like pinky-swear. My devotion, though, did not last. I am overwhelmingly ashamed to admit that, as a 5-year-old girl, being a friend to someone who was white was more important than being myself.
In a world where to be white is to be beautiful, why is that to be black is to be violent, to be Jewish is to be privileged and to be Arab, or Persian, is to be backwards or “barbarian”?
Years later, it is the words of another best friend that ring through my mind, as she reminds that racism, even at Duke, is universal:
“Why should we have to take off our yarmulkes to fit in?”
At age 5, Megan saw me as “brown” and “backwards” before she saw me as “friend.” When Jewish students first approached me about the Palestine Solidarity Movement conference earlier this year, I told them that I know what it is like to constitute a visual minority in this country and on this campus, and that they do not. In my column, “My people,” I challenged Jewish students to spend one day as an Arab or Muslim before they claimed disempowerment in the United States and at Duke.
In the aftermath of PSM and Philip Kurian’s column “The Jews,” I have come to the sad realization that the Jewish community of Duke has also become a visual minority on campus. What’s more, I realize that I have misunderstood Duke’s Jewish students and that they have misunderstood me.
In assuming that the Jews of Duke can take off their yarmulkes, I have made the same mistake that Megan did in assuming that I could abandon my way of life to adopt hers.
On a campus so powerfully divided by racial lines, to love “my people” has come to mean hating the Jewish people. In the words of a better best friend, I want to remind Duke students, You don’t have to take off our yarmulkes. In a break from my past self, I will love my people… and yours.
Shadee Malaklou is a Trinity sophomore.
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