As each day passes and my hair gets increasingly curlier with growth and my complexion increasingly darker with sun, my appearance inspires such fun, yet possibly problematic comments as, "Wow, you really do blend in." Or "You're looking especially Arab today, Tony." Or "When you came up behind me I thought it was another(...?) creepy Arab man." Of course, the racial ambiguity that leads to these sorts of double takes is a reality that I must deal with. Indeed, it's a reality that I sometimes take advantage of. For example:
About a month ago, I made a week long visit to Egypt. My (mis)adventures there were shaped by a number of interesting, amazing, fun, scary, and confusing experiences. One such example happened at an overwhelmingly large market called Khan El Khalil, a bustling haven for eager tourists. A combination of common sense and first-hand knowledge led to my discovering that I was being ripped off in nearly every single transaction that took place during the hours I spent here. However, when comparing prices for nearly the same items with my friends, I learned that they spent a great deal more money on these items than I had.
In one instance, I bought a small, glass hookah, complete with tobacco, coals, rubber hose, and two bowls for about 11USD. My friend, however, got a similarly small, glass hooka, with tobacco, coals, a fabric/plastic hose, and one bowl for about 23USD. Of course, in the states either of these prices is insanely cheap, but in Egypt it's a different story--chilling isn't a luxury, it's a way of life. Why the difference in price, you ask? Well, I'm neither a mind-reader nor an economist, but that reliable combination of common sense and first-hand experience I mentioned earlier leads me to think that it's because my friend is white.
So what did I do in the midst of one of my few experiences with a preferential racial treatment that grouped me among the benefited and not the exploited? I milked it.
When we went back to that market I told every salesman who detected my not so-subtle accent, subsequently asking where I'm from, that I was Egyptian. Why can't I speak Arabic? I live in the United States; I'm visiting family.
Now this isn't to say that all buys following the revelation of my newly acquired identity were cheap and easy. I still had to put up a bit of a fight, but I'm sure it wasn't nearly as fierce as my white friends.
While I understand how the manipulation of racial privilege is problematic and unproductive in all of its nefarious forms, perhaps even when its benefiting the historically oppressed, I just couldn't help myself. And honestly, I don't feel that bad about it. Not simply because I got my variously important tourist trinkets for a reasonably cheaper price than my white counterparts, but because the history of colonialism, exploitation, and oppression that continues to define so many people's lives is alive and real. It's nice to feel what it's like to be in the 'majority,' to bask in the various privileges associated with that status, despite the fact that my inclusion is ultimately an illusion. Nevertheless, as I walk around various places in this region, I feel myself abstracted from the various partitions that would ostensibly separate me from my Arab hosts. The sometimes insurmountable barriers of culture, ethnicity, language, etc. seem to crumble in the face of our phenotypic commonalities.
This imagined solidarity is most powerful when I walk in groups with my white friends. As we stroll carelessly down bustling Jordanian streets, eliciting stares, glares, and gawks with our difference, I emerge unscathed by the smiles or smirks that comb through my group of friends. Of course, sometimes my clothing and earring get caught in the fray, but everything else is invisible.
I suppose this new found invisibility is so powerful to me because of where I've grown up and gone to school. Memphis is a city defined in black and white terms, the end. And as for we folk who lay somewhere in the fuzzy gray areas of race, we are forced to choose our alliances. In Williamstown, a thoroughly homogeneous town in a thoroughly homogeneous region of the country, I stick out like a soar thumb. Strangers in both places usually assume that English is my second language and that my political commitments lie beyond U.S. borders. Here, people make the same exact assumptions, but they do so with a familiar ease and not an exotified apprehension.
Perhaps in the end what I've come to realize is that the bonds of hair texture, skin color, and facial structure are far more profound than those of culture, language, or politics. For some people that is. I don't usually count myself among those who think so, but it's been nice to do so, just for a little while.
I leave you now with a picture:
That's me. I'm the brown one next to the car.
LADY MARY:
