I'm an Arab-American woman in my forties. If it matters, which it shouldn't, my Arab ancestors have been Christians since before the Church of Rome. But I have a funny last name and lots of dark-skinned cousins. Therefore I have an insider's view into anti-Arab racism in this country. This latest slur against Helen Thomas has me steaming mad.
When some right-winger
slurs Helen Thomas and links her to Arabs, or Islamic extremists, s/he is attacking those of us Americans who have any Arab blood in us at all. This is not about anti-Islamic or anti-Muslim sentiments post 9/11. This is about racism.
Helen Thomas is indeed an "old Arab" as Ann Coulter so famously labeled her. She is also a Catholic born in Kentucky. And she is eighty-five years old. Now if she were a Muslim born in New York City, she still wouldn't deserve to be the brunt of ad hominem attacks.
Let me be clear. Ms. Thomas' religion (and mine) should not be the story here. Sixty percent of Arab-Americans are Christians. When people like Rep. King or Miss Coulter attack us for our Arab ancestry, conflating our ethnic origins with a religion not our own, we tend to roll our eyes and shrug our shoulders. We don't have anything to do with Osama Ben Laden, any more than somebody named O'Connor or O'Malley would. But we are Arabs and we know that this bashing includes us. Most Arab-Americans I know tend not to say - don't pick on me, I'm a Christian - because this would be unseemly and unfair to Muslim-Americans.
The nature of the recent remarks just exposes the ugly, racist, bigoted nature of anti-Arab discourse in this country.
These slurs don't really arise from fear of religious extremism. My Lebanese Christian family suffered murder and mayhem at the hands of extremists during the Lebanese civil war. I am personally concerned with and affected by extremist violence.
No, the remarks of Rep. King and Miss Coulter are simply the hateful Arab-bashing of moronic demagogues seeking to gain points with their sheep-like audience at the expense of a minority group that has little power in this country.
If you are Jewish you should be concerned about this in particular. You think all those Arab-bashers like Jews any better? Not likely. If you are Italian, Greek, Irish, Latino, or Asian, you should be paying close attention. (If you are African-American you get it already, I'm quite certain.)
Trashing one "old Arab" woman makes this country less safe for all "old women" of color/ethnicity.
I am proud of Helen Thomas for blazing a trail for women and for Arab-American writers. I am angry at the continued attacks on her for her looks, her age and her ancestry. As an Arab-American woman in middle age, I stand up and shout - I'm here, I'm an Arab woman, I'm proud of it, get used to it.
See my blog for similar thoughts, and a picture of myself with my gray hair.