Racism: We Are All Guilty
Whenever racism is discussed in the United States, the argument is framed within a “White versus Black” context, and for past few years the discussion is centered around police brutality and the extra-judicial killings of black men. But for me, Racism is a much more complex issue and there’s a lot of blame to go around. It’s not only the Police or the white people. Every person who is a shade lighter has been racist towards black people in one form or another. And as far as I know, the subjugation and enslavement of black people goes way back 1400 years. I’m sure if we go further in history, we’ll find more examples of enslavement and violence against blacks.
In my early education at St. Patrick’s High School in Karachi, in one of my compulsory Islamic Studies class, I learned about Bilal — the first black man to convert to Islam after he was freed from slavery by Abu Bakr, who negotiated terms of his emancipation on behalf of Prophet Muhammed. Anytime you visit an Islamic country and you hear a call to prayer, blaring out of a loud-speaker from a mosque, you can attribute it to Bilal. According to tradition, God revealed to him, all the words of “Aazan” or prayer call, to remind Muslims to pray.
Enslavement of blacks in the Arabian peninsula 1400 years ago wasn’t done by white people, but by Arabs. Yes, Arabs, who are a few shades lighter than blacks. The idea that a person with darker skin is some how inferior became an accepted theory in many civilizations throughout history. Blacks were free in kingdoms like that of Abyssinia where they had a majority. Unfortunately, even those kingdoms had a class system where poor and under privileged blacks were slaves. It was a common practice during the biblical times to own slaves, and unfortunately majority of these slaves were black.
There is a small population of blacks living in the coastal areas of Pakistan called “Sheedis”. They are believed to have come to South Asia along-with Arab armies during their quest to spread the message of Islam outside of the Arabian peninsula. At present, they live in the slums of Karachi and are deprived of equal opportunities. Growing up I noticed on numerous occasions that if one wanted to ridicule or insult someone, they would use the term “Sheedi”. As a naive 17 year old, I used to wonder why calling someone a “Sheedi” is considered an insult? I later realized being called black is a way to denigrate someone.
In South Asia, they sell beauty products to lighten skin like the well-known Fair and Lovely. The idea that light skin is better and beautiful was ingrained in everyone’s mind and an accepted norm. My late mother was half Baluch and half Pashtun, and was a fair skinned woman compared to my Indian immigrant father, who had dark skin. Growing up, on different occasions, I would hear the nasty aunties make nonchalant comments like “none of your kids took after you” when talking to my mother. Brazenly stating that neither I nor my siblings were fair skinned like my mother. If those aunties were to make comments like that today, we would call them racist.
Fast forward to the year 2000, two years after I arrived in the Bay-area and after I had shaved my head, I moved to San Francisco from San Jose. I was often profiled and looked upon as a “thug” or a “dealer”. There were several incidents where a police car would follow me for blocks under suspicion. Luckily, I knew that if I tried to speed-up or did anything deemed suspicious, the cops would pull me over. But there’s no question that had I been black, the cops would have definitely pulled me over. Another experience worthy of sharing is when the Mission neighborhood, where I lived, started to gentrify and all the fancy restaurants and cafes started opening up on every block, several out-of-towners started visiting the neighborhood. On one occasion, I was walking back from the gym, wearing a hoodie and as I came closer to the street I lived on, two white women who saw me, became terrified and quickly walked to the other side of the street. I was taken aback by their reaction as I frequently walked to and from the gym during late hours and never experienced that before. But then, this is what most black men have to deal with on a regular basis. And had I been black this incident would have gone from bad to worse in a few minutes.
After a few experiences like this in the liberal and progressive city of San Francisco, I truly understood what discrimination meant and I genuinely started empathizing with my black brothers and sisters. Prior to those incidents I had no “experience” that would have enabled me to wrap my head around what it meant to be Black in America. Unless you’re in that skin…the black skin, you can’t really understand Racism.
The 21st century Racism is subtle in most cases. As a black person, if you react to it, you’re seen as an “aggressor”. If you don’t react, it stays in your head and you keep playing that scenario over and over in your head, thinking how you should have or could have reacted in that situation. And in any case involving the law enforcement, especially in predominantly white cities or affluent neighborhoods, you can die for being black because you’re guilty, no matter what.
George Floyd’s murder is the latest in a series of extra-judicial killings of black people that was filmed on a smart phone. Will Smith once said “Racism is not getting worse, it’s getting filmed.” And I couldn’t agree more. Had it not been for that video, Floyd’s murder would be another statistics, which neither of us would have cared for. Most of us would have tuned it out while saying to ourselves “another black man who was up to no good” and “he should’ve known better.” This is a moment for all of us to pause and reflect, especially my brown people. Soon after settling in the U.S. our communities have looked down on blacks. And you know what I’m saying is true. It’s great to march with a “Black Lives Matter” T-shirt on, but let that sink in, for real and for good….Black Lives Matter. And to those who say “All Lives Matter” you sound ignorant because not all lives are being cut short by racists.
