Who’s Yo Savior, Biatch!

February 8, 2008 – 1:52 am

A few months ago I was standing in line at the post office talking to someone on the cell and every now and then I used an Urdu word.

Sometimes when I speak Urdu, I say an English word with a FOB accent, especially if the conversation is funny. At the post office I was having most of my conversation in Urdu (a rarity), and then I pronounced the English word “Actually” as “Eckchully” because that is how South Asians speak English.

The guy in front of me was a Hispanic guy with three kids. He started talking to his kids, and they started snickering. I didn’t strive to hear what they were talking about, but they didn’t try to hide it.

I heard the words “Saddam Hussein” and “Al-Qaeda” and “Osama bin Laden.” Then the guy made some comment about Africa.

Great, I thought, a geography-challenged bigot.

My first thought, I kid you not, was this: that is not a white person, so it doesn’t matter. There is a reason why I hold white people to a higher standard.

Through most of my life, its been white people who’ve enacted most of acts of ignorance upon me, whether it was throwing molotov cocktails at mosques while we played outside, or calling me and my boys sand-niggers, or shooting at my family members after 9/11. So when a dude who was darker than me displayed the same kind of ignorance, and did so openly to his kids, I was a little confused, and wanted to let it slide.

But then he made the Africa comment. Read More »

By Ali Eteraz | Posted in Columnist, Society, north america, racism, south asia | Comments (12)

Super Tuesday: A Political Perfect Storm

February 6, 2008 – 5:41 am

As I recall, the term “perfect storm” was coined in New England in October 1991, when several storm fronts merged to spectacularly clobber the coastline.

Now, the American political system this year has a confluence of factors that have made this election cycle the most volatile in recent memory.

For the sake of clarity, here are what I believe to be the main issues (or storm fronts) at play this year:

1. For the first time since 1952 no sitting president or vice president operates as a presumptive nominee.

2. We have the first viable female candidate in the race in Hillary Clinton, whose First Husband would be the indefatigable Bill Clinton, and the first viable black candidate in the race in Barak Obama, who represents a new generation entering politics.

3. We have a compressed primary process manufactured to minimize the impact of first-in-the-nation strongholds Iowa and New Hampshire, creating a semi-national primary last night of 22 of our 50 states holding primary elections at once.

4. As a nation we’re antsy, worrying about the economy, the Iraq War, and the general partisan bickering that has kept our national leaders in the gutter for the better part of sixteen years. In 1994, we booted out seventy three incumbent Democrats, bringing in a freshman class of Republicans called the “Gang of 73.” These people deluded themselves into believing the vote was in favor of “them” rather than a repudiation of the incumbents. Republicans did not get the message, and now we’re ticked off about it.

5. The Hispanic community, soon to become the largest minority, is seriously flexing its political muscle.

OK, so the facts are out on the table, but what the hell does all of this mean? And what happened just now, on Super Tuesday? Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Current Affairs, election 08, north america | Comments (11)

Another Father, Gone Missing & The War

February 4, 2008 – 3:21 am

Dear Darling Readers,

These two poems are presented here together, because they are meant to compliment one another.

Mustapha Marrouchi is as glorious, and grave, as ever. It is a privilege to continue publishing his work, especially in these present, grotesque times.

I hope you appreciate. In fact, I know you will (I am arrogant, and hopeful, like that).

- The Editor

Another Father, Gone Missing

Her father,
goes the story,
is caught in a crowd of day laborers–
known to cluster at the driveway of the US Embassy in Baghdad–
and is swept into the back of a truck,
mistaken,
perhaps,
for a subdivision carpenter,
someone grimly determined to support his family.

The stocky men in the truck are cheerful and talkative,
and they motor up a smooth road into the hillside
where a severe beating occurs. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, poetry | Comments (2)

Just Shut Up and Drive Into a Wall Already

February 2, 2008 – 9:26 am

Of all the indignities one has to suffer on account of being publicly female, nothing irks me quite as much as being screamed at from of passing cars. Or so is the case as of late, anyway.

Harassment by random jerks is, of course, nothing new.

It happens on Internet forums. It happens to children - sometimes with terrible consequences (and lingering questions as to what, exactly, can be done about such phenomena). Even record companies are not above harassment nowadays, or so I’ve read.

Yet, what I hate about drive-by harassment in particular is how bloody cowardly it is, and how unnerving for the victim it can also be. There’s nothing quite as easy and consequence-free as rolling down your window and shouting something malicious at a startled pedestrian before speeding away.

I’ve traveled enough to know that this sort of thing happens everywhere - from sleepy suburban subdivisions in the Bible Belt to cosmopolitan cities in Muslim countries to the parking lots of upscale shopping malls in the heart of Europe. Here, there, and everywhere, the common denominator seems to be gender: the perpetrators are usually male and their targets are usually female.

My love of travel combined with my love of walking results in the fact that I often get shouted at in languages I don’t understand. This creates an entirely new dimension of creepy. What is the guy saying?

“Hey sexy, lookin’ good!”…?

“Your visible elbows are offensive to me!”…?

“Dear God, I’ve just discovered an enraged king cobra under my seat, please do something!”…?

I may never know. Read More »

By Natalia Antonova | Posted in Columnist, Society, feminism, humor, women | Comments (6)