[ Thursday, February 09, 2006 ]
On the road to somewhere.The other morning as I was rushing to leave the parking garage, one of the parking attendants asked me if I was Yemeni. I can now add that to my growing list of nationalities that people mistake me as: Palestinian, Egyptian, Persian, Afghan, Bengali, Italian, Turkish, and Mexican.
Today, I wasn't as amused. It didn't help that my feet were killing me from the heeled kooseh that I had decided to wear, that I was hungry from fasting for Ashurah, and that I was running late for lab and still had to move my car for the stupid basketball game that got parking priority. As I walked with the parking attendant towards my car so that he could move the SUV that was blocking it, he asked, "How long have you been here?"
I inwardly groaned at the assumptions he was making, and replied that I had been born and raised here.
"Oh, and you're still Muslim?" he responded surprised.
"Of course," I replied, somewhat annoyed.
"I like Muslims," he said, and I suppressed the urge to give him a weird look. Instead, I asked him, "Are you Muslim?"
I didn't really understand his reponse: "I'm from Ethiopia, and we have both Islam and Christianity. It's not like it is here. They love us there." I wasn't sure who "they" were, and didn't ask.
"I love Muslims," he repeated, and I nodded and got into my car.
2 comments
2 Comments:
that's a really weird encounter. and his response? totally off-putting. who's they - Muslims or Christians? how about a simple, yes i am or no i am not. but the WORST part is, "oh, and you're still Muslim?" as if the only reason ppl are Muslim is because they were told to be so.
it seems to be that he might actually have been muslim.. because he says".. its not like here" .. I'm sorta assuming that you're in the US, and if you are, I'd say it'd be a pretty good assumption to say he's muslim. Altho he could just have spared us all the trouble and just said it out loud.
Having said that, even his silence about it is indicative of many things.. isn't it?
