Advertisement Close
Menu
Arab America

Arabic 101

Arabic Word of the Day

Shami and Levantine Dialect

Arabic:

Bar-rah

English:

Outside

Play recording

AraBIT

Arab Trivia

Yogurt Yogurt can be traced back eight thousand years and is believed to have been discovered by accident by the Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula.

Copyright © 2024 Arab America

Go top

Man points to Arab American Muslim Women: ‘I don’t want them in my country’ #HummusHaters

posted on: May 26, 2016

With all the anti-Arab bashing we see in the news every week, Arab America is determined to expose those who discriminate against our community. We will recognize those who vilify the positive influence and contributions Arabs have made to the fabric of American society. And we will use hummus as our weapon. By naming those who vilify the Arab American community as #HummusHaters, we can express our culture positively while showing intolerance to bigotry.

BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer

On Monday, Andrew’s Ice Cream and Desserts in Orange, California became the site of bigotry when a man was refused service for the anti-Muslim and racist comments he made about Muslim customers wearing hijabs.

Nura Takkish, 22, and Malaak Ammari, 21, were enjoying ice cream at Andrew’s with another friend when the man walked in. He was allegedly uttering offensive comments about the American Muslim women to the cashier, who then refused him service. The cashier returned his $3 and he stormed out.

On his way out, the man pointed to the table where Takkish and Ammari were sitting and said, “You refused to serve me because you were serving them.”

The man added, “I don’t want them in my country.”

In the video, Takkish then says, “Too bad, we’re here. Sucks for you.”

The man responded, saying, “Sucks for me? You’ll see what happens,” while being escorted out by the cashier, who then closed the door on the man.

The cashier told the man, “If you’re not going to be nice, we don’t want your business.”

In an interview with Buzzfeed, the ice cream shop’s owner, Cynthia Ramsey, said the man had made offensive remarks about the women to one of their employee’s, Jessie Noah. It was the first time Noah had refused service to a customer.

According to Ammari, the employees at Andrew’s told the man: “We don’t tolerate this kind of behavior. We don’t tolerate this kind of discrimination. We don’t want your money,” before kicking him out.

Takkish and Ammari praised the employees at Andrew’s for not tolerating his bigotry. In an interview with KABC, Ramsey said: “Everybody should be loved and accepted. Everybody should be welcome here. This is a community hangout.” Ramsey is also an elementary school teacher, who says she always teaches children to speak nicely to each other, which are the same values she holds in her ice cream shop.

While this man is clearly part of the #hummushaters club, he’s not the only one. One peek at Nura’s Twitter account shows the many haters out there who agree with this man.

In the video posted about the incident, it is assumed that the man is a Donald Trump supporter because his rhetoric resembles the way Trump has spoken at some of his rallies. Recent studies have shown that anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry is higher now than ever in the U.S., which is why so many hateful remarks are being spewed at Arab Americans lately.

Ammari sums up this man’s perspective perfectly when she says, “We’re Americans, and he treated us like this is his country, his territory. No, we’re all welcome here.”

As strong as the Trump force is, though, there’s an even larger force of support by people who possess true American values of embracing tolerance and multiculturalism.

These Twitter supporters should start sending delicious hummus to this man by way of land, air, and sea. It’s clear he’s going to need a lot of hummus to cure his anti-Muslim beliefs.

Related content