Middle Tennessee State University Speech Addresses Arab-American Struggles
A visiting lecturer who discussed the struggles of being an Arab-American in a post-9/11 world was met with student support during his talk Thursday at MTSU.
Moustafa Bayoumi, a professor of English at the Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, discussed his book, “How Does It Fell To Be a Problem: Being Young and Arab in America,” during a lecture that lasted for two hours in the State Farm Room of the Business and Aerospace Building.
During the question-and-answer segment of the discussion, a man cited multiple international instances of Muslims persecuting and killing other religious groups and asked Bayoumi what the United States would be like if the majority of its citizens were Muslims.
Bayoumi acknowledged that some Muslims have been responsible for atrocities since the foundation of Islam, adding that some Muslims engage in acts of political and religious violence today.
“So does everyone else,” Bayoumi said.
Most in the audience applauded.
Bayoumi, who said he was in his home city of New York during the terrorist attacks of 9/11, added that he was disgusted by acts of terrorism and violence done in the name of Islam.
The man who posed the question left shortly after the event ended and could not be located for an interview.
Hicham Kadiri, a Jewish MTSU senior who was raised in the predominantly Muslim country of Morocco, said he thought Bayoumi’s response could have been far more pointed.
“For me, quite honestly, as someone who lived around Muslims, (terrorists) are not Muslims,” Kadiri said. “Those are just terrorists.”
Bayoumi’s lecture centered around the stereotype that all Muslims are terrorists and that, by extension, all Arabs are terrorists.
This stereotype is not usually imposed on Southeast Asians, Pakistanis or Indians, whose ethnicities contain greater populations of Muslims in the United States and worldwide, Bayoumi said.
Before 9/11, if the American public was asked to name a Muslim, people might suggest Muhammed Ali or Malcolm X, Bayoumi said.
After the attacks, though, Osama bin Laden became the face of Islam to most Americans, he said.
“How terrible is that?” Bayoumi asked.
Bayoumi cited questions about Muslims posed from 2002 to 2008 in The Washington Post’s annual survey.
The responses to those questions indicated that most Americans reported having hostile feelings about Arab-Americans despite not personally knowing any Muslims, Bayoumi added.
This finding was disturbing, Bayoumi said, because it suggests that many Americans felt negatively about a group of people they were not familiar with.
Additionally, there are communities of Arab-Americans that are Jewish, Christian and nonreligious, Bayoumi said.
Growing up and living as an Arab-American can make one a target for discrimination and violence, Bayoumi said, a consequence he focused heavily upon in his book.
“I think that’s a troubling place to be,“ Bayoumi said.
“Everybody has some kind of opinion about you.”
The Washington Post’s survey also indicated that people were less likely to have feelings of animosity toward Arab-Americans if they knew one personally, Bayoumi said, adding that he hopes civic conversation and interfaith dialogue can improve the life of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S.
Abram Abraham, a master’s candidate studying international development and globalization at MTSU who was raised in Egypt, said he was pleased with Bayoumi’s speech and the audience’s reception.
“The most important idea here is to understand others,” Abraham said. “You can’t generalize every idea.”
Christopher Merchant
The Daily News Journal