Racist

I am really unsettled by this creeping racism of mine.

Working in ESL, where you meet lots of people from specific populations, you're always right on the knife edge of doing racist shit. You start to notice trends and comment on them. Koreans do this, Brazilians are like that. But the way I am with the Saudis, man, I have never been like this before.

We started getting the Saudis about a year ago, they were a small percentage of the student population. They came, and still come on full ride scholarships from the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission.

And it's not like I hate them. Some of the Saudi people who came here through SACM have become true and very dear friends, and some of them were beloved students whom I miss very much now that they've moved on and some, particularly some women, were incredible role models and sources of information who really opened my mind.

But being racist is very rarely about hating all the people from one culture. It's about a prejudice. And that's what I have. Even though I love some Saudi people I know very deeply, I don't like Saudis. I don't want them in my class and I don't want to deal with them in general.

They infuriate me.

Before I even meet them, I judge them. All I need to see is an "Al" last name, and I assume the person is going to be entitled, selfish, boorish, hypocritical, disrespectful and lazy. And when I hear that someone in school has done something terrible, I just assume that they are Saudi. When a teacher comes to me with a problem with a Saudi student, I don't spare a minute to consider where the student is coming from,. I just think "Fucking Saudis."

I do not like this.

Good question, Saudi Tourism Commission. 

Saudi Arabian students are now 70% of our student population. Most of the people I talk to in the course of any given weekday are Saudi men.  I am either having a -usually strained - conversation with a Saudi man, hearing someone else's complaints about a Saudi man or complaining about one myself for a big chunk of the pie chart of my day. Sometimes it feels like Saudi-man related discomfort is taking over my life.

Like most racism, it's hurting me, the prejudiced person as well as the victims. I try not to let my racism show, but I slip up all the time. I share my bitter narrative about Saudis with people outside work and even with Saudi friends.

A few weeks ago, at a meeting, I made a joke about calling Homeland Security on a student I really dislike. Some brave person in the meeting said "I don't like being this person, but that is not funny and it's not ok." She was so right and I'm so ashamed. I can't believe I told a racist joke at work and had to be called out by a much more thoughtful person. How did that happen?

I'm still embarrassed just thinking about it. I do not like what my nasty prejudice is doing to who I am.

I don't know how to undo this racism. I really try not to globalize the problem that I have with individuals. I try not to hold past bad experiences with Saudi people against new Saudi people that I meet. I try to stop myself when I think, or worse,
say "fucking Saudis."

But I get carried on the wave of anger. In the moment, it feels very good to vent about "them."

This reflective aftermath, though, is not a good feeling.

Advent Things

Walking to church all bleary eyed from my bustraveganza this week, I passed a bunch of stores having holiday sales, and I was feeling pretty cynical. I know that it is cliched to be bummed out by the commercialism of holiday time, but it was happening anyway. Usually I'm too excited about all the white lights and tradition to get bogged down. 

Back around behind Macy's there was a holiday display of some old timey white carolers in Dickens bonnets with little o-shaped mouths and hymn books and sitting in the display taking the kind of rest that isn't entirely willful was a very tired woman. 

On Broad street, some people were hauling faux-pine garlands out of the back of a truck to put up on the union league building, and that didn't feel great, either, for some reason. 

About halfway through the second song at church, the brand new lights went out, and we were all in not uncomfortably cold darkness singing and hearing about loving our enemies. People told about how they did it and how they couldn't do it, and everyone was humbled by the roughest of Christian mandates. We were encouraged to light a candle and say a prayer for an enemy, or if we couldn't bring ourselves to do it, to ask someone else to pray for them. 

There was something about all the enemy candles glowing in the semidarkness that brought my advent feeling round.