Non-Traditional Black & White Scarf = Terrorists Win

The CBC reports:

Dunkin’ Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring celebrity chef Rachael Ray after criticism from conservative U.S. bloggers over her choice of scarf.

Ray, while promoting an iced coffee, was wearing a black-and-white scarf, similar to the kaffiyeh, a scarf commonly worn in the Middle East. (Bold mine

Yes, that’s right folks, “similar to the kaffiyeh” not actually a kaffiyeh that folks wear over in the Palestinian region, but similar too.

Holly blogs:

Although I have to say I laughed out loud at the phrase “hate couture.” The thing is, if you look at the scarf Rachael Ray is wearing in that picture, it doesn’t even remotely resemble the pattern traditionally associated with the keffiyeh, which resembles an interlocking net or a chain-link fence. Look, here’s Yasser Arafat wearing one… a fairly iconic and well-known image. But Ray’s scarf doesn’t even have a regular geometric pattern on it.

Fuck Michelle Malkin and the right wing attack machine for attacking Rachel Ray and having their racist egos conflate a black and white scarf as akin to terrorism.  And, while I’m at it; forget Rachel Ray for apprporiating a culture and buying a scarf that “looks exotic and Arabic” but in actuality is just a scarf created by a corporation to mimic a keffiyeh.

I sport the actual PLO keffiyeh.  DOWN WITH ISRAEL!

Oh, and also.  DOWN WITH UPS! UP WITH THE TEAMSTERS! (Cause I’m also wearing my union jacket).

iArabs.com

Rebellious Arab Girl blogs:

This is an Arab news network (http:///www.iarabs.com) that takes articles from various Arab sites on the net. I guess I found it because I saw people linking to my articles from there. I joined and I love it.. Great place to read just Arab articles. I like it also because it is simple and clean and not cluttered like Digg and other sites!

a-Rab Magazine Launches

The blogger at no snow here writes about the launching of a new Arab American magazine:

The inaugural issue of the a-Rab magzine launched this weekend, and I can not wait to get my copy! I contributed an article that is actually an updated and better version of my blog post encouraging Arab Americans not to enlist in the military.

Right now the only way to get a copy is hand to hand on Berkeley’s campus, but check the website for an update on ordering online. The editors have also provided a free downloadable PDF of the issue, and each article is posted on the website.

Arabs Not Allowed

QArab blogs:

Last week the Knesset passed in preliminary reading a law that would require the Jewish National Fund (JNF) to allocate land that it owns only to Jews. Presumably this means that Jews who are not citizens of Israel would qualify, but Israel’s Arab citizens would be barred from access to land owned by the JNF.

An Arab School? Must Be One of Dem Crazy Jihadi Places!

Former Brooklyn High School of the Arts is becoming a high school that focuses on the teaching of the Arab language and of Arab culture. But of course with this comes “controversy!” Why controversy? Well because in the same phrase as “culture” and “school” comes “Arab!”

Oh hold on to your pants white folks! They’ll be jihadis running rampant in New York city and in our public schools!! Oh sweet Jesus! Imagine it! These Arab and non-Arab children actually learning about another (or their own) culture! And learning another language besides English! Another language besides English! Oh the humanity!

But seriously. What’s important to note here about this whole hoopla is the fact that for some reason when these right wing whackos and racists hear the word “Arab” they have to set up an organization titled the “Stop the Madrassa Coalition” when this school isn’t even a religious school. It’s a secular public school. They somehow stupidly assume that Arab=Muslim when the fact is that there are many different Islamic beliefs; Sufi, Whabi, Sunni, Shia, etc. and Arabs of different religions; Christian, Islamic, Catholic, etc. So for some reason they just automatically assume that Arab=Muslim when in fact it really doesn’t. Hell Muslim doesn’t even need to equal Arab since the majority of the world’s Muslims are Asian. Yet for most people Asian doesn’t equal Muslim (but anyways).

This is yet another example of white supremacy and institutionalized racism embedded within our society. In a society that is awash in white “culture” and white images and English it would be nice for an Arab family to have their child learn about their own culture and their own language and to get away from the imposing presence of whiteness which essentially destroys all semblance of culture in a non-white family within two to three generations.

I found out about this while watching Al Jazeera English on You Tube. One thing I found interesting was something Steven Emerson, an opponent of the school, said. In the report he says. “Oh I think it’s possible to teach Arab culture without teaching terrorism. I think that you have to be careful because history is always shaded by political views. I don’t think one is synonomous with the other but it requires careful delineation.”

Now the knee jerk reaction of this white male is to think that if there is an Arab school (not an Islamic school mind you) that it might be possible to teach Arab culture without teaching “terrorism” but that you have to be careful because somehow “terrorism” is embedded within the gene pool of Arab culture.

Not only is this wholly ignorant to the intricacies of Arab history and contemporary Arab culture but it gives us an opportunity to view what the other side really thinks about Arabs, Arab Americans, and the Middle East.

Image From:
Alkabi 1970

Channel 4 Spreads Hate

Lenin comments on a recent police investigation of a Muslim mosque in Britain after an “undercover” operation by a Channel 4 news team in Britain which aired footage of Muslim clerics allegedly preaching a Wahhabist view of Islam and hatred toward the West:

this particular programme ran into trouble because the West Midlands police decided to investigate their claims to see if anyone could be banged up over it. What the police appear to have found is that statements were spliced together to fundamentally distort what most of the speakers they quoted were actually saying. A CPS lawyer reviewing the footage agreed.

Naturally, the right-wing papers are whinging that the police should be ‘doing their job’, which as they see it involves arresting Muslims and spying on their meetings. The fascists are obviously howling with indignation as well. However, if the police are right, then Channel 4 is possibly guilty of incitement to racial hatred.

Hollywood, Iraq, and Darfur

Quuer Arab writes:

Vietnam had Jane Fonda… countless rock stars and actors spoke up… not this time. And I can’t help wonder wether it’s because Arab lives are the victim here. Arabs after all are supposed to be villains in the Hollywood mindset. Barbarians… Savages… Darfur was “cool” because Arabs were the bad guys… and Africans are the victims.. very chic.. nice contrast pics for Angelina and Oprah… not Iraq. No John Lennon benefit CD for the victims of US Occupation in Iraq…

Growing Up Texas-American

The blogger of No Snow Here writes:

The fact that the legitimacy of the existence of the United States of America is so rarely called into question (and usually then by indigenous activists or allies only) reveals a whole culture of denial, ignorance and collective memory loss. Sometimes I think about how I was proud to be American before I knew all these things. Like being in a basketball stadium full of people, all singing the national anthem with their hands on their hearts; my heart pounding, singing along, feeling so happy and proud. Needless to say, I’ll never feel like that again.

Japanese and Arab Internment

C.N. blogging on the Asian-Nation blog writes:

It’s not a surprise that the situation of Muslims and Arabs being detained without any direct evidence after 9/11 has been compared to that of Japanese Americans being imprisoned in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. In that context, neither should it be surprising that overwhelmingly, the children and grandchildren of those Japanese Americans imprisoned side with the rights of those Arabs and Muslims detained after 9/11

Mubarak and Elections

As’ad discusses Egypts refurendum in his blog The Angry Arab News Service:

Independent observers report a turnout of 2 or 3% in Mubarak’s referendum, and the official Al-Ahram has this headline: “Mass showing that surpassed expectations in the referendum on the constitutional amendments: citizens ignore the calls by the opposition for a boycott.” But then the same newspaper reports a turnout (in different regions) of: 20%, 21%, 24%, 29%, 40%, 23%, 35%, 29%, 30%, 20%, 20%, 15%, 25%, 21%, 55.6%, 60%, 19%, 30%, and 40%. So which is which, o Mubarak’s mouthpiece?

War Games Roll Call

Kameelah writes (incidentally, that’s the name of her blog) about the recent revelation that the U.S. military in Germany is seeking around 600 Arabs to partake in war games to train U.S. troops:

arabs are being asked to participate in the games to perfect the ritualistic deaths of other arabs, and also to be audience to these deaths in future iraqi night raids and air strikes.