Growing up in a primarily white, affluent and suburban town, I stuck out. From what I brought to school for lunch from last night's dinner, receiving questions similar to "What are you?" and all of the Islamophobia-rooted jokes. I didn’t' mind explaining to people what my lunch consisted of or that I was Iranian and not Indian or Latina, but I didn’t realize what a huge impact some of the comments - that were deemed as jokes - I received had on the nationwide issue of Islamophobia.
When Osama Bin Laden was killed, I was in eighth grade and I walked into school and several people gave their "condolences." Their condolences followed with comments such as "I'm so sorry about your Uncle Bin Laden." Although some of you may find this funny, and as time passed it turned into a good joke to tell, it wasn't really funny at all. It stems from ignorance. Bin Laden was not an Iranian, he was born in Saudi Arabia in case anyone was wondering. And if you don't know the proximity of Saudi Arabia to Iran, grab a map and look.
As the years went on I got more and more jokes, people even asked me how I celebrated on 9/11. One comment that struck me as incredibly hypocritical was "Don't piss her off or she might bomb the school." This to me was an interesting statement because Muslims are not the biggest threat to schools and public spaces, white males with guns are. People make jokes behind backs such as "he's the type to shoot up a school" which is absurd to say in itself but they never say it to a white male's face because they're scared that they actually might do it. If I were to make a joke to a white male student saying "Don't shoot up the school" it would be seen as disrespectful to the recent victims, insensitive and somewhat racist. But why is it OK and humorous for people to make the same discriminatory jokes about Muslims to my face?
The truth is, I get stopped, checked,and patted down every time I go through airport security, and along side me is always another Middle Eastern looking person. And yes, this does give me a good story to tell which in times can be funny, but the fact of it is that its not. While I'm being pulled aside to be checked, everyone in line just watches and stares and this feeds into their belief that Muslims should be checked and profiled. No one stops and questions it, and I have no power to question it because I don't want to get detained.
But all of these jokes and comments that I got growing up and I still get today all fed and helped Islamophobia thrive to what it has become today, aka Donald Trump running for president and actually standing a chance. So to everyone who posts about supporting the Anti-Trump campaign and is against Trump for many reasons, think about things that you have said to me and other minorities that have only fed fuel to this fire and think about what you can do, besides re-post videos on Facebook, to undo the damage that you have possibly done.
