A couple of days ago, I took an Uber from a beauty store in Port Chester to a train station to catch the bus back to my school. Now, usually Uber drivers are quiet - not engaging in conversation but today, mine was talkative. I didn’t mind though, our conversation is the kind of conversation that is needed now. It was honestly one of my best experiences that I just had to share it because I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
I happened to get an Iranian driver who is Islamic. Skipping the small talk, we started to talk about education and I told him that I was a Journalism major. After telling him that, we started to talk about the news and of course, what was brought up was the immigration ban. It was going to end up in this kind of conversation and that’s when he told me that he was Iranian.
His concerns are the concerns of many Middle Eastern in America, that he won’t be able to go home for 90 days or if he would ever be able to go home. He didn’t know if he would ever see his family again and it bothers him. He had, sadly, admitted to me that America wasn’t what it stood for anymore. He still expressed his curiosity about America as he has been here for a while, writing down words that he didn’t understand to look it up when it gets home.
What hit me the most was that he was more upset that people were misguided about Islam and he doesn’t understand the “war” with it. He wished that people will try, even a little bit, to understand the religion and that it isn’t what is shown on the TV. That the religion is not a “terrorist religion”, it’s just a religion.
Here we were, two different people discussing a problem with a simple understanding. It didn’t matter that he was Iranian or Muslim, it didn’t matter that I was American and grew up with both Christianity and Hinduism. All that mattered was that we agreed on something that devalues the point of America.
It also made me chuckle a little bit because I realized that an oppressor cannot understand the feelings of the oppressed. If I was to have this conversation with some students at my school, I would’ve caused an all out cat fight. I have got into heated discussions about oppression and the problems with people at my school about it. It’s ironic how some remain to keep a blind eye to the problems in this world.
