This is not an article I wanted to write. It’s not something easy to write. But something has changed within in the past few days. That something has a name, and it’s Khalid Jabara. Khalid, a Lebanese Christian Arab was murdered by his neighbor after years of racism, and attempted harm. I didn’t write this as a way to vent hatred, but as a way to express the frustration all American Arabs (Christian, Jew, and Muslim) know to be true, that legally we may be considered white, but we sure as hell don’t have any of the privilege. His death hit me hard. This could have been me, it could have been my sister, or my brother, it could have been so many more people I care about, and that thought paralyzed me.

Growing up as an Arab in a post-9/11 America was not exactly the walk in the park you would expect it to be. People were racist, more often than not. I remember the first time someone called me a terrorist, I remember not standing up for the other Middle Eastern kid in my class because I was afraid they would turn on me to. I remember watching my mom come home in tears because her manager had spit on her and told her “go back to your country.” I remember so much, and this…this makes me understand just how lucky I was to only get insults and hurt feelings. The racism shown to my family has gotten significantly better as the years progresses, but once Donald Trump based his campaign of racist propaganda and slander, we once again became the enemy. I grew up being told that it was not okay for me to be proud of where I come from, that I was to put my race on the census, and legal forms as white, that I was not an Arab American, but rather a white American. But if I’m white then tell me this, how many times does a white person get searched at an airport, how many times did your father consider changing your last name to its English translation, how many times have you had to brush off a racist joke that stung like a bee. My name, my face, my personality, everything about me screams that I am a fraud living in this white category you placed me in. Not only do Arab Americans get treated as less than most other racial groups of Americans, but our cultural rights and identification amongst each other is being taken away too.

Khalid Jabrar was just another example of this. He would still be alive if he were white, oh wait he was, but no one saw him as white. His death hurts because he looks so much like my family members, his life is so similar to mine. This makes me understand better, what it is that the Black lives Matter Movement is fighting for, the only difference is that when an African American dies due to police negligence the media will talk about it for weeks, by tomorrow the name Khalid Jabara will probably be nowhere to be found in relation to media stations, because it isn’t just that we Arabs are white without the privilege, but that our lives simply don’t matter. We don’t matter. I don’t matter….Khalid Jabara’s death may be kicked out of focus in the following days, but I promise I will never forget. I will never stop fighting for his life to mean something, because it means something to me. From one Christian Arab to another, May you find peace brother, and may your family find the justice you deserve.