I was probably 10 years old, living in Texas, when I told a
grown up that I wanted to move to London and live there.
The grown up:
“It’s very racist there. You want to live somewhere with
signs saying “No blacks allowed?”
Me:
“You mean England’s not the mythical land of Madame George
and roses?”
Grown up:
“It’s the home of police who kill black boys on mopeds.”
Ok, so only the first part of that conversation
happened. I did not believe the grown up
anyway. I assumed this person was mistakenly referring to how in the 60s,
London was racist. But now it was the 80s, man! That bad news was history.
The last two lines of my “conversation” are from a beautiful Sinead
O’Connor song I heard years later called "Black Boys on Mopeds." It was written almost 30 years ago, but the issues are devastatingly similar to today.
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| The parents of Colin Roach seek justice in the death of their son, London 1983 |
And I’ve been hearing the same song in my
head since the 2016 Presidential election mayhem began, especially the line
“And I love my boy, and that’s why I’m leaving.
I don’t want him to be aware
that there’s any such thing as grieving.”
Once it was clear that Trump was
actually going to run as a candidate, I kept thinking to myself, “Thank God I’m
leaving.” But then again, I was going back and forth between being relieved to
be leaving and being terrified of leaving America, my home of nearly 4 decades.
So even though, as I mentioned here in a previous post, we began
our plan to move to Iran before the election campaigns even began, I’m so glad
I was able to leave America before Trump was elected. I don’t
think my already anxious brain could have handled any more escalation of that
racist poison so inherent in America.
The saddest part is, when I was a kid in America, it felt
like the whole world had already learned the lessons of the Civil Rights
Movement with Martin Luther King Jr., and the crimes of hatred and genocide through the
Holocaust.
Of course, as I and all the other little kids grew up, we
became aware that the world wasn’t really so much moving forward as much as
running in circles. Still, our collective imagination never anticipated that Donald
Freaking Trump would become the President of the United States! Well, we
thought about it and laughed, but it became serious fast.
I had an inkling that American politics was a sort of game
show anyhow. I’d heard that Ronald Reagan was an actor before he became the
U.S. President, but that was decades long ago, a time of classy black and white
movies, right? But THEN, when Arnold Schwarzenegger, The TERMINATOR, The
Freaking Kindergarten Cop became the Governor of California, it was clear that
yes, ANYONE could gain the approval of a large mass of people--if that ANYONE
was charming enough.
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| Notice a pattern here? |
Then came Bill Clinton. There was some talk about him
smoking weed and not inhaling and a so-called cool performance on the Arsenio
Hall show, but I didn’t notice much. I was too busy deciding to wear a
headscarf/hijab when starting high school.
I had become motivated by my inspirational friend, Farah,
when she told me about her decision to wear it when we started 10th
grade in Arlington, Texas. I was nervous, but thought, I want to try that too! I’ll not go into my experience here, you can read about it
here on my other older blog: Scarf Ace: Wearing a Headscarf in America. It was
obviously not easy, but for me, I ended up having a mini-nervous breakdown from
all the harassment I got. I stopped wearing it even.
Then many years later after I got
married, began to wear it again. It was easier at first that time. I could
stay at home instead of heading into the lion’s den of hell, er, high school
everyday. But it was still a struggle to wear hijab in America. I went through so much anxiety and by the
time we were preparing to move to Iran, I had become a shut-in, only going out
if I really, really, really had to. My attitude would go up and down, high and
low, but overall, my life was definitely negatively affected by feeling like an
alien in public. It didn’t help that we began moving a lot, and with me being
slow to warm up to new things, I never quite felt at ease in public again.
Of course, while Obama was the President, there was this
thin veil of comfort for minorities such as Muslim Americans, but I knew even
then, because of the endless stories about terrorism in the news, and the
horror of 9/11, being Muslim in America, especially being VISIBLY Muslim was
not going to get any easier for me.
So anyway, there I was sitting comfy in
Iran, watching DT get elected. PressTV ran
live coverage with several analysts.
On Facebook, I
made a comment about how a Trump presidency might be less destructive to the MidEast than a Clinton one, and a few people agreed, but then I had a
couple of people in the U.S. tell me that me sitting here so comfortable in
Iran made it unfairly easier to comment on the bigger perspective regarding
Trump and the society in which he rose to the top. Basically, since I no longer lived in America, mentioning any positive of DT was too convenient. Anyhow,
whatever the case, the American government has been killing and oppressing
Muslims in the rest of the world, so the logic remains as to why this same
injustice would not eventually come down to its own country’s Muslims.
"I've said this before now
You said I was childish and you'll say it now
"Remember what I told you
If they hated me they will hate you"
You said I was childish and you'll say it now
"Remember what I told you
If they hated me they will hate you"
Sinead O'Connor, "Black Boys on Mopeds."
As the newly elected DT now seems to be adding known Islamophobes to his team, and hate crimes have
increased towards American Muslims and Black people and other minorities, my
heart is heavy even all the way over here in Iran.
I
try to focus on the GREAT people who have always existed in America: the kind,
the compassionate, the gentle, the seekers of justice for all. They do exist.
And hearing about neighbors connecting and standing together, and vocal
opponents to the racist, bigoted, and violent side of the country is a
testament to the inherent truth and justice within us.
When it comes to defending the truth and
justice, it can obviously be a difficult, sometimes impossible task. The greatest example
we have is of our Imam Hossein (peace be upon him), who fought to the end
against this falsehood of power over the weak and the crimes against humanity perpetuated
by those who claim to be good and right, but are the worst of the worst, the Yazids, the oppressors, the tyrants of
every time.
Some people
may think I’m sitting easy here in Iran, but nowhere is perfectly safe. As
long as there are enemies of God, there will be injustice and pain in the
world. And
although it is true that the city of Qom is one of the gateways to heaven,
there are gateways all over the world. That is why God sent messengers to all
nations. The way to true freedom is out there yes, but mostly it is within us.
