Brand Islam

I started fasting today for Ramadan and so far I’ve had a few people already say to me, “You fast?”  Indeed, I do fast and yes, I am a Muslim. I get this a lot because I present as a Westerner and that doesn’t tend to follow the brand of Islam that is portrayed in the media.

So let’s talk Brand Islam, i.e. the one created by Western mainstream media. Now, I’m not going to get into the horrible nature of the media that portrays Muslims as barbaric and/or silly Arabs who would kill you if you broke their nail. Instead I’m going to tell you some fun facts about myself, and I hope you’ll read them and think “Oh look, diversity within a religion of 1 billion people, who would’ve thought?” and not “Yeah, but you’re not a real Muslim.”

1. ‘Real’ Muslim women wear hijab, niqab or burqa

If you go to my about page, you’ll see that as long as it’s summer, I’m wearing shorts, tank tops and letting my hair fly. It’s not because I’m “liberal” or “Western”; it’s because the hijab was never a part of my life or culture. It was there, but I never even considered wearing one outside of a masjid or mosque. Besides this, the fabric won’t stay on my head so, you know, there’s that. Please don’t assume I’m not Muslim because I don’t wear hijab. Hijabis, please don’t act uppity. Non-hijabis, please don’t act like you’re somehow more educated than anyone else. It’s a cultural garment. Get over it.

2. ‘Real’ Muslims don’t drink alcohol.

I drink alcohol. It’s forbidden in the Q’uran. For me, it’s kind of like how shellfish and pork is forbidden in the Old Testament – I don’t really care. As a Caribbean person, it’s admittedly a part of my culture to drink a little bit – not that everyone drinks in the Caribbean; diversity and whatnot. It’s a bit like how drinking beer is part of Canadian culture. Anyway, again, this doesn’t make me any less Muslim. There are plenty of people of other faiths who don’t follow their books word for word but they are still of their religion.

3. ‘Real’ Muslims don’t eat pork.

I actually follow this one, but it’s not actually because pork is Satan chased into the sea or some other story like that. It’s also not because it’s unsanitary, a breeding ground for viruses etc., etc. I grew up in a Muslim family and we simply never served it. As a result, I have no desire to taste it or eat it nor have I ever. Strangely enough, I am repelled by it; I won’t consciously cook and eat from a pan that’s cooked pork and I won’t allow my friends to eat it when we go to the Korean Grill.

4. ‘Real’ Muslims worship Mohammed and believe the Q’uran was written by God.

First of all, we don’t worship Mohammed. There’s a tendency to liken Mohammed to Jesus but one of the tenets of Islam is to abstain from idolatry. Only worship God. Personally, I don’t really like Mohammed all that much. I do think he was progressive for his time, being a feminist and mostly a pacifist, but he’s not progressive for mine. And I don’t follow hadiths (stories and lessons of the Prophet, not part the Q’uran) because they aren’t the actual words of God and honestly, letting a 6th century male from halfway across the globe tell me how to live just doesn’t seem practical… or legal.

I also don’t really believe the Q’uran was the direct words of God spoken through Mohammed. I get that he was illiterate and he repeated it word for word each time he recited it and blah blah blah but it just doesn’t seem right to me. I couldn’t possibly explain why; I just don’t believe. Which a few of my more Western friends will tell me means I decidedly am not Muslim, but I know Catholic atheists so let’s move on.

5. Muslims are brown Arabs.

This really isn’t even worth discussing but it is a part of Brand Islam. Let’s get through this one quickly. I am:

A Canadian citizen

A Guyanese national

An ethnic Indian

I am brown, so that fits I suppose. But really, religion isn’t about skin colour. Don’t be silly. Also, since it is a religion of 1 billion, Islam obviously isn’t homogenous. We even have our own inner-issues such as racism, which wouldn’t much be possible if we all looked like Aladdin.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Obviously I don’t mean to say all Muslims are not Brand Islam or vice-versa. We’re people, too big a group to have any sort of reputation management. I only mean to say Islam is a religion, not a culture or a set of strict rules. And like other religions, some people are institutional and some people are spiritual. We have our agnostics, devotees and don’t-really-cares and we have me. I don’t know where I stand before the eyes of the Lord, if s/he really does exist and quite frankly, I don’t really care. I do what I do because it feels right for me, not to me. As it harm none, do as thou wilt.

Yeah, I ended my post with a pagan saying. And what? Feel free to comment on other aspects of Brand Islam as I couldn’t possibly list them all here.

“Modern Television Racism” or “Dear Kunal Nayyar, please leave The Big Bang Theory”

Please note: This is not an academic paper. It’s a blog post. Some ideas you will not agree with. Some of you will say this is poorly written to which I will agree, it is poorly written because it is more an emotional piece (me rage-crying for equality) rather than an argumentative one.

People seem to be assuming that the only problem with hipster racism in shows like Girls is the lack of diversity in the cast. But for me it’s something different, it’s the idea that it is normal for the white people in shows like Girls, Friends (to harken back further), The Big Bang Theory and HIMYM not to know or have any friends of colour. For instance, many people say “there are so many POCs in New York, why are there none in Girls?” I agree with this question, not because I think they should throw in some token POCs but because, unless you’re in some magical fantasy-world (your fantasy apparently not having space for POCs), you, as a New York resident, interact with POC on a daily basis. So it’s not that people want to have their colour shown in order to be more represented (although POCs are disgustingly underrepresented; it seems to be 1 POC per every 3-4 white people is the safe amount) for the sake of being seeing someone they can relate to or images of themselves, it’s that in not representing a POC in an environment in which one would obviously see one, the writer(s) of such shows is consciously denying the existence of POCs in the environment where in reality, they are! The writer is essentially saying “They are there in real life, but this is TV and no one wants to see POCs.” And why would it be so strange for some white people to have some friends of colour in the first place? You know, other than the fact that once television characters seem to have friends of colour, they think they have license to be racist, thus making no POC want to be friends with them for an extended amount of time. You know, other than that. That to me is the problem with much hipster racism today. Btw, how many times did I just use the term “POCs?” Jay-sus!

There’s also the idea that having one POC equals having covered all your bases in terms of diversity. I.e. having a Korean means you don’t need to have Black person or having an Indian means you can forego any other ethnicity outside of White.

And finally, there’s the hood-pass. For me the most insulting and horrific aspect of hipster racism. I call it the hood-pass because, as any educated person would tell you, there’s no such thing. The hood-pass is what the media likes to call a white person who is “cool” to POCs. Who can get away with dreds or making racist tweets because it’s “ironic”; it being ironic because they have a Black friend or because “racism is over.” Of course, no one POC can issues a hood pass because no one can represent an entire community’s opinion. Amazing revelation, isn’t it? So no, no one has a hood pass. Now onto how this applies to television. Show writers generally seem to think that if their characters have a POC friend, they can make racist jokes and, it’s cool because they are still friends. Newflash, sweetheart, no POC would remain your friend if you keep insulting his/her culture and making dumbass jokes – unless of course, that person is self-hating or an apologist of some kind, in which case why are those few people the only ones portrayed on television?

To further elaborate on these ideas, I’ll use the example of Indians and Raj on The Big Bang Theory, something which my friends know drives me crazy. First off: The presence of diversity in The Big Bang Theory. Having watched most of the series (perhaps missing one or two episodes), you (writers, casting director, whoever) mean to tell me that after years living in an urban California centre, this group of people have only ever met Indians? Actually? Or perhaps they have met people of other races, but not one person in them could amount to becoming a friend or a reoccurring character? Never mind the fact that the only reason they met any Indians in the first place is because they are related to their one token Indian friend, Raj. Apparently, the characters live in an ethnicity bubble that only Raj has managed to penetrate and remain in, perhaps because of the hood-pass?

Yup, Raj offers up a huge hood pass for the characters to make fun of him as they wish. I think perhaps Leonard is the only character who doesn’t make comments about his ethnicity and stereotype him but I could be forgetting instances or completely wrong. Let’s first use Penny, who seems to be disgusted by Raj’s indianess. Forget the fact that he’s the most attractive member of the entire cast (that could just be me); Penny makes it pretty clear that having sex with Raj is disgusting. Now that would be fine if we could say that she hates the idea for a reason other than his ethnicity, but I don’t think we can. If it were Howard, we could say she was disgusted because of his misogynist comments or explicit come-ons from earlier seasons, if it were Sheldon we could say she was disgusted because he is unintentionally rude and arrogant, but Raj has no social issues other than not being able to speak to women unless drunk which is hardly a disgusting quality as long as he doesn’t drink. So the only difference between him and Leonard, who can speak to girls but doesn’t seem able to actually say anything that would make him severely different from Raj, is that Raj is Indian. Not to mention Penny makes comment such as “Oh God, did you pull some weird Indian crap on me?” and her friend equates “shagging a little Indian boy” with bestiality. Maybe this is the reason he can’t seem to get a girlfriend? Or is it because the Big Bang Theory writers have decided to perpetuate a tradition of making men of colour effeminate (as problematic as that word is, I’m using it only in reference to a media tradition) in order to lessen their threat of being protagonists or dirtying white female bodies by being love interests for them.

Then of course, there’s Howard, who, by virtue of being Raj’s seemingly only friend (Sheldon and Leonard hardly ever seem to speak to him) and Jewish, gets to make as many racist jokes as he wants. Here are some examples:

Howard: Actually, Indian Monopoly’s just like regular, except the money’s in Rupees, instead of hotels you build call centers, and when you pick a chance card, you might die of dysentery. Just FYI, that was racist.

Here we have Howard saying something racist, but pointing it out. Because, you know, that makes it ironic. /sarcasm

—

Raj: Excuse me. I can’t be drinking, I’m about to make an important scientific discovery here.

Howard: What? Galileo did his best work while drinking wine.

Raj: How do you know that?

Howard: Well, he was Italian. It’s a reasonable assumption.

Raj: Dude, can you even open your mouth without spewing a cultural stereotype?

Howard: Oh, I, I’m sorry, Galileo drank diet sprite. Look, you’re my best friend, she’s my girlfriend, you should bond. You know, like you and my mom did.

Raj: Your mom creeps the hell out of me.

Howard: Yes, but she’s stopped calling you slumdog millionaire.

Raj: I do appreciate that.

Here we have Raj about to call Howard out on his bullshit (yay for solidarity as well!) but then accepting his bullshit because it’s not the main point and of course, because his mom became slightly more progressive which he “appreciates” because apparently she is going out of her enlightened way not to offend him by making racist comments. Thanks, white people. We appreciate your sensitivity. Allow us to create the White Friends Award ceremony so that we can actually give you trophies for your humanitarian work of not saying ignorant shit.

S05E02

Howard: Well, if you don’t, you’re gonna lose Priya to some fancy guy in a turban who grew up with Kama Sutra coloring books.

Raj: How can you be so racist?

Howard: Oh, come on, tell me I’m wrong.

Spoilers: He doesn’t tell him he’s wrong. Good job, Howard, instead of maybe noticing a trend throughout the series of your Indian friend calling you racist and re-examining your comments you say “Tell me I’m wrong” and continue.

Of course, Raj himself enjoys making fun of his own culture (back to the apologist of self-hating POC)

S03E04

Raj: I don’t want to go back to India. It’s hot and loud, and there’s so many people. You have no idea, they’re everywhere.

I think that’s enough. There are plenty of academic blog postings about the topic if you’re really interested enough to look into it. For example:

http://nimbygirl.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/anti-asian-sentiments-in-modern-media-the-big-bang-theory-and-beyond/

http://www.womanist-musings.com/2011/09/big-bang-season-opener-slut-shaming-and.html

Of course I haven’t included Sheldon, who is constantly undermining Raj’s opinions and discussions on his own country (although I do grant that, as proved above, they are ofttimes inaccurate and simplistic, at one point he even says Hindus worship cows) in a very imperial manner.

I guess, in the end, what I’m really trying to say is, no vaguely educated POC would ever be friends with the asshole White people we see portrayed on television. So how about we get some shows with some decent White people hanging out with normalized POCs (in that whether they adhere to their ethnicity’s culture or not, they are portrayed as normal individuals)  or maybe even a show about POCs that hang out with a few White people? No? That last one asking a bit too much of any channel beyond BET, huh?