#amirsafi

[houstonhelp]

Amir Safi (@eastdownandbrown) and WriteAboutNow (@wanpoetry),

hiding behind reposts and stories from Black people does not make you right. It only makes the deflection louder and the cowardice clearer.

YOU harmed Ebony Stewart!
So address it YOURSELF!
Do not hide behind other people as shields.

[one-heart-majority-blog]

Insider Outsider

It relates to Western constructions of race and the impact it has on a man of colour growing up in Texas. He starts with the story of his first experience with violence from white boys. His teacher brushes it off as boys being boys. This type of bullying has happened all his life. When Hispanophobia is the current trend, he receives racist taunts as an illegal immigrant. After 9/11, Islamaphobia is in vogue, and others bully him for being a suspected terrorist. He has always been denied citizenship for his race regardless of how his race is constructed at the time. He feels displaced as a Persian man since it is no longer a state. He articulates that in a melting pot society, an Iranian-American cannot exist. He argues that being an Arab is anti-American. He makes the connection that black people, Hispanics, and other racial minorities live in the United States to serve White Supremacy. He yearns to be proud and open about his identity, but he cannot be in the U.S. He is grieving his loss of national acceptance. 

I chose this medium because it had the largest variety of relevant art. I picked this poem in particular because I have mispronounced my last name to make it easier for others my entire life and his message resonates with me. His poetry is useful in the anti-racist analysis because he uses his experience to outline how The United States constructs race. Americans consistently understand him as an outsider, however, his position as outsider changes based on the contemporary narrative that the West is producing. When the enemy of America is Mexico, he is Mexican. When the enemy is Arabic, he is an Arab. The point is that the enemy is always a person of colour, and he makes this connection at the end of the poem when he compares the experiences of Indigenous peoples, black people, himself and East Asians. His main argument is that diversity is not a reality in the United States, despite the dominant neo-liberal narrative. He uses an intersectional approach to articulate his point. He makes a sharp critique of the impossibility of citizenship and achieving the American Dream in the U.S for Non-whites.

-Catlover