Why GOOD arab rep matters in western media
(I saw someone praising Grant Morrison than slandering Talia Al Ghul, which convinced me to write this post)
I'm an Arab person raised in the west, specifically an Iraqi raised in Canada, where there are many Muslims but very few Arabs where I live, even less Iraqi, and I have faced much racism because of me being an Iraqi. So to say, my FIRST ever Arab character I have ever seen outside of my own culture, is Talia Al Ghul is sad. It genuinely made me even more upset seeing an Arab character, a character who represents a culture that's barely shown In western media as a terrible, completely stereotyped, villain. While I had seen Damian Wayne before, I wasn't even aware he was Arab till learning about Talia.
Growing up(and even now sometimes) I was ashamed of my culture. There were many times when I was younger where I was confused on why every character that seemed to be based on Arab culture was a villain and it made me feel like I didn't fit in even though there many kids around who weren't of the same culture, still mine seemed to almost never be shown and when it was it wasn't shown as the real thing just what other cultures thought of us as.
I'm now much more aware of Talia’s character and the history behind, my experiences have also led me to headcanon the Al Ghul’s Arab side as Iraqis as it just feels the most right to me, especially with Ra’z backstory.
Anyway that was just me venting out my frustration on this topic.
