As a Palestinian living in the US, I have lost friends, job opportunities – and my faith in humanity
As a Palestinian living in the US, I have lost friends, job opportunities – and my faith in humanity
Every year has been catastrophic for Palestinians around the world, but the past 12 months have been unimaginable, writes Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi
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I’m curious, to the people downvoting: why? Are you unable to see her humanity? What specifically in her deeply personal op ed made you so feel so strongly that you had to downvote this post? I’m genuinely curious. Or did you just see the word Palestinian and downvote it by force of habit, thus proving her point in the process?
This was a powerful op ed written by someone who knows what she’s talking about, exposing some uncomfortable truths about the US and what it valves.
Was it tho?
Don't get me wrong... It's awful racism is fucking shit and I'm subject to it as immigrant a lot. Obviously not to this level or anyone that was the wrong colour after 9/11.
But what did this article say? What opportunities/jobs/friends has she lost? Why not go into personal affairs, that's what the title lead me to believe the article was about.
Show us the daily struggles of immigrants and racism in full force! It just boggled down to yet another "generic" preaching to those already in your favour? This isn't swaying anyone, let's be real here. Those that need to read it, won't.
Its the easiest shit to get away with. Hating and masse. Its number one strategy which worked so well against "my people" and this journalist is feeding more into it! Show me your personal story, if you only show numbers, there's no personality, your people just became a statistic.
I hope my point comes across.
I think I get your point, but I'm not sure we read the same article. She did get pretty personal without naming names (we can’t expect anyone in her position to name names safely.)
Imagine feeling this every day of your life, it’s horrific:
…simply by paying my taxes, I am complicit in the slaughter and starvation of my own people.
And
…in 1967, my father had to flee again. He became a refugee, unable to ever return to live in the country where he was born. He has, however, taken me back to visit. I went back to his village when I had just turned six and had a brief taste of what a Palestinian childhood is like – by which I mean Israeli soldiers shot teargas at me and raided our village to burn the Palestinian flag.
Make sure you check out that Imgur link, it’s pictures of the journal she wrote when she was a kid visiting the West Bank. Doesn’t get much more personal than that.
But see, that's where my issue with the article title is. It's about her life. What does it have to do with US? I get her point and it's fucking horrible. I've met people from Iraq seeking asylum and I've heard their heartbreaking stories.
As a fellow immigrant... I expected a story about how her life is in US currently. It's a bait and switch title and to me, sub par journalism.
But emotions are running hot here and no matter what I say, I'm the bad guy.
Yeah I see what you mean. She does call out comments made by Lindsey Graham, John Fetterman, and Kamala Harris though, implying that she expected at least two of those people to be better. To be clear, I don’t think you’re the bad guy, I appreciate your perspective. But you’re right that tensions are very high…
I downvoted because
- a couple of those nut cases are known racists we’re all already complaining about. Can you really paint the whole country for racist things said by people whom half the population is already calling racist
- I’m generally suspicious of articles that call out democrats just before election. Yeah, they’re in power when it happens but the other political side claim they would be worse, so calling out Democrats just before election is too much like interference
Shame on you
I upvoted this post but to be fair, people downvote for different reasons.
I have downvoted articles I agree with that just had a very disingenuous headline.