I am an American: A commentary on racism.
I am an American. My parents are both from New York. My dad, who was born in Harlem, well his mother was German, and his dad was Cherokee, Irish and Creole. My grandfather was from St. Louis, but his mother from Oklahoma and his father from New Orleans. My mom, I don’t know too much about her family, except her dad was a merchant marine from Bombay India, and her mom was from Trinidad. Slavery, the Trail of Tears, the Great Depression, British Colonialism, and World War II created all of the situations that brought those individuals together. It took all of that happening for me to be here.
Before I was born, my dad packed the family up and left New York for something better. With that, what would be my family came to Southern California, where I’d eventually be born. My dad, because of his German heritage, looks White. And, well, my mom is just brown. 1977 wasn’t too far removed from the Civil Rights Era. Somewhere between those two my dad had converted to the Nation of Islam, and had legally changed his name from something decidedly German and Irish, to something more Islamic. Well, Southern California wasn’t exactly as “progressive” as you would think. My parents had a struggle finding an apartment because most of the properties had signs up saying “No Children.” More crucially, some still openly had signs saying “No Blacks.”
A few years later, I was born in that same area. We moved a few different places, but most of the time I remember from growing up (3rd grade on), we lived in Orange County. Orange County in the early 1990s was surf culture, Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Orange County was White. It’s safe to say that growing up, I didn’t see color. My dad was “White” my mom was “Brown” and of the 4 kids (myself included) 2 were “White” and 2 were “Brown.” It was a perfect split. My friends, my classmates, and girls I liked: I just thought of them as that: friends, classmates, and girls I liked. (A funny aside: I mostly liked blonde girls, because that’s all I saw.) I had no frame of reference. Only thing I knew, was people would miss-pronounce my name often. With an Islamic first name (Assad ) and Irish last name (Conley), I’m sure the confusion was abundant.
My parents never discussed race, or racism. They divorced when I was 7 so when those conversations should have come up, they didn’t. Everything was just how it was and that was normal. I don’t really recall when I began to see color. But I remember in the 5th grade there was a girl who lived in the condo underneath us who was this really pretty Mexican girl. That’s how I’ve always remembered her anyways. But 6th grade was when things really started to change.
6th grade I had this social studies teacher. It’s a godsend I don’t remember her name, because I for sure would find her on Facebook and have some deep things to say to her. Who knows, maybe karma found her along the way. Why the resentment? First thing I remember that was an aggressive act of racism towards me: we’re beginning an in-class assignment and she instructs the 25 or so students to “Put your Christian name in the upper right-hand corner.” Of course I had heard that phrase “Christian name” before and knew what it meant. So I innocently raised my hand, and asked when she called on me “What if we have an Islamic name?” Her response was “Well, whatever your name is just put that.” Maybe not the worst thing to say, but looking back it was messed up.
Now, here’s the one that got me: we’re discussing something like medieval culture, and she starts explaining how people’s last names had to do with their professions that were passed on. She says that she knows “what people’s family professions were based on their name” and offers to give kids examples. I know some kid named “Smith” raises his hand and gets told his family was Blacksmiths, a very noble profession. One kid I don’t remember, might have been “Coppel” and she claims its Cobbler. So of course, in my infinite ignorance, I raise my hand and say “My last name is Conley. What did my family do?” She thinks for a second and says: “Well, Conley. Con. Con. They were probably a bunch of thieves.”
Right there. Do you feel it? I still do. An 11 year-old child of color, gets told by a White figure of authority, that their family was a “bunch of thieves.” Was I upset? Yes. Did I show it? No. I didn’t even know what exactly I was upset about. My father was an engineer. His father a WWII Vet, my other grandfather a Merchant Marine. My family wasn’t thieves or something dishonorable. And I knew this. And I wanted to let the other 24 or so kids (mostly White, a couple Hispanic, and a couple Asian) in my class know. But I couldn’t, because it would have been disruptive and disrespectful to yell out, out of turn, out of order, that this teacher, was wrong, and that my family was not what she said they were.
It wasn’t until I was an adult the topic of what my teachers said about me started to come to light. “Slow. Unwilling to learn. Will not amount to anything productive.” At the time I had mostly good grades. The worst I received was from that Social Studies class. I was playing the flute at that time, and ended up in the OCYSO (Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra). It was a group of kids, 6th-12th grade that were the top classical musicians in Orange County. They’d come from all over, and at this point, I finally began to understand diversity. There were White kids, Asian kids, Hispanic kids, and me. Even though I’m mixed, at that time most people thought I was “Black.” So I was the one “Black” kid. I didn’t identify as that, but that became apparent the next summer, after 7th grade.
We were living in Laguna Niguel. My 2 cousins were visiting from New York City. Like the kids we were (growing up in the late 80’s and early 90’s) we were huge on playing basketball and all wanted to be like Michael Jordan. So we went out to play some ball. We laced up and walked over to the local park. We see there’s about 13 older kids playing, maybe aged between 15-20. They have a full court game going. 3 are waiting. They’re all White. As we walk up, they stop. The one with the ball looks at us, and they all step towards us, and he says “This court is taken.”
This is where my views of racial identity changed forever. I asked the kid “Oh, so when will you be done?” And he replies back “You can never play here. This court isn’t for Niggers.” That’s when the other kids start chiming in “Yeah, we don’t want you Niggers here. Get the fuck out of here Niggers.” My cousins and I look at one other, and we start to walk away. We’re outnumbered, so we know we’re not going to fight. As we walk away the yells and chants get louder. “WHITE POWER! WHITE POWER!” Then we hear the one thing the 3 of us were dreading “LET’S GET THOSE NIGGERS!” The whole group was running towards us. We ran. We ran hard. I knew the neighborhood so I knew a fence we could jump. We got away. We said “that shit was crazy,” and found another court to play at.
You would imagine at this point I’d go tell someone. But I didn’t. Remember, we never discussed race in my house. That included racism. I thought I would get in trouble for running into some Neo Nazis. So I kept quiet about it and just kept a keen eye out for those guys whenever I went out. As a side note frame of reference, the movie American History X came out about 2 years after this incident. So people knew what was happening in Orange County around that time, but as far as I recall, no one spoke about it.
The next year, I moved to New York City to further my music studies. New York City is possibly the most racially and ethnically diverse city in the world, so I automatically assumed it was the kind of place where people weren’t attacked based on race. Not long after I arrived there was the case of Abner Louima. Then Andre Burgess (a 17 year-old high school student shot by an undercover Federal agent, because the agent thought a 3 Muskateers bar in the kid’s hand was a gun). Then a black kid got beat to death by a white mob in Brooklyn after his car broke down. Amadou Diallo. More than that day when I was chased, I realized that some people just hated others because of the color of their skin.
After high school I started attending college in Minnesota. Seriously, don’t ask. I quickly became friends with one of my hall-mates who was from Georgia. He was tall, Black, and loved hip-hop even more than I did. The number of “Black” students on the campus was extremely small. Something like 20 out of 1300. At this point, was when I began to struggle with identity. Was I black? Everyone else thought I was. Was I Asian with my Indian heritage? Maybe I was Native. I went through a bunch of phases, but seemed to always default to Black. The biggest indicator of that: I would walk in town with my friend, and we would watch White women walk by us, and switch their purse to the other side, and clutch it tightly. Every few people, we’d see them clutch their purse, and nervously step into the street and go across to the other side, pass us, then come back to our side after they had some distance between us. What made me start identifying as Black even more, that word came up again, out of a fellow student’s mouth after intentionally bumping me at a party: “Nigger.”
There was another trigger for me to identify as Black. The very first day of classes, I watched on a 13” TV my roommate had, the city I love most descend into sheer chaos and devastation: It was 9/11. After that is when my mom would tell me about people going into the smoothie shop she owned and calling her a “Towelhead” and a “Sand Nigger.” Islamophobia was just beginning. Having an Islamic name at that time was, as they say, not the business. Somewhere not long after that time, I had gone back to New York for a few months and worked at a Supermarket Deli in a Jewish neighborhood. All the Dominican women used to see me, and immediately talk to me in Spanish. I realized I became what others most saw in me. Curse of being mixed I guess. I could blend in, or I could stick out. I could be Black, Hispanic, Asian (people also think I’m Filipino). But, even though it makes up the highest percentage of my heritage: I can never be White.
That brings us to today. Donald Trump is running for President of the United States and is the leading Republican candidate. His campaign has been filled with divisive, racist comments that have emboldened the people who have been hiding their hatred. The country is at a crossroads where people of color see the open and never ending racism, and Whites are seeing themselves more and more as the targets of an effort to bring down their position as the dominant race. Just a few days ago there was a KKK rally in Anaheim that resulted in a clash between the KKK and some counter-protesters, and the amount of people shocked that such a group exists there, it amazes me and makes me think: “You’re just as ignorant as they want you to be.”
I think the reason I’m so keenly aware of racism in America, is because of my heritage. I don’t have a singular people. I don’t have a neighborhood or a community where I can call home, where everyone else looks just like me. You see, those communities, they are enclaves. They are hidden pockets where this doesn’t have to be dealt with. I have a lot of friends of different backgrounds who are shocked by the hate-filled speech they are hearing. When you live in communities of your own people, you tend to be sheltered from experiencing racism on a daily basis. So I implore everyone, for diversity sake: stop clustering up with people like you. The color of your neighbors shouldn’t determine where you live. Overall, I don’t have an answer for racism, but as someone without a specific identity and no people to hide amongst, I can tell you that facing it head on by living outside your comfort zone is a start.
With as much as is going on, I just wanted to tell my story and offer a little insight. Surprisingly, I left out a lot of details. Things like having rocks thrown at me from a rooftop in the college town I was in. I still have the scar on my head from the one that connected. I think the rock hurt worse than the perpetrators yelling “Coon” after throwing them. Things like having a TSA agent convinced I had a hatchet in my backpack and triggering a search, when I had no such item. Things like every time someone sees my name at work and they say “Oh. Assad? Are you Middle Eastern?” or “Where are you from?” or “Where are your parents from?” I’m from America. My parents are from New York. I’m from genocides, enslavement, colonialism and persecution. Just as the pain of my ancestors runs through my blood, so does their generations of silence.