Hmmm.... Where do I start. Bandagi, a word from the Hindi language, translated literally means a bond. I suppose what is amazing about being an American of color is the fact that you feel like an outsider as often as you feel like an insider. I am Muslim albeit not a very good one but when "Arab" and "Muslim" become slurs accepted by the mainstream media you start to feel that bond somehow get stronger. This is the land of opportunity and somehow an American who came up from nothing went to the best schools and was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review has to defend that he is not an "Arab" that he is not a "Muslim." Why does it matter... The attacks on September 11th were just as offensive to me as to the rest of America. I find the war that extreme conservatives in the Islamic world are fighting to be offensive and outright wrong. Oh and by the way for those that forget the attack on the World Trade Center in Oklahoma was carried out by a "White Christian". Wait John McCain is white and Christian and his running mate spoke at a rally for a pro seccionist movement in Alaska maybe we should be more worried about them... God seems to speak to Palin like he did to Bush and we all know where that got us.
Bandagi is a bond and I am bonded to my home, bonded to the good qualities it possesses and to the ones that still need work, I am an American...
1 comment:
These days everyone is an American.... Native-American, Chinese-American, Latino-American, Arab-American, Muslim-American, Jewish-American, and many other types of "Americans". I am sick of all this and that. Either your American or not. Why must everyone bond their race or religion to America. You call yourself, American, what have you done to serve your America?? Have you served two tours in the Middle East?? Have you gone out and voted? Have you served on a jury of your peers? You don't have to be in the military, on a jury to serve your country, but in order to call yourself "American", to earn the right at least do something for America. Vote, be part of a cause, get off your chair and away from your computer and look around you. America needs you and many others. Bandagi,please do not use the word American so loosely. It conveys feelings and emotion in everyone of us in many different ways. I am very tolerant of other cultures and religions but it never ceases to amaze me how many people distort the image of America and Americans. Bandagi is a bond as you say, well why can't that bond be used to describe Americans as a whole and undivided group of people, rather than multitudes of different groups of people.
Post a Comment