Two months and counting

Zehra: Just out interest..if you dont mind..which NGO exactly where you working with?...I am due to work with a Sri Lankan microfinance NGO called Sarvodaya....

Ozerkhalid

Excellent and acute observations.

Re: # 6

Ozer you state:

``Or maybe a feline awaiting to get her claws on a South African k9 ? a Sri-Lankan rumble in the jungle Zehra ?

You have a great sense of humour man ! Reminds me of that movie with Neve Campbell and Denise Richards... Meeeeeeooowwww

Re: # 5


Zehra

Mr Rumble in the Jungle once prodigiously remarked ``I got nothing against no Viet Cong. No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger. ~Muhammad Ali, 1967, refusing to fight in Vietnam

Let me expound on Miss X: aka the female k9 species of cheap pedigree (a rather diplomatic way of saying ...well you know what)

Collective fear in X has stimulated her ``herd`` instinct, and she tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the ``herd``. So whilst she sheepishly waxes lyrical sunken in the oceans of liquer-induced racist ignorance, feel emboldened by the blissful fact that you are not part of the ``herd``. Perhaps a ``wolf`` in sheeps clothing ?

Or maybe a feline awaiting to get her claws on a South African k9 ? a Sri-Lankan rumble in the jungle Zehra ? heh heh.....Should I get the Kodak ready !

What x does not realise is that Accomplishments are race and color-blind. Amidst all the background snicker of her racial jibes she will probably pass it on to her offspring: the poison of Apartheid still not snuffed out of her celluloid.

Hailing from the streets of Brooklyn to Sinhalese-beaches: you have crossed bridges !

Racism is just one more you are learning to cross.

Which has been the toughest bridge you have crossed to date ?

Final thoughts: those who have helped to re-build Sri Lanka are not of ``one race``, and those of the same race have not all participated in one culture. Or helping out during the Tsunami.

Racism isn`t born.
It`s taught.
Its bred.
Its launched like a deady grenade.
It eerily becomes part of a vernacular.
X was probably bull-dozed hatred into her blood from tender infancy.

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it.

Zehra: I love brown skin. Always did. Always will.

One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings.

And to conclude, in the indellible words of Martin Luther King:

``I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism that the bright daybreak of peace can never become a reality.... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word ``

wow, GREAT comments. Thanks so much to those who commented....and those of you who read :)

this was one of the hardest things for me to write. I really struggled with this piece and as you can tell, getting time in to write is hard so i had to keep coming back to this. So, i-am-the-cheese, you are right. it`s not one of my strongest pieces but yeah, i worked hard to make it somewhat lucid. thanks for noting :)

Temporal: sometimes i get tired about writing, thinking, talking about color. I havent been paying attention but i guess it hasnt happenend much on chowk. are you SURE you want that avalanche coming out of me??? heheh.

cayenne, i am american. not only that, can you imagine ME in baluchistan? i mean, seriously. i get it, its my backyard since i have pakistani heritage (parents born in india though so you tell me), but umm, baluchistan is so no man`s land. that`s why i didnt go to indonesia to help with the tsunami. i dont have a death wish. And i certainly dont have any ownership on chowk over the color issue either. but its not about lighter fairer for me...its more about brown vs white. or reverse, white vs everything else.

beejay. dear dear beejay. this incident im writing about above came the same day i read your comments on my last article and i upset about that to begin with and i was questioning my being there the whole day and then i get this biatch who tries to assert her ownership over something. she didnt clean up dead bodies and since this incident, ive seen her numerous times, hanging out on thebeach, not doing much of anything but drinking. you are correct in saying that intent counts as much as concrete results (in this case, let`s say. i dont want to make that blanket statement).

there is so much in your post to talk about...here goes:
strong words have nothing to do with america. it just means my dirty mouth is in english and not in urdu. urdu does have better souding curse words though. more expressive. i just dont get much of a chance to use them.

my color issues do go beyong the tsunami and i am shocked that they are coming up here...i didnt think they would be in the ways that they are.

X is insane. i am not. (re: high intensity encounter) i dont go around saying bad things about people. esp not to their face :) probably only in my writing. or if im yelling at cops at a rally but taht doesnt really count.

cordial realtions: i tried. she still looks at me with suspicion and would rather hang out with white people. good for her. annoyes the hell out of her that i hang out with white poeple as well. we are talking about somebody who said apartheid was blown out of proportion here...she has issues. im not saying i dont, but man, she has issues.


knowing what i know now, rewind me back to dec 26th and i would be here in two secs flat. i would absolutely do it again. no doubt. i just get frustrated every once in a while and as i said, i dont hold back in my writing to show and vent that frustration. i am a different person in actuality, sort of ....does that make sense?

i think that about does it. thank you thank you thank you for the comments. i love them.

z.rizvi.

Zehra:

In life, intent ought to count as much as the concrete results that come from one’s actions. In this case, you can of course point to some very concrete achievements, in spite of the “distractions” that you have encountered.

All exposures and encounters (even cat fights) provide an opportunity for learning. Everyone has issues. A “caste system” based on shades of skin color is a very well-entrenched practice throughout the world (even in the U.S., within the black community for example, girls with a lighter skin color are said to be in more “demand”).

[“…I’ve picked up dead bodies, don’t YOU judge me.”]
This lady of course thought that her work was “superior” to yours (assuming she did those things). Add that to the facts that in your articles (which she was probably aware of) you have been making very strong statements regarding the lifestyle of the volunteer workers, that (like certain other authors on this site) you do not believe in holding back (except that you show less inhibition in using “strong” words (a side effect of your “American” socialization process, perhaps)), that you appear to have a rebellious (some might say an “inflammatory”) streak in you, etc., all of which probably caused her to vent at the time (what she may not have done had she been less drunk). (I recommend re-establishing cordial relations, if possible; why carry back unnecessary hostility with you toward people you are unlikely to meet again anyway?)

[What X is doing in Sri Lanka with so many issues is beyond me.]
“Others” have said similar stuff about you, at times. However, in fairness, the importance of the work and the original intent in undertaking it predominates in her case just as much as in yours.

[I feel very comfortable saying, yes, I was picked on since I was brown.]
Yes, but as explained above, that is too simplistic. There were other factors, too, which perhaps had more to do with the scene which developed. (Except that being brown is something you can do nothing about, so that makes you feel more sensitive and vulnerable, other issues you can handle with words and arguments.)

[X managed to get under my skin since she was a high intensity encounter.]
I want to break it gently to you (I might be wrong, after all), but you yourself do not appear to be made of “low intensity” stuff, either!

[But no, no one will ask. I have no idea what they are assuming but a hunch tells me it’s not America. Don’t ask me why it bothers me, but it does.]
[…I’m having a hard time not having a place. Especially, when I was not expecting to be such an outsider at all times.]
[Am I just getting lumped in with the brown population they see?]
Obviously, the issues here are a lot deeper and go a lot farther back than the Tsunami, and you are not the only one with those issues.

[I should never have left the streets of Brooklyn.]
Don’t say that. Would you rather have spent the rest of your life wondering “what if”? Somehow, I seriously doubt that.

Cheer up, you are going home! And after a ``hard day’s work``, too!

zeh`r:

you have to do this (the skin issue) again when you are back...when you can interact more...anticipate interesting discussions

so the not so anonymous A&A visit chowk?

you watch that language girl;)

lve

t

you are lucid in your ambiguity... this is not your strongest piece yet it is one of the clearest

best

Go do some volunteer work in your own backyard, in baluchistan.I`m not being facetious.i appreciate you sticking your neck out for somebody, in this case , Sri Lankans.But all paks, native or foreign, have issues about color, and you might not realize it, but it shows.That`s why we indians get along much better with the rest of the world.We know how to hide it well.Good luck!!!.