Race and Ethnicity in American Politics s1

Jordan Brewington

Race and Ethnicity in American Politics

04/16/2015

Check ‘White’…Right?: Race Identification for Middle Eastern Americans

Key Words: Middle Eastern and North African (MENA), U.S. Census, Arab Americans, Sudanese Americans, White-Passing, Phenotype

Description: Middle Eastern Americans, vastly diverse in ethnicity, are grappling with self-identification and racialization as they assimilate into the American racial climate. All groups within MENA continue to struggle against anti-Middle Eastern discrimination following 9/11, yet while certain individuals struggle with integration based on darker skin tones, others struggle with being identified as ‘white’ on the U.S. Census. Push back from the categorization of “whiteness” has surfaced in recent years, both for personal identity reasons as well as access to minority funding groups.

Key Points:

·  Middle Eastern Americans are extremely ethnically diverse yet are grouped as ‘white’ on the U.S. Census.

·  Darker Middle Eastern and North African Americans experience vastly different circumstances than phenotypically lighter MENA Americans.

·  Lighter or white-passing MENA Americans have a complicated relationship with ‘whiteness’ as they share common phenotypes, socioeconomic statuses, and occupations as other ‘white’ Americans.

·  Nevertheless, all MENA Americans experience immense discrimination, mostly due to Islamophobia and post-9/11 prejudice.

·  Certain individuals within MENA attempted to organize on the 2010 U.S. Census by writing out their respective ethnicities rather than identifying as ‘white’.

·  These individuals also fear that because they are “hidden” within the ‘white’ category, they aren’t receiving the local, state, and federal funding they could get as a minority group.

Brief:

Middle Eastern Americans make up an ethnic community hailing from 22 different countries, a geographic landscape which encompasses countries as far apart as Iran and Sudan. As a result of this, Middle Eastern Americans display a variety of different skin tones and phenotypic features, “ranging from pale to deepest ebony” all of which contribute to extensively different experiences in immigrating and navigating the American social landscape (Wiltz - PEW). Nevertheless, they are all grouped into the category of ‘white’ on the U.S. Census.

One particular check in one particular box has resulted in heavy backlash in recent years, exemplifying the underlying magnitude of the issue. The focus of this issue brief is the issue of the ‘white’ box on the US Census in relation to the multiracial makeup and vastly different experiences of Middle Eastern Americans in the United States.

The Black Middle Eastern American experience can be observed through the lens of Sudanese immigrants, 81 percent of which identify as black as is depicted in Figure 1.3. Sudanese immigrants have contrastingly different experiences to that of other Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) immigrants, 89 percent of which identify as ‘white’, a difference visible in Figure 1.2. The Black Muslim experience characterizes a small segment of the greater MENA community grappling with the ethnoracial climate of America. Combating both the “rising tide of Islamaphobia” as well as established discrimination against darker individuals in the United States, a 2011 Pew Study “identified Black Muslims to be the ‘most feared member of the population’” (Wiltz). Interestingly, in cities such as Detroit, Michigan, where Arab Americans have become integrated with African American communities, recent observations have held that Arab American and African American experiences with discrimination actually “offers a springboard for meaningful coalition building and co-operation” (Beydoun). However, the black Arab experience in America distinctly contrasts with the perspectives of others identifying with MENA experiences.

Issues of racial categorization, particularly in grappling with ’whiteness’, have played a major role for others within the MENA community. For the 89 percent of MENA Americans who identify as ‘white’, the issue of white-passing — or being able to phenotypically “pass” as European American – presents particular problems in terms of self-identification. To an extent, this socially worked to their advantage as it provided them with a shield against the immediate discrimination felt by MENA Americans of color, particularly useful on the heels of popular reactionary mentality post 9/11. Thus, the experience of a lighter “green-eyed northern Iranian” racialized as White may have proved easier than a darker “southern Iranian” racialized as Black. (Terrazas) In particularly focusing on the Arab American community, higher socioeconomic factors and access to education placed them in similar socioeconomic spheres as those who identify as ‘white’ or European American. According to the 2010 US Census, Arab Americans held a Median Household Income of $56,433, $4,500 higher than the Median Household Income for all households in the United States including White Americans (Asi and Beaulieu). The Arab American community also gained access to higher levels of education, 87% graduating from high school and 43% earning a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 28% of all Americans (The Arab American Institute). Arab Americans even experience higher participation in classically “white collar” jobs, outdoing the rest of the American population in both Management and Sales, detailed in Figure 1.1.

Nevertheless, despite being phenotypically and often socioeconomically similar to White Americans, the Arab American experience in particular has felt a deep social stress when the privileges of their phenotype don’t extend to how they are treated once their ethnicity is revealed. As Samer Khalef, national president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee proclaimed, “We’re counted as ‘white’, but we’re not treated as ‘white.’ We have the ‘no-fly’ lists; we’re subjected to heightened security wherever we go. Yet we’re considered ‘white.’ That’s our problem. We are considered ‘white’ without the privileges of being ‘white’” (Wiltz). Khalef speaks to a particular issue faced by Middle Eastern Americans regardless of skin tone: being regarded as “a problem people: potential terrorists or victims of racial profiling,” particularly those who phenotypically match figures displayed in the media (Blake).

Such tension has resulted in push back on the ‘white’ box within the MENA community, actualized in campaigns such as that of Maz Jobrani’s “Check it right, you ain’t white!” Jobrani, an Iranian comedian, began the movement in an effort to encourage Arab and Persian Americans to “shun a practice that dates back to the late 19th century” of “identifying themselves as white” by writing out their respective ethnicities in the “other” category (Blake). Samer Khalef gives voice to many MENA Americans by emphasizing how they “have a very diverse and complex identity” and ironically how “more of [them] would identify as people of color” as the “strict racial options that [they] have right now don’t fit” (Wiltz).

Moreover, the issue of being categorized as ‘white’ on the Census presents far more problems than just racial misidentification as MENA Americans are now faced with the issue of accessing minority benefits. The U.S. Census information is used extensively in terms of federal, state, and local funding for community grants (Wiltz). Incorrect Census information can result in inadequate funding for “educational programs… to tracking employment discrimination” or “staffing hospitals with enough Farsi translators” (Wiltz - PEW) In being recognized as ‘white’, MENA Americans are hardly, if ever, recognized as minorities and thus lose the benefits their communities arguably need.

Whether experiencing the societal struggles of being racialized as “black” or the identity struggles of being racialized as ‘white’, MENA communities in America are continuing to grapple with notions of race categorization in the United States. Such a battle is indicative of the ambiguities of race strived through by countless other immigrant minority communities. Thus, the Middle Eastern American community, for the moment, stands in a grey area familiar to many Americans, constructing a “community called MENA that is as real or as false as everything else in this country’” (Wiltz - PEW).

Figure 1.1

Employment Demographics for Arab Americans

Figure 1.2

Arab Americans protesting post-9/11 anti-Arab discrimination

Figure 1.3

Sudanese refugees in Washington D.C.

Photographs

Figure 1.1 - “Employment Demographics.” Demographics. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

Figure 1.2 - “Arab American Discrimination on the Rise Ever Since 9/11 - HueWire.”HueWire. 19 June 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

Figure 1.3 - “Sudanese Refugees.”Refugees Organization. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

Relevant Websites

The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee: http://www.adc.org/

The Arab-American Institute: http://www.aaiusa.org/

The United States Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov

Works Cited

Asi, Maryam, and Daniel Beaulieu. "Arab Households in the United States: 2006–2010."Arab Households in the United States: 2006–2010: United States Census. United States Census Bureau, May 2013. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

Beydoun, Khaled A. "Building African-Arab Connections during Black History Month."Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, 8 Feb. 2012. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

Blake, John. "Arab- and Persian-American Campaign: 'Check It Right' on Census."CNN. Cable News Network, 14 May 2010. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

Datcher, Kelvin. "Hate in the News: Violence Against Arab Americans and Muslims." Southern Changes 23.3-4 (2001): 8-9. Print.

"Demographics."The Arab American Institute. The Arab American Institute, Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

Public Information Office. "Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010."United States Census Bureau. United States Census Bureau, 13 Sept. 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

Terrazas, Aaron. "Middle Eastern and North African Immigrants in the United States."Migration Policy. Migration Policy Institute, 08 Mar. 2011. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

Wiltz, Teresa. "Counting Americans of Middle Eastern, North African Descent."The Pew Charitable Trusts. Pew Trusts, 13 Aug. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

Wiltz, Teresa. "Lobbying for a 'MENA' Category on U.S. Census."USA Today. Gannett, 07 Oct. 2014. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.