On Saturday, June 28th, and as part of our journey into bettering ourselves and our communities, we partook in some very interesting team building activities. I personally can’t say I’ve learned much from them. In fact, to some extent, I thought they were quite frivolous. However, they did help us get more familiar and comfortable with each other, and they were a lot of fun!
What I really want to talk about here is the incident that transpired on the night of June 26. When an ignorant and – dare I say – extremely intoxicated Caucasian man blurted out some very insensitive, ethnically-discriminatory slurs at the MEPI group as we walked past a bar on Main Street. I can fairly say that we, as Arab students from the Middle East, were all quite uncomfortable during the course of this occurrence. Some may mask the truth and say that it was fine, but we all know that isn’t true. Anyway. What I wanted to say about this whole thing is that I am actually quite grateful and appreciative that I was put through it; to know what it feels like to be a resented minority. For me, this was a crucial experience that I think I had to have as an Arab, because going through that actually allowed me to have a better understanding of discrimination against minorities(the concerned minority in specific). But most importantly, it allowed me to reach to the realization that no country – or community for that matter – is or will ever be perfect. We all know that that one imbecile does not and will never adhere to American values, and we all know that he will – without a question – never represent the American people. In fact, the only negative aspect of this that I can think of, is the disappointment that I had five minutes later. I see it happen in movies, documentaries, on YouTube, on TV. My mind has subconsciously embedded this occurrence in the back of my media center. This happens. This actually happens.
We’re here to change that.
-Hameed Al Saeed