A letter to my former classmate
May 9th, 2014 by mbprasad
Below you will find my way of expressing the concept of the cultural studies approach. I decided to write a letter to my classmate in third grade instead of a speech because I have always wanted to express how problematic I found his ignorance. I tried to mirror the writing style found in The Reluctant Fundamentalist because he was constantly polite to the man trying to kill him. I think that my letter explains why I think it is so important, but I will elaborate further here.
While I am sure that many students will choose to explain the cultural studies approach, I honestly believe this is the most important thing I have taken away from the class. It is a very different approach to understanding religion. While it seems obvious to me now, it wasn’t something I really thought about before. If we all approached religious with the dynamic view of the cultural studies approach, then I think there would be much more tolerance and understanding of other religions. I chose to write to my classmate because I think that he, like many people, suffers from a form of ignorance rooted in lack of exposure or understanding. If only he could take this class and learn all that I have learned!
To: the boy who sat next to me in Ms. Bradley’s third grade homeroom
From: a brown girl who used to try and be white
Hello,
I would say you probably don’t remember me, but I think you do. We’re friends on Facebook still. But you probably don’t remember what you said to me in third grade. It’s funny how significant events in one person’s life can be trivial to someone else. Anyway, I remember that I had already missed a month of school. I was worried about catching up because we had just started learning cursive. I was also tired. I had just spent three months in India only to be on my way home. I remember the date very precisely and I think that you will remember the date too because it’s an important one in American history. Many would say it’s the day that defined America in the 21st century. The day was September 11, 2001.
We were mid-Atlantic, when we heard the news that two planes had just crashed into the Twin Towers. Suddenly our plane turned around and we headed back to London, where we spent the next few weeks until the US re-opened its air space.
I’m not trying to bore you with these details because I am sure you are busy, so I will get to the point. I came back to Oklahoma and found that we were seated in alphabetical order. Imagine my delight when I happened to be sitting next to you. I remember the first day that I got back and you turned to me and said, “You know you’re a terrorist right? You should go back to wherever you came from.” At the time I could only let the tears fall on my chubby third-grade cheeks. An initial thought?
I am from Oklahoma just like him, right? There is nowhere to”go back” to!
I remember approaching my teacher and asking her to please move me. I didn’t want to sit by you any longer. Much to my surprise she said she wouldn’t move me and I should just get over it. Luckily she happened to be my neighbor as well, so my mom went and talked to her after school. Unluckily, she still “didn’t see what the problem was” and didn’t want to move me. If she let me switch seats, then everyone would want to switch as well. “It just wouldn’t be fair.”
There it was—the discrimination that my mom had warned me against. Mind you, this wasn’t the first time that I had been judged for my appearance or my background. I was a brown, liberal Hindu living in a conservative state. I had a single mom. Not to make you pity me, but I had faced plenty of discrimination, so this wasn’t anything new. What was new about it was I was being discriminated against for being something that I wasn’t. Then I thought to myself, it doesn’t matter if I was from the Middle East or India, a Muslim or a Hindu. The point was not that your comment was wrongly placed because I wasn’t Muslim or Middle Eastern. It was just plain wrong to define somebody based on such factors because we are all more complicated than that. As a third-grader, it wasn’t easy to grapple with such complex ideas, but I knew there was some injustice at play. It was a realization at a very young age that sometimes there just isn’t justice.
I’m writing to enlighten you on something called the cultural studies approach. I think this is an important lesson for you as you meet more people throughout your life. We are all guilty of stereotyping and boiling things down to one line. I think it’s the comfort of “knowing” what something is. The cultural studies approach will be useful in ridding ourselves of such stereotypes because it is a concept about shifting ideologies and the inability to place anyone into a box. The cultural studies approach allows us to examine the regional, political, and cultural factors that shape religion in a given place.
I never knew what the cultural studies approach was until I took a class about it. It changed everything though! I will admit that I used to think Muslims were all pretty similar. Now I realize that I was so wrong. I hope that by learning more about the cultural studies approach you will come to realize that just because someone is a Muslim doesn’t mean that he or she is a terrorist. Just because someone likes a glass of fine scotch doesn’t mean he (or she) is a middle-aged man who uses Old Spice, right? The cultural studies approach helps us differentiate between Islam in Saudi Arabia versus Islam in Indonesia or Islam for a young girl growing up in a time of revolution versus an old woman in Eastern Europe during times of genocide.
When we talk about any group—religious, ethnic, or anything else—it’s best that we use an approach similar to the cultural studies. This gives us a dynamic approach in understanding. For example, next time you conflate Islam or brown skin with terrorism, ask yourself, what “Islam” are we talking about? What is the setting? Whose version of the story is it? This doesn’t mean that there are no similarities between Muslims in different countries. It just means that we cannot assume that people’s versions of Islam are identical simply because two people say they are Muslims.
In hindsight, I am not mad at you. I am mad at myself for feeling like there was nothing I could do. I am mad at myself for feeling victimized. If I felt upset, imagine how people who were of Middle-Eastern ethnicity or were Muslim felt. They likely faced this discrimination every single day. I should have fought harder, which is why I am writing to you now. In life we have to fight (peacefully, of course) for tolerance and understanding. Even if we don’t agree, at least we can understand each other. I don’t want to judge you based on the fact that you wore muscle t-shirts and had red hair. These things are not what really define you. This is why I am asking you not to judge me based on the color of my skin. I will be so bold as to ask you and everyone else not to judge people for things that you don’t understand as well.
Before I end this letter, I would just like to recommend a few books and movies for your enjoyment. Only if you have the time of course! Try watching New Muslim Cool and reading The Reluctant Fundamentalist. I think you would find them enlightening.
Kind regards,
Megan