News and Commentary on Arab Women, Palestine, Cultural Politics, and Everything in Between
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Sunday, October 15, 2006
DC Event: Rashid Khalidi
Rashid Khalidi will be speaking about his latest book The Iron Cage at Politics and Prose on Tuesday, October 17th at 8: 00 pm.
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
His politics on Palestine are radical; his views on arab american are strangely condescending. I heard him speak in ann arbor in May and he really bothered me. His audience was not arab academics, and he was way preachy. what do you think?
Well, he's no Angry Arab so I would not say he is radical as he could be. I should have said his politicals are cool on Palestine. When he spoke to Arab americans, he was telling us how we should be more like Jewish Americans in creating stronger local bases for activism and networking. we needed to build more coalitions for financial and educational institutions.
He was not wrong, but his tone and asssumptions were. I think it was the comparison that offended especially given the climate in which zionism and its US support system is well-established. Strong economic support might equal political might but telling arab americans to model themselves after jewish americans was just politically off. I was not being sensitive. he kind of went on with it. He also repeated his point too many times and he spoke using vocabulary that was oversimplified. I felt like he thought he as speaking to the masses so he had to dumb it down. he was no dummy, don't get me wrong, but I really was disappointed in his talk and I expected to be impressed.
maybe I was unfair or just grouchy that evening. who knows?
4 comments:
His politics on Palestine are radical; his views on arab american are strangely condescending. I heard him speak in ann arbor in May and he really bothered me. His audience was not arab academics, and he was way preachy.
what do you think?
Hi Nayj,
Can you say a bit more about his views on Arab Americans? What was he preachy about?
Hi Nayj,
"His politics on Palestine are radical;"
radical relative to whose views?
Well, he's no Angry Arab so I would not say he is radical as he could be. I should have said his politicals are cool on Palestine. When he spoke to Arab americans, he was telling us how we should be more like Jewish Americans in creating stronger local bases for activism and networking. we needed to build more coalitions for financial and educational institutions.
He was not wrong, but his tone and asssumptions were. I think it was the comparison that offended especially given the climate in which zionism and its US support system is well-established. Strong economic support might equal political might but telling arab americans to model themselves after jewish americans was just politically off. I was not being sensitive. he kind of went on with it. He also repeated his point too many times and he spoke using vocabulary that was oversimplified. I felt like he thought he as speaking to the masses so he had to dumb it down. he was no dummy, don't get me wrong, but I really was disappointed in his talk and I expected to be impressed.
maybe I was unfair or just grouchy that evening. who knows?
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