Being Middle Eastern in the United States

On Thursday May 1^st I attended the CSU Chico discussion called “Being Middle Eastern in the United States.” I expected a completely serious presentation to be given either by a professor, by students or both. What I didn’t expect was to be shown a DVD of comedians with their interpretation of what it is like to be a Middle Eastern American.

The video shown was called The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour and the four comedians were Dean Obeidallan, Aron Kader, Anmed Ahmed, and Maz Jobrani. I have seen bits and pieces of the DVD before, mainly bits from Maz Jobrani. I was once again very impressed with the comedians shown. To be able to take a subject that most Americans tip toe around and turn it into humor while still getting a positive message across is inspiring. The comedy ranged from material about President Bush to gas prices to security at airports. The way the comedians approached topics made you think “it’s funny because it’s true,” but then a sad reality set in because it really made me realize that what the comedians were joking about is really the way some people think and act.

The first two comics shown were Dean Obeidallan and Anmed Ahmed. Obeidallan started by saying he wanted to thank everyone that had come out “Iranians, Persians, white people, FBI, homeland security, and the ‘Comedy Central’ cameras filming.” Obeidallan joked that people are afraid of people of Middle Eastern decent because we don’t understand who they are. Obeidallan says that there are two types of news stories to describe them, the bad story: “militant terrorists,” and then the positive story: “alleged militant terrorists.” The second comic Ahmed joked about the similarities and differences between Jews and Muslims, “we both don’t eat pork, we both don’t celebrate Christmas, we both yell on the phone when we don’t need to. The only difference is Jews never like to spend money and Muslims never have money to spend.” Ahmed also joked how he stopped doing acting because he was always stereotyped and cast as the terrorist, or “terrorist #4” to be exact.

Before we watched the last two comics 6 Middle Eastern students discussed their experiences of living in the United States and also provided attendees with a Middle Eastern dessert (which I am not going to attempt to spell). It was sad to learn that all of them at some point have dealt with racial inequality, especially after 9/11. Each student ranged from all over the Middle East and several of them told about what life is really like back in their country.

After the discussion we continued to watch the comedians. Aron Kader did his impression of President Bush’s “serious face.” Kader joked how he hopes one day President Bush will loose it at a press conference and have to improvise. Kader also joked how you can find American products anywhere. The last comic Maz Jobrani joked about how some people think that since you’re from the Middle East you’re an expert on the Middle East, “anytime the gas prices go up my friends will ask my opinion, ‘hey Maz in your opinion what is going up with this gas thing, what’s going to happen?’” Jobrani also joked how friends think he knows “the word on the street,” as to when the next terrorist attack will happen.

I really enjoyed this DVD/presentation. Although it would have been nice if the students were able to talk longer about their experiences. I think showing the DVD eased the attendees into the subject matter that can often times be uncomfortable for some people. I think people of Middle Eastern decent are extremely misunderstood in the media and that has a huge impact on stereotypes. Overall I thought using humor to show people Middle Eastern stereotypes was a great ice breaker and a great use for a short time period.