SMART ZENA

Reading the article by Saulny and Steinberg, I found myself thinking of a friend who recently applied to business school. My friend is Egyptian, and he was applying to some top tier schools. While in the midst of that process, we had a conversation one time about how the applications ask for the applicant’s race. He expressed bemusement at how inconsistently Middle Easterners were categorized. For instance, on some applications there was no specific clarifying reference to where Middle Easterners should fall, while on other applications, it was explicitly stated under “Caucasian.” So I asked him what he planned to do about it. He told me that the way he saw things, he was from Egypt, and Egypt is in Africa, so to maximize his chances he saw nothing wrong with indicating he was African American, even on those forms that specified that Middle Easterners are Caucasian. “Nobody ever treats me like I’m Caucasian,” he joked, “so I can’t in good conscience choose that option.”

The same friend related to me his interaction with an organization called “Management Leadership For Tomorrow,” which helps minority applicants to top tier business schools, specifically those of African American, Hispanic, or Native American ethnicity. The organization connects participants with current students and alumni of top schools, and also sits them down with prestigious employers and even admissions committee members prior to application submission. In addition, the organization also provides tutoring and preparation for the GMAT, and in general tries to give its participants an edge over other applicants. My friend told me that he went to their information sessions and signed up, again because he was African American, although this time he also took his girlfriend along with him, who is Moroccan. The funny thing is that she felt so awkward about being there, almost like an imposter. “I’m not African American though!” she exclaimed in private. She felt like she was taking unfair advantage of the fact that Morocco is located in Africa to improve her chances as an applicant.

Reading about Natasha Scott’s dilemma in choosing Asian or African American reminded me of this story. One interesting question is, how far back in your heritage can you go? What if your great grand parents were a completely different race? How much percentage ethnicity is enough to pen it down? These are questions that surprisingly are not really being answered, judging by the fact that we still have to choose our ethnicities with no specific guidelines on how to determine it.

Week 6 Journal: “In Strangers’ Glances at Family, Tensions Linger”

When I read articles like this, I wonder about how successful America’s experiment with multiculturalism really is. Granted slavery was not part of that equation, but hypothetically African Americans today should enjoy the benefits of American society’s presumed openness to people of all stars and stripes. I’m not sure that is necessarily the case, however. One of my best friends from childhood is a white Irish Catholic (I am Arab and Muslim). He’s always been somebody I admired for his strong moral values and ethics. But I could not help noticing lately, now that we are older, how he clearly holds racist views against African Americans. He confided to me that it was due to an incident he was in as a student at Virginia Tech, where he was assaulted by a group of African Americans, and he tries to play it off as joking, but I can tell that there is definitely something deeper there. When I think that it is possible for somebody like him, who never really expressed such views in the twenty years I knew him, to change so radically due to a single incident, then how can I ever really believe that multiculturalism can work in the United States? I’m not saying people cannot get along with each other, but I guess where I’m going with it is that I’ve come to believe that in any given society, there is a dominant culture and then there are those cultures that it hosts. Replace culture with ethnicity, race, or whatever other dimension you want to use. At the end of the day, those hosted cultures, no matter if it is Chinese immigrants who moved to the United States in the 1800s and remain here after generations, that hosted culture will always be a second class citizen. They won’t always be treated that way, but fundamentally they will be socialized that way among members of the dominant culture.

Nomad Seminar in Historiography (Week 7)

The Housing Question

Catherine Bauer was born in New Jersey on 1905 in a comfortable middle class home. She graduated from Vassar College in 1926, and went on to become the most important member of the idealist group “housers”. Her passion for architecture and social improvement combined to make her a very influential urban planner in general. Bauer challenged the housing practices of the United States and housing laws and policies after traveling to Europe extensively in the 1920’s and 1930’s. During her travels, the modern architecture of Le Corbusier and the Bauhouse School inspired her to become an advocate for low-income family housing in her country. Bauer published a book in 1934 called “Modern Housing”. The book, representing “houser” ideas, blames the United States for not being able to provide housing of high quality for the citizens of the working classes. With this publishing, Bauer wanted to bring her experience from Europe and the wisdom she learned from their architecture and lower income shelters to raise the bar of urban life for lower class American citizens in the twentieth century. Bauer brought with her English, Dutch, and German ideas. The book was praised by many critics and became very important for future urban planners. She did encounter some problems, however, like limited knowledge on the subject and lack of economic backing. Her message of “art for humanity’s sake” accompanied by solid social research helped deal with issues encountered by her social architecture vision. Later on she became part of the Regional Planning Association of America. Her efforts helped create the Qagner Steagall Act of 1947 and the Taft-Ellender-Wagner Act 1949.

Week 8 Journal: “Family Matters.”

I couldn’t tell what to think when I read this article. Here I had somebody of African American ethnicity, member to an “estimable” family living among an enclave of White elites. I didn’t care about that part so much. What I found bizarre was his enthusiasm for determining whether or not Samuel Brady raped his ancestor Jane Gates or not. More specifically, the fact that he took it as a fulfilling family tradition, this irrational belief in the myth despite the DNA evidence proving otherwise, that is a real stumper for me. Wouldn’t you be angry that your ancestor was raped?

I put myself in his shoes for a moment and came to the conclusion that if she had indeed been raped by Samuel Brady, then even as a several generations-removed descendent, I myself would feel like I was the product of rape. Wow. And yet, here he is, writing that “genetics can now demolish or affirm a family’s most cherished beliefs and stories with just a bit of saliva and a cotton swab.” Really? That’s your only thought on the matter?

I don’t get how somebody can simply be ok with the injustice history perpetrated against his family. I think this is a problem. I think there is something fundamentally wrong when a person is so fascinated by discovering the genealogy that they forget what the implications are of it. It’s like living in a make believe fairy tale where everything is ok and nothing really needs to be done about anything. Sure, you’re probably thinking, “well what do you think he CAN he do?” I’m less concerned with what he actually ends up doing, and just still sitting here in a sense of befuddled amazement at his lack of any indignation or outrage, lack of any protective jealousy over his long departed ancestor being raped.