My Dominican friend from New York City was visiting and told me that I was "paranoid like one of those black guys in the Bronx who is always on edge and thinks everyone is a racist."
"I don't think everyone is racist, but I am convinced that most people are afraid; terrified, even, of everyone who has a beard and could be Arab," I told him.
I traveled to Morocco recently and bough a t-shirt with Arab script. I only wore it once, and I almost regret it; I was treated like a thief for wearing it.
I went for my regular noon shopping round at the Lidl and when I went to the cashier, she looked at my beard, then she sternly glanced at the letters on my t-shirt. I went to that Lidl many times, but when I wore that shirt was the only time that the cashier gave my shopping cart an intense visual inspection... in order to make sure I wasn't stealing any of their budget produce.
That Lidl has since closed, and now a friendly Persian guy who treated me like a human being opened up, he even smiled at me and told me an anecdote. His place is farther away from me than the Albert Heijn, the main supermarket chain here in the Netherlands, so that's where I went this morning to get my groceries, and also my nightly hop juice.
Moroccan guy with a knife? © Abreu Report/Atlas Studios |
I am aware of the fact that there was a terrorist attack yesterday, and I sympathize with the victims and their families, but I don't find it acceptable that the cashier at the Albert Heijn this morning decided to scrutinize my ID.
She not only decided to inspect my birth date on the front of the ID, but decided to look at the back in order to see where I was born. I actually counted, and she spent 15 seconds going over every detail in my ID.
European people don't realize that they are the ones responsible for radicalizing the Muslim population in their countries. Once people learn I'm American, I'm visibly treated with less suspicion and people are less abrupt.
My Arab appearance puts me in a special position to notice how people's attitudes change once they learn I'm not Muslim. This isn't a conspiracy theory about Europeans being racist, this is an observation by an American guy about how people treat him after learning he's American. Racism against Arabs in Europe is much worse than anywhere I've seen in the United States, and many Europeans see multiculturalism not just as a threat, but as a mental disorder.
If you tell a Dutch person that you're Italian-American or Mexican-American, he'll go on to gossip that you're faking a second identity. In the mind of most Europeans, it is not possible to be Moroccan and Dutch. A Moroccan person born and raised in the Netherlands or Belgium is treated like an outsider on a daily, persistent basis; does it not make sense that they would find solace in a group of fanatics who welcome them and tell them they're the victims of a conspiracy?