Cultural Misappropriation by Awkward White Kids

This might as well have been the title of my summer at a well-known Arabic language institute in the U.S. – though a caveat should be made for some amazing teachers and students. It was challenging enough studying a language devoid of cultural context – a seemingly purposeful exclusion made by the program administrators. And it was painful to see Arabic treated simply as a tool for American student career advancement, or to hear the same old talking points on the desire to spread “democracy” and “development” to the Arab World. All of these statements made without understanding the clearly dynamic, nuanced and quite frankly independent nature (nobody needs tutoring in American style “democracy in the Arab World – or any part of the world for that matter) of life in Arabic speaking places. Again – shocked faces when I said that I was leaving to study contemporary dance in Beirut , as if sheltered American students simply can’t fathom that there would be art and creativity in a place they associate with war and the overly used, cringe-worthy word “conflict”. The discourse was boring.

Boring, I found, quickly became offensive by the end of the program. A few students made a rap video  in which they repeated the phrase “Muthif Aakhr”. In Arabic this means “Another Employee” but said quickly it sounds like mutha’f#@%#$. So, that is just stupid and silly – why go to the trouble of making an Arabic rap that holds no meaning in Arabic and is obviously intended only for American audiences? In addition the video was not attempting to be ironic or funny – it was honestly made by students who seemed to think themselves very clever and talented and subversive. In fact they were painfully awkward – mimicking hip hop movements, peppering their dialogue with Arab and African-American Stereotypes – it came across as pathetic. Hence the title of this post

I should also say that this video was made with university resources for a talent show in which all classes were expected to participate. For their part, the university tried to distance itself by asking the students to read a statement that the university did not support their video before they showed it to the student body. Which allowed the students, whose feelings appeared to be hurt, to whine about “censorship” as though the university had questioned the work of a great auteur. They allowed themselves to confuse a reaction against their own stupidity as censorship.

In many ways this event would seem not to warrant space in my brain or time for my eyeballs. But it did make me think about how and why many Americans are studying Arabic. To what end? To better understand the places in which Arabic is spoken? Culture and context? I can only hope. Or is it an extension of Orientalism - to make the Arab a kind of object of study to achieve a job in finance or oil or with the State Department? All of which uses Arabic to further expropriate Arab resources for American use.  To some extent all study abroad programs encourage this kind of superficial cultural interface with a “foreign” place. And superficiality tends to breed the kind of stupidity displayed by the video described in this post.

After all of this, it is nice to take a break. Watch Ramallah Underground and appreciate a talented Palestinian hip-hop artist. An actual artist communicating about important political issues.