Thursday, April 3, 2014

My Best Friend is Arab & I am a Bookworm who works as a bouncer....

Often times, we try to create stereotypes and judgement about people from the first impressions of what society has deemed acceptable or not. Breaking News#: Society and the way it portrays its perception of a specific kind of people is usually driven by the media in all of its falsettos. Just pick up a copy of the Daily Mail, the UK's most widely read paper and you will understand what I mean ... Immigrants accused of stealing jobs hence the un-pronounced hatred of immigrants by people who are caught in the web of these deceits and so much more.

I used to be one of these people... the ignorant bunch if i may call them that. Oh, he has a tattoo... hence he must be a gangster... He smokes hence he is condemned to lung cancer... He drinks.. he must be going through a depressed state and bound to end up with kidney diseases or the cirrhosis of the liver..

How foolish of anyone out there to think all Arabs are dangerous and a plague to be avoided or imagine that the dread-lock wearing man, smoking a roll-up has nothing to offer society. How foolish to think that because someone has what society terms "social ills", they have nothing to offer the world. Working as a security agent, I did not wear my "geek" glasses to work because society would see me as weak for the sector in which I worked in... This doesn't mean I would not kick "society's butt" if it deemed necessary (six years self defense training ain't sh*t)...

Everyone has a place in this world, a knowledge to offer, a story to tell and learn from... the drug users, the pregnant teenagers, the taxi drivers, the Arabs and Africans alike (we have a whole lot)... Everyone indeed!

We all should look beyond what society terms as acceptable or not... and I also make this reference to Christians because I identify with being Christian. How can we judge and love at the same time when the bible itself asks us not to judge but love and open our hearts to EVERYONE.. not just the "lovable"..

My best friend is Arab... and I am a bookworm who works security... If you still choose to be ignorant after this, what else can I say... C'est la vie.