In Mixtape (2021), Beverly Moody, a middle school student in Spokane, WA, finds a mixtape that her parents made. Beverly’s parents were sixteen when they had her, and two years later they died in a car accident. The film centers around Beverly tracking down all of the songs on the mixtape, since it has been destroyed and all she has is the track listing, … Read More “What are you?”: Part IV
+ arab american literature, identity, Malaka Gharib, mohja kahf, syria, the girl in the tangerine scarf, toufic el rassi
Recently, someone told me about an exercise that a professor had his class do during seminary. The professor told the class to talk to someone within their social sphere who they knew but did not really have a relationship with apart from maybe a passing acquaintance. The students had to, before speaking with the person, write down their preconceived notions about the individual. After … Read More “What are you?”: Part III
+ arab in america, comics, graphic memoir, graphic novels, I Was Their American Dream, Malaka Gharib, mohja kahf, the girl in the tangerine scarf, toufic el rassi
Individuals consistently label others in hopes that they will fit into preconceived constructed categories. The use of these categories helps us navigate the world around us, but these categories also craft differences between individuals. Rather than celebrating these differences, the categories serve, especially to those in power, as a means of severing communities and individuals, causing them to turn on one another out of … Read More “What are you?”: Part I
Interminable Rambling 