By Nur Wazwaz
“It’s not a big deal.” This phrase should be on trial for being the biggest mass-murderer Man has known for being a killer of identity and dreams. Growing up as a young Palestinian female, it was often difficult for me to project my beliefs and ideas without using that statement… often.
When my school would have heritage day, it was never a big deal to me that most people didn’t believe that my people existed, especially when they would tell me, “Do you mean you’re from Israel?” I would always respond to them, “Palestine or Israel, whatever you write down on the board alongside my name. It’s not a big deal.” There it is, that phrase that just killed the opportunity for me to educate, for me to represent, and for me to be heard.
It was never a big deal to me that I had to shape-shift identities while growing up in a small town in Minnesota, because whenever people would mention what the Palestinians have done, I wouldn’t have much to respond with. I didn’t quite understand what being Palestinian fully meant. I was okay with the fact that my identity had to be shaped into something else, something I wasn’t. Anything but a Muslim Palestinian girl.
Growing up, I lived in a small, predominantly white town two hours from Minneapolis. There weren’t often people that looked like my mom, with a headscarf on, or my dad, brown-skinned with the traditionally long beard. It was obvious we weren’t the norm, and for the community, that was viewed as a threat. When my cousins would visit, they would be so fearful of what the community would think that they would remove their headscarves.
This was normal, to be something you aren’t because you feared for your life based on what others might think of you. Seeing this made me question, why? Why isn’t it a big deal that these people have never understood what it was like to shape-shift identities, to fear wearing religious clothing, when the first basic human rights in our constitution are “freedom of religion?” Freedom?
This word stuck with me as my parents constantly commented about how “America was the reason their parents fled war in Palestine,” and how “here in America, they could be free and not live in fear,” but I started to notice how that wasn’t quite the case. America was everything but freedom for them; they were fine with living in a jail-cell, as long as that jail-cell was comfortable.
After October the 7th, America reminded me that we have only repeated history and never learned from it. Now, everywhere I go, the scarf on my head and Palestinian chain around my neck seem only to represent that I was a “terrorist lover” and “anti-Semite,” despite being Semitic myself. I started to learn here, just a few months ago, what it really meant to be a Muslim Palestinian. The scarf around my head didn’t mean oppression; it meant beauty. It truly is a crown on my head. Everywhere I walk, I feel like the princess that I am, crowned with this scarf that I chose myself to wear and that was not forced upon me.
Do you see?
Over-explaining myself. It still happens, in this very paper that I am writing, speaking about my experience of constantly feeling this need to explain and justify my actions, my identity. To me, it isn’t a big deal to be doing that. It is something that I am accustomed to and I feel as though I would be frowned upon if I didn’t justify myself, alongside my religious expression and identity.
The Palestinian chain on my neck has gotten me stares and heinous comments. I was once walking from Target to my car when I heard this woman scream, “You terrorists need to go back where you came from.” Even my blonde hair, round glasses, and white skin couldn’t spare me from being told this horrendous comment. I stared down at my feet and continued to walk; there was truly nothing I could do but walk along.
I feared being in the news, labeled as an aggressive, terrorist, Muslim woman. I wish, instead, to hear how I love everyone around me, and that my identity is something that I cannot control but rather try to embrace with love. As I constantly scroll through X, I continuously see my posts being blocked. Posts about children dying and people with no food. My people have become simple numbers, in the thousands, as their death tolls have grown and grown.
These numbers are something that this society wants me to be silent about. To move forward with my life, knowing that there is a genocide happening to my people, and that it isn’t a big deal. No, that is something I cannot continue to do, when all my life, my identity has been shut down. In school, in airports, in college, in stores… just walking outside. I must repress my identity as I feel threatened that I will lose my job, my role in education, even my life, for simply speaking about who I am, for being who I am: a Muslim Palestinian.
How can I keep saying, “It’s not a big deal,” when I fill out papers asking me my race and none of the options apply to me? I cannot put White because at the airports, and according to X and Meta, that’s not who I am. I am either just another number or a walking bomb threat. I cannot put anything else because those do not represent me either. I sigh as I am forced to accept one the options society has presented me with.
I do not agree with the options society has presented me and my people with. I do not agree with the fact that I am at risk of losing everything, for being who I am, or for speaking against the killing of my people. This is who I am and this is who I will always be. After years of being shut down and constantly living in fear for both my life and for my future, I am firmly putting my foot down. It IS a big deal.
Being Palestinian is the greatest honor of my life. I will continue to fight for freedom, for my people and for all people. Do not think that it ends with the Palestinians; after all, “a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Free Palestine, and remember, we are victims to the phrase “it’s not a big deal.” To achieve justice, we must put the phrase on trial, and that starts with speaking out about the injustices we have faced. It starts and ends with YOU.