a friendly FYI: because i was born outside of the US and i’m brown and muslim, it doesn’t mean that i know all muslims, brown people, immigrants, or folx from south asia.
in one of my first jobs at ABB, in CT, my boss would come running to my office to say something like, ‘i was just on the phone with this guy from india…’ there would be no other connection, just some random guy’s indian-ness affixed to my apparent pakistani origins.
i met a white person on zoom the other day, someone i know professionally, and he told me (for no reason whatsoever) that in school he had a friend named muhammad and that the only memory he had of him was making out with girls at his place. relevance u might ask? well, u wouldn’t be the first. i guess it was muhammed’s muslim-ness that i was supposed to dig.
i don’t need to know about a cousin’s best friend who happened to be pakistani or about the unforgettable trip to india whilst in college. imagine if we started bonding with the mainstream by listing all the white people/places we know.
so, no need to mention brown or muslim folx if their identity seems to be their only function. i probably don’t know them. there are a lot of people in south asia and about a quarter of the world population is muslim. just sayin:)