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I’ve been meaning to write a post on this show for a while now.

I have seen pretty much every promotional video about this show and I’m attaching the one that sends the clearest message regarding the plot-line of the show:

When I saw this video, I actually thought it was a skit from a late night comedy show. Turns out, it is the real deal, folks. This is a show about a white middle America family with a young awkward teenage boy whose mother tries to get him a friend by signing up for an exchange student. Turns out, the exchange student is a Muslim Pakistani boy, who follows every ridiculous stereotype for South Asian men who are “fresh off the boat” - this clothes, his naive enthusiasm and wonderment for the United States, his lack of social cues, etc. The thing that struck me the most though, is his thick accent. It sounds fake, it sounds contrived. It sounds like the makings of some racist television.

I have a feeling that the show is supposed to be a clever commentary on the xenophobia that plagues many predominantly white communities and families. The scene in the classroom for instance when the teacher says something like “Raja, in this country we raise our hands when we want to talk” then proceeds to ask if people are angry at him because “his people blew up the towers”. This is the only scene that appears in any way redeemable to me.

But this is the problem I really have with this show.

People, as a general rule, who watch mainstream television, are not that smart.

They don’t necessarily have a critical eye for the nuances of racial and political commentary. So when a character like Raja shows up, there aren’t going to be a whole lot of people who look at him as a smart and possibly witty caricature of how America perceives Muslim people. Instead, they are going to proceed to think that all Muslim people are awkward outcasts, that they all have really thick accents (think Apu from the Simpsons) and the boys are emasculated by their “foreign” values and cultural or religious practices. This is the kind of show that perpetuates stereotypes.

I guess the argument would be that it is a show about coming together despite differences. Two boys who are social outcasts from their big bad high school, can come together over food and religion and music. They can both feel like Aliens in America together.

This is some big, bad bullshit to me. This show is falling into the myth of the melting pot - we can all come together and overlook, even erase our differences and be happy living and working together. If we focus on our similarities, then our histories of institutional racism and sexism and homophobia will melt away. Enter the color blind zone. Of course, what’s even more complicated about this show is it isn’t advocating for color blindness so much as nation-blindness. “People are awkward in America, too. White kids are dealing with bullies and socially uncomfortable situations here, just like when a person of color visiting from another country comes to the United States” - This is such a problem, I’m having trouble stating why exactly it is. It just seems so obvious to me.

I’m going to say one last thing about this which is that I think it’s easy to focus on individual conflict and circumstance and ignore the larger framework that the circumstance is taking place in - what an endearing plot, to meet someone who understands what it’s like to be an outsider. I can only imagine what kind of lessons Raja is going to teach his host family and host brother, through his exotic culture and religion.

Also, it’s 2007. I really think it’s time to stop using cliched “ethnic music” whenever a brown person appears on screen.

I’m still settling into a new (and final) college year, which includes having to maintain a thesis blog for a seminar class - clearly, keeping two blogs that couldn’t be further from one another is frustrating, but I am determined to try!

I found out yesterday that an ex-boyfriend from a few years ago is writing his English senior thesis with an emphasis in male privilege and the ways in which masculinity and gendered expectations for men end up being detrimental for men as well as women, albeit in different ways.

A year after I got so fed up with relationships that I walked away from my last one for who knows how long (this is a good thing - I desperately needed to learn more about what it means for me to be a woman of color in this world…I still need to, every day) this ex-boyfriend contacted me in an effort to find closure for himself. I wonder if anyone knows what sort of situation I’m talking about - a call out of the blue in order to make himself feel better about himself, draining all my energy from me in an effort to explain to him what it meant for him to be a white male in a relationship with a woman of color, and him walking away hoping that he could continue to be educated by me.

We haven’t spoken since. But in reading this thesis work, I can’t help but look back at women of color I know who have dated men and, through the course of their relationship, have ended up educating them, or at least pointing out certain gendered and often racial dynamics. At the end of the relationship, people wonder why the women let such a good man get away. In the particular experience I’m referring to, I can’t help feeling like this ex-boyfriend of mine was able to take what little understanding of male privilege and turn it into a progressive pick up line. And a thesis topic. What did I get? A lot of his white friends giving me that judgmental look that says “you were that girl.” It’s a small campus so that happens more often that I’d like to admit.

That girl. I’ve used that phrase so many times in the last two weeks that I now have no idea what it really means. Maybe someone can articulate what it is about that phrase that I find offensive but continue to use it - maybe I’m trying to reclaim the idea - that girl: the jealous girl, the loud girl, the unfeminine girl, the smart girl, the argumentative girl, the freckled, dark skinned, curvy girl, the unapologetic girl.

Now I’ve typed “girl” so many times it is starting to look even more nonsensical than it actually is..