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Writing as Resistance, Writing as Love | Joanna Kadi |
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daring tongue maneuvers
I pace back and forth in the living room of the ugly apartment my lover and I rent. We pay too much money for it and the creepy landlord never fixes things when they break. I'm getting small shocks from the shag rug and the radio's turned up. Every day I change my mind. I'll never turn on the news because the American media has taken lies and distortions to new levels in this particular imperialist venture taking place in the Persian Gulf. No. I'll keep the radio on all the time because it might alleviate my feeling of utter helplessness a tiny bit. This day, tuned into public radio, I hear someone introduce Edward Said very distinctly: "Edward Said is an Arab-American intellectual." This astonishes me. Edward Said has ten minutes to talk about American imperialism and anti-Arab racism? Miracle of miracles. But then the full impact hits and I don't hear anything Said says. Someone, a talk show host on national radio no less, used "Arab" and "intellectual" in the same sentence. And not as part of a comedy routine. The words catch in my chest and something tears wide open. Arab-American intellectual. Can it be possible? Do these words fit together? Can the combination work? I've always understood the power of words. Certain words can be crunched together into a hard ball and flung with lightning speed. They can knock you off your feet and leave you gasping for breath. It happened to me with the word Arab. People enjoyed hurling word combinations at me -- Arab whore, greasy Arab, crazy Arab -- and bowling me over, day after day. I never believed anyone who said, "Sticks and stones can break my bones but names can never hurt me." Names did hurt me. Then, a turning point, a revelation. Words hurt; they also heal. Words jostle my insides, wake me up, jump-start my brain. Someone can place "Arab" side by side with "intellectual" and say it over the radio and the earth moves. And if I can keep my understanding of the power of words front and center while I devise my own wild mixtures, maybe I can open up worlds for people like me, maybe I can offer my writing for healing and resistance. |
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Writing as Resistance,
Writing as Love continued
on page 3
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