I didn't mention it yesterday in class, but three different people this semester alone, after learning my last name, have asked me something to effect of, "You're not one of those ISIS guys are you?" One of those people was someone right here in the English department.
Now the absolute ridiculousness of a statement like that aside, what I find most shocking is that fact that someone would just nonchalantly say such a thing. Each time its happened (and I've been hearing similar such bullshit since I was in 10th grade), it came completely out of no where, following a conversation about the weather, or where we're from, or something else innocuous.
It's made me think a lot about my appearance and reception in the classroom. Of course, I don't think many (or hopefully any) of my students see me and wonder whether or not I'm a card carrying member of a terrorist cell. I like to think that's for the uniquely ignorant. However, I am well aware of how my ethnicity might have an effect on student perception of my authority over the English language. As writing teachers, I think that those of us of non-American decent are operating at something of a deficit. Or rather, I have a constant anxiety about that. I wonder if my students, on the first day, see my brown skin and here a foreign last name and think, "What can this guy teach me about English? It's probably not even his first language."
And it's embarrassing to say, but because of this I go in on the first day of class and I speak super clearly, and make a concerted effort to prove to my students that I know my shit. Which is probably a good thing to do, anyway, but I'm not doing it for the right reasons.
Chad, I’m just so shocked that someone would actually ask you that question. How do you reply to a question like that? I mean you say no, but then what? People can obviously not be thinking when they ask an absurd question like that. Like are they asking you because they feel like they are in danger? Do they think you will show up to class wearing a vest with explosives? I’m sorry for ranting, but I can’t help it. I think the fact that people ask these type of questions show 1. They are not critically thinking, and 2. They still associate minorities as “other” and all the same, i.e. All people from the Middle East or of Middle Eastern descent are radical Muslims and part of ISIS.
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