When I came to the USA from Jordan in 1987, I was educated about racism in America during my first semester on campus by a pair of guys who loved to call me a Sand N…g…r and who encouraged everyone else to follow their lead. I totally didn’t get that they intended it as both a pejorative and a joke. This kind of “put down” education continued off and on until a couple years later when I wanted to understand what was meant by things said. When is “N..g..r” a bad word and when is it affectionate? Why are some African Americans okay with being called “Black” and others insist on being called “African American”? When is the word “Colored” intended to include Hispanics and Arabs and when is it only for “Blacks” and why does “Urban” sometimes mean “city people” and other times only mean “Black” people? Finally, I ended up in a course titled “African Americans in Film” which opened by eyes to the suffering and ridicule of the descendants of slaves in North America and allowed me a place to ask some of these questions.
After graduation, and a short period living in Columbus, I moved to Chicago’s Marquette Park neighborhood to help my uncle renovate a building he bought. Like me, he & his African American woman partied hard with lots of beer, liquor, and sometimes some drugs. But unlike me, when they partied they would often come to blows between each other. God used the emotional struggle of watching their mutual physical abuse to chase me back to God who one week after I received His forgiveness, he freed me of alcoholism and nicotine addiction.
In the same approximate time frame, once the building renovation was done, I ended up working as a long term freelancer for a start up African American public relations agency. As the only regular staff person, I implemented much of their media relations and special event planning, all for the purpose of marketing products to African Americans. As a newer company they were getting a lot business thanks to the president’s and CEO’s previous tenures at one of the largest public relations firm in the country. I enjoyed working with them, the trust in me they communicated, and the opportunities they said were in store for me if I steadied-on implementing their agenda and participating as needed in customer relations and media relations. At the time, I had no idea that being a light skinned Arab American with no Arab accent gave me access to people that would not listen to darker skinned African Americans. Since we all wore suits and they were the bosses, I was just grateful to have a good paying freelance job that allowed me to utilize my journalism and public relations undergrad degree. I was rather oblivious to the racial issues floating around me unless I saw opportunities to exploit something for a sob story angle to convince a newspaper editor to print my story. or a news producer to roll my film.
Soon after returning to God and receiving Christ as my Sanctifier, God began open my eyes to juxtaposition of where I lived and where I worked. The internal confusion began to be compounded by how I got to work. With my uncle and his woman, I lived in a racially mixed, southwest side inner city neighborhood made up of blacks, whites (a lot Lithuanians), Hispanics, Arabs, and Asians. I took a public bus from Chicago’s southwest Marquette Park (this very mutlicultural neighborhood) through Chicago’s southside neighborhood of Englewood (all African American) to get on a subway train up to the company’s city center offices. I lived among working class African Americans, traveled through one of the poorest & most violent African American neighborhoods in Chicago, to work for some of the wealthiest African Americans I could imagine.
On a sunny late October afternoon in 1992, the president and CEO asked me to come into the president’s office. The spring in his step and gleeful expression on his face were impossible to miss. As I followed him into his office, the CEO’s posture and huge smile clearly communicated that this would be something really good! Sitting down I mentioned how happy they looked and their smiles got even bigger (which I didn’t think was possible).
With great joy, they proceeded to tell me that they had just confirmed their largest client ever and wanted me to celebrate with them by stepping into the responsibility as the exclusive account representative no longer as a freelancer but as a full time employee! Now I was not just happy for them but with them! Then it got better. They said because of the size of the contract, they weren’t going to offer me a salary. Confused I asked if they wanted me to work for free. They replied that I could set my own salary! WOW! Only one year out of college and I could set my own salary. Although overjoyed, I suddenly realized I missed who the client was so I asked. When they said “Miller Brewing” their answer caused me pause. A chill went up my back as my grin widened and my heart sank. I was still really happy but I did know why the wind went out of my sails. They wanted me to sign on the dotted line that day but I asked for the weekend to pray about it. The opportunity to cast vision for trusting God and not being presumptive about what God would want took all three of us by surprise! After agreeing with them that this is clearly God’s blessing to them and to me, they seemed content to let me practice my newfound religion by praying over the weekend.
For the first time in 6 months of taking public transportation home, I did not read my Bible on the train nor the bus. I just gazed out of the window asking God how many zeros should be on my salary. The Red Line train was a packed as usual. All the whites got off earlier as usual. A lot of the blacks got off with me as usual at the West 69th Street station in Englewood. The standing room only bus going down West 69th passed the large Paul Robeson High School, then Halsted, then Ashland. By the time we crossed Ashland most of the blacks got off the bus. As usual, the bus balanced out into blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Arabs. Suddenly the advertisements coursed through my mind. From Ashland Avenue westbound on the West 69th Street bus, there were all kinds of different products advertised! Everything you could imagine! But east of Ashland, what had I seen? What was marketed to the black community? I could only remember three items. Could it be? Really?
Having prayed all weekend, I set out on the bus to work from Marquette Park. Since I had read my Bible most of the weekend while asking God what I should do, I left the pocket Bible in my pocket the whole ride to work. From Kedzie to Ashland, every product one could imagine was advertised on billboards, awnings, and painted on sides of buildings. Once the bus crossed Ashland, the bus slowly filled with blacks, mostly people going to Paul Robeson High School. From Ashland eastbound, as every advertisement passed us by, I saw big smiling black people on billboards, painted on buildings and printed on awnings. Each advertisement held various brands of beer, liquor, cigarettes, and hair product. Every single one. Not one advertisement for food or fruit, veggies or meat. Not one advertisement for building products or yards or gardens or toys. Not one advertisement casting vision for career or college. Not one.
Make your hair pretty black ladies. Everyone grab a cigarette. Everyone grab a beer. This is the future we have for you. This is the future we see for you. That’s it.
My heart broke.
It broke, not because I was not going to take the money to market beer to blacks. My heart broke because my bosses, who were black and knew the power of advertising and marketing and public relations, were inviting me to enslave a people to a vision of bondage that I had only recently been set free from.
Only God can change this. He had changed and freed me. Now maybe He will change them and free them. And if Christ sets them free, they will be free indeed.