All right, let’s go there. In another thread Andrea suggested we devote a discussion to white converts–what we mean, what we hijack, how we’re useful or not. I will observe something that will make me unpopular among others of my ilk: a lot of educated white converts (in other words, ones who grew up with a certain amount of implicit cultural authority) use their conversion as an excuse to analyze subjects with which they have no experience: honor killing, arranged marriage, poverty. They function, and to a certain extent see themselves, as religiously privileged anthropologists. There is a reason for this that is understandable: one wants to simply tack a Muslim identity on to one’s existing identity, which gives one a comfortable cushion of implied expertise.
The problem, besides a level of inherent obnoxiousness, is that this muddles up existent identity politics. In the West, Islam is deeply tied to ideas of race, cultural identity and immigration. When white converts come in, rhetorical guns blazing, to talk about Who Muslims Are and Are Not, the narrative gets skewed. Thirty years of postcolonial activism, meant to take the Muslim/non-western narrative out of the hands of white scholars and put it back in the hands of the people who live it, becomes confused. The unspoken bottom line is this: to some people, the fact that white Muslims exist is very inconvenient.
My solution: we, educated white converts, have to accept that we don’t get a unified cultural identity. We just don’t. Not this generation. If we work hard, our kids will. We no longer fit seamlessly into the white majority and we can’t tack ourselves on to the immigrant/emergent American/British community, because *we’re not from there*. (Hello? White dude in the thobe with the fake foreign accent? I’m talking to you.) We are, for now, identity-less. Rather than denying it, moaning about it or getting a martyr complex about it, we should accept it, poke our heads up and see how this can be useful.
Next: How to Be White, Muslim and Vocal Without Co-opting Everything
