My joking about Arab names is racist

Yes it's amusing that you laugh at your own Orientalism – we all have our limitations. Part of becoming truly worldly is then expanding your rustic horizons. Because it doesn't read as cute in the worldly world, it reads as gauche, and frankly, racist. I like you Phil, and I'm your friend, so I'm telling you this. You would tell me something similar if I were making gauche remarks.

You see, Westerners marginalize Arabs by calling us all Ahmed, or Belly Dancing Beauty. They marginalize us by demeaning our language and our names. They marginalize us by focusing on Arabs who speak with heavy accents, and dismissing, insulting or casting aspersions upon those of us who "sound like Westerners."

You don't know how many times I've been told that I don't look or sound like a Leila Abu-Saba, as if somehow with my name I should not speak proper English, nor have a straight nose and pale skin. As if getting an Oxonian education (or Oberlin or Yale) makes us not Arabs anymore, because Arabs are uncivilized ipso facto.

Yes this is a lot to hang on a simple question of a name, but I think it's important.

One last argument. If I were to speak of Jewish names this way, over and over again on my blog, it would get on your nerves. It would make me vulnerable to the charge of anti-Semitism. "His name is Weiss, or Weitzman, or Ross, or something like that. You know I can't remember these Yiddish names. He's a goodhearted fellow that Moishe. Or is he Mark? Or Jonathan? Some kind of Polish last name I can't pronounce."

Icky.