Entry 6
The chapter Chasing Valentino dives into the story of Reema. Throughout the chapter Reema debunks many of her Boyfriend Alex’s false assumptions about Arab culture. One of which was marrying multiple women. Reema clarifies that while Muslim men can do it most don’t anymore. Muslim not Arab, as the two are not the same thing. Alex constantly mistakes Arab for Arabian, in which Reema corrects. He later shows her The Sheik (1921), a Rudolph Valentino movie (hence the name of the chapter) that goes from a man kidnapping a women, to the two falling in love. As if that were a realistic scenario to him. After a while Reema has had enough and asks him to leave her apartment. My reason for choosing this chapter was because it shows what others can and have experienced firsthand. Not in a general public setting or anything large-scale, but an individual interaction. It is highlighted numerous times in the text how Reema was constantly holding back how offended she got by Alex. This is not the first time this concept has been applied. Born Palestine Born Black is the type of book that is built on no longer holding back. What this means to me is that people constantly overthink what it means to be part of a different culture. In reality one’s race, ethnicity, religion, or culture is only a fraction of who that person is. None of these make up an entire personality. For all four women portrayed, they each have their own stories. Much like everyone else, they too live their lives, go to college, do work, eat, sleep, read, etc. All seven billion people have more in common then one may realize, and yet some only focus on a single aspect. When that happens it leads to a closed mind full of false assumptions.
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