by Negin Farsad
6 Maybe you’ve noticed that I didn’t name the group, the ringleader, or the actual content of the posters. I really don’t want to add to their publicity machine, but if you’re interested, as Sergey Brin once said, “Bing it.”
* See Ali Abunimah, “France Begins Jailing People for Ironic Comments,” Electronic Intifada, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/france-begins-jailing-people-ironic-comments; and “The Sound of Silence,” Economist, http://www.economist.com/news/international/21640324-reactions-paris-attacks-highlight-threats-free-expression-around-world.
7 Dean is of the Palestinian-American-Italian variety, he’s wonderful, a stand-up guy and a stand-up comedian, and he enjoys standing.
*The posters also promote our film The Muslims Are Coming! but I’ll talk about that more later.
8 Oh, yes, I’m seeing it now: penises have come up twice in the same chapter and both in a drawing context. I don’t know what that says about me, but talk among yourselves.
9 Yes, the New York City MTA has the ability to time-travel.
10 And, of course, we also promoted the film The Muslims Are Coming!, featured on every poster.
11 Those posters finally went up in the NYC subway system and I had the very good fortune of actually seeing people look at a poster and chuckle. One chuckle won’t change social systems but add enough chuckles up—like millions of them—and that could amount to real change.
1 This is a total anecdotal statistic, I don’t have real records to prove it. But my eyeballs were record enough for me back then.
2 Vagina-bearing Mexican-Americans celebrate their fifteenth birthdays like it’s a really big deal. It’s called a quinceañera, and it looks really fun and horribly awkward at the same time, sort of like a Bar Mitzvah.*
* Penis-bearing Jewish-Americans celebrate their thirteenth birthdays like it’s a really big deal. It’s called a Bar Mitzvah and it looks really fun and horribly awkward, sort of like a quinceañera.^
^ Vagina-bearing Jewish-Americans celebrate something like Bar Mitvahs and quinceañeras called Bat Mitzvahs, which are similarly fun and awkward but with more mentions of a mystical Bubby and zombie-like slow dancing.
3 By the way, the proper pronunciation is “Neh-geen”—hard g like in “begin,” and the end rhymes with “magazine.”
4 “Noodle” doesn’t even make sense for an Iranian-American. Rice Farsad or better yet, Saffron Farsad would have been more accurate, but my name starts with an N so… I understand her struggle.
* This is a joke.
5 That was a hard-copy set of little papers where we wrote down people’s phone numbers. This was before cell phones.
6 It’s from a Martin Luther King Jr. quote: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
1 You’re probably wondering what my position is on Brian Posehn’s presidential standing, since I went in depth on Weird Al’s. Well, while I think Posehn is an astute scholar and human, his skills are better suited to a VP role. Basically, a joint ticket with Weird Al and Brian Posehn could do wonders for our country, or any smaller country.
2 This turned out to be a false fear, as I have yet to develop bunions. My pinky toe, however, has never really pulled its weight, but that’s a story for another time.
3 Yeah, I don’t know who said that first—I can’t find an attribution—so let’s just say “seventh-century Huns of Central Asia.” They never get credit for anything.
4 PS: We totally succeeded in getting them to go to prom together! We were a fabulous posse of Iranian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Romanian, and some white guys at prom.
1 Doesn’t everyone think their hometown is the cultural armpit of America? Unless your hometown is Portland, in which case you think your hometown is the cultural capital of armpits… unwashed armpits. You know, because they’re a bunch of dirty hippies (and now dirty hipsters).*
* WHOA! I just threw Portland under the bus for no reason. I actually love Portland (when it’s not raining), and I’ve eaten multiple donuts there. Thank you, Portland.
2 To be fair, my kinda-chubby status confounded me, too. I wasn’t that bad with the eating. My only explanation is that I grew up in the United States and a lot of us are kinda chubby. Maybe it’s because our foods are made from malted thiamin monoglyceride mixed with hormones, and spiked with aspartame. I don’t know, I’m just spitballin’.
1 Sadly, I can’t remember or figure out the name of the play, but the cast included about a dozen black actors: One white Jewish woman was cast to play a male slave owner, the director was black, and I stage-managed. The Jewish actor was both really pleased to be cast and really horrified at the same time. I just felt as if I was getting closer and closer to my purpose.
2 To be fair, we also had one or two Jewish sororities/fraternities and a black fraternity that I can remember.
3 Obviously, changing the social divide on campus was much much more important than Spanx, but not all analogies are perfect.
4 Weird! A footnote that is actually intended to give you bibliographic information: Michael Bocian, “Housing on College Campuses,” U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED446596.pdf.
5 A warm and delicious sandwich of turkey, Muenster cheese, honey mustard, and lettuce on pumpernickel bread. The honey mustard was special, and I have not seen the likes of it in non-Collegetown bagel establishments.
1 Oh, for the record, I don’t watch Real Housewives… Of course, I would say that.
2 Comedy is like the mob and it does kill people.
3 Have you seen someone wearing the “Ithaca is Gorges” T-shirt? The “Ithaca is Gorges” T-shirt is to Ithaca what the “YOLO” T-shirts were to 2013. Everyone has one, we’re all embarrassed about it.
4 We’re talking a whole six months, which in college is like “a long time.”
5 http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/movies/aclu-citing-bias-against-women-wants-inquiry-into-hollywoods-hiring-practices.html?_r=0.
6 Emily Peck, “The Stats on Women in Tech Are Actually Getting Worse,” Huffington Post, March 27, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/27/women-in-tech_n_6955940.html.
7 In a school composed entirely of straight-A students we thought we had “dumb girls.” We didn’t.
8 Yes, as college students we had remarkable insight on how marriage worked.
9 In the interest of accuracy, this particular superhero sketch was about a series of dining hall vegetables that saved college students from doom. I’m in talks with Marvel to turn it into a movie franchise starring Charlize Theron in the role of the Rapacious Rutabaga.
1 They’re called ghorabiye—with the guttural gh sound that makes it sound like you’re swallowing your face.
2 Oh come on! I kid, of course it doesn’t smell like enriched uranium.
1 French translation: On parlais francais dans un facon putain du merde de merveilleuse, tu vois? Par example, on a dit, “Nik ta mere, t’es fous toi!” parce que on a parlais si bien le francais.*
* English Translation: We spoke French really prostitute of shitting amazingly, you know? For example, we’d say, “Go fuck your mom, you fool!” because that’s how well we spoke French.
2 French Translation: noisette job.
3 This is Sunday New York Times evidence, which means it came before an article about real estate and after an article about new uses for cumquats. See Lauren A. Rivera, “Guess Who Doesn’t Fit In at Work,” New York Times, May 30, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/opinion/sunday/guess-who-doesnt-fit-in-at-work.html?_r=0.
4 “Better Decisions Through Diversity,” Kellogg Insight (blog), October 1, 2010, Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/better_decisions_through_diversity.
5 “Your Right to Equal Pay: Did You Know That Women Are Still Paid Less Than Men?” White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/equal-pay/career.
6 Sarah H
edgecock, “Report: Most Men Still Out-Earn Most Women,” Gawker, May 28, 2014, http://gawker.com/report-most-men-still-out-earn-most-women-1582628892.
7 We fronted $700 billion on the bailout, but figures on what it ultimately cost the taxpayer vary from $24 billion to $80 billion.
8 “Remember That $83 Million Bank Subsidy? We Weren’t Kidding,” Bloomberg View February 24, 2013, http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-02-24/remember-that-83-billion-bank-subsidy-we-weren’t-kidding.
9 “The Other 98% Urges Wall Street to Donate $91 Billion in Bonuses to Victims of Financial Crisis,” Democracy Now! December 27, 2013, http://www.democracynow.org/2013/12/27/occupy_offshoot_urges_wall_street_to.
10 “Bank of America Total Assets (Quarterly),” YCharts, http://ycharts.com/companies/BAC/assets.
11 “Report: Close Corporate Tax Loopholes,” U.S. PIRG, http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/hidden-cost-offshore-tax-havens.
12 What? Don’t act like you haven’t dreamed of having access to a laminator. Don’t act like you haven’t looked at a grocery list and thought, What this grocery list needs is to be laminated.
1 Europe and the Mystique of Islam by Maxime Rodinson and Roger Veinus—also discussed here: Rachel Woodlock, “Angels or Animals? The Problem of Muslim Stereotyping,” Religion and Ethics, ABC, April 3, 2012, http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/04/03/3469636.htm.
2 You want to know who’s badass on this issue? David Rothkopf and his book National Insecurity. I wasn’t quoting him, but I do kinda wish he one day reads this book and blesses my quote with some kind of elaborate Rothkopfian seal.
3 By the way, do Dutch people even do this??
4 It’s funny, because some people say that to defend horrible shit.
5 Again, Obama is not a Muslim; he was just accused of being a Muslim so that people wouldn’t vote for him. It was an accusation that worked really well, because a majority of voters in some states continue to think he is a Muslim (Mississippi, I’m looking at you). (He did not win that state.) He is, however, a bad bowler, a quality he shares with Muslims. That, and an unwavering commitment to Allah. (Kidding! He’s not Muslim.)
1 This is according to the all-knowing Nate Silver: “Swing Voters and Elastic States,” FiveThirtyEight (blog), New York Times, May 21, 2012, http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/swing-voters-and-elastic-states/. And according to this paper from the Brookings Institution: William G. Mayer, “What Exactly Is a Swing Voter? Definition and Measurement,” Brookings Institution, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/press/books/2008/swingvoterinamericanpolitics/swingvoterinamericanpolitics_chapter.pdf.
2 The picking-nose theory on the undisclosed 8 percent is mine alone. But the other statistics are from the Pew Research Center, where many great statistics are born: Pew Research Center, July 29,2015, http://www.pewforum.org/2015/07/29/graphics-slideshow-changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/.
3 Elizabeth Dias, “How Evangelicals Are Changing Their Minds on Gay Marriage,” Time, January 25, 2015, http://time.com/3669024/evangelicals-gay-marriage/.
4 If there’s anything you should have learned by chapter 10 of this book, it’s that I’m not a neuroscientist. In fact, that’s the one thing I want people to take away from this book: “She’s not a neuroscientist.”
5 Ashley A. Anderson et al., “The ‘Nasty Effect:’ Online Incivility and Risk Perceptions of Emerging Technologies,” Wiley Online Library, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12009/.
6 Although, to be fair, Muslims also get the “multiple wives” stereotype, but it’s usually overshadowed by the “extremist violence” one, so my point still holds.
7 Emma Green, “The Trouble with Wearing Turbans in America,” Atlantic, January 27, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/the-trouble-with-wearing-turbans-in-america/384832/.
8 “Quotes from the American Family Association,” Southern Poverty Law Center, http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/winter/afa_quotes.
9 Alas, this is all untrue, as I cannot accurately tell you what will happen in 2025. Or can I?
* Content by me, ridiculously great illustrations by Monica Johnson.
1 This metaphorical measurement of dick size is best evidenced by inventor dudes, each of whom claim that their technology apparatus is better than any other dude’s technology apparatus.
2 That TED Fellow was Jane Chen. Look her up. She’s brilliant… and tough to follow.
3 READER: Oh wait, was that TEDTalk the premise of this book? ME : Sort of, it did lay the building blocks and I did steal my own title from it. By the way, I’m glad you’re paying attention. READER : My pleasure, but I might have to put the book down after this chapter to go to my Pilates class. Don’t be offended, though. ME: I totally understand, you gotta keep it tight, grrrl.
4 Did this really happen? Fuck yeah, it happened. Peter Gabriel does duets with bonobo apes on the regular. Mostly, he wants to figure out how to communicate with them and other cognitive species through technology. He likes to put a piano in front of an ape and then round out the tune with, you now, a Peter Gabriel jam. Look it up!
5 Being delightful is a whole separate rule that we will get to later.
6 This is the kind of booty call that doesn’t involve any sex but does involve social justice work with a formidable ally.
1 By the way, I don’t mean to imply that women of color aren’t “fresh” as in “not stale”—they totally are fresh. But I also don’t mean to imply that they’re “fresh” as in “horny.” But I also don’t mean to imply that they’re not horny.
2 Christian Rudder, “Exactly What to Say in a First Message,” OkTrends (blog), OkCupid, September 14, 2009, http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/online-dating-advice-exactly-what-to-say-in-a-first-message/.
3 Christian Rudder, “Race and Attraction, 2009–2014,” OkTrends (blog), OkCupid, September 10, 2014, http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/race-attraction-2009-2014/.
4 According to Kevin Lewis of the University of California, San Diego, as quoted in Sharon Jayson, “Online Daters Often Willing to Cross Racial Lines,” USA Today, November 5, 2013, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/04/online-dating-interracial/3327925/?AID=10709313&PID=6157437&SID=ibtr06tgcg00xkod00dth.
1 “Race: About,” U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html.
2 Gene Demby, “On The Census, Who Checks ‘Hispanic,’ Who Checks ‘White,’ and Why,” Code Switch (blog), NPR, June 16, 2014, http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/06/16/321819185/on-the-census-who-checks-hispanic-who-checks-white-and-why.
3 “Study Shows Increase in Negative Messages About Muslims in the Media,” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, College of Arts and Sciences, http://college.unc.edu/2012/11/29/bailstudy/.
4 Kate Lyons, “Why Hollywood Is Frozen in the 1950s: White Men Are Still King of the Silver Screen with Lead Roles Going to Just 26% of Women and 11% of Minorities,” Daily Mail.com, February 20, 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2563561/Hollywood-place-white-men-New-study-finds-women-minorities-dramatically-underrepresented-films-television.html.
5 Cynthia Lee, “Study Finds TV Shows with Ethnically Diverse Casts, Writers Have Higher Ratings,” UCLA Newsroom, October 8, 2013, http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/study-finds-that-tv-shows-with-248757.
6 Paul Farhi, “In the News Media, Are Muslims the Only ‘Terrorists’?” Washington Post, June 10, 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-the-news-media-are-muslims-the-only-terrorists/2014/06/10/9ee01778-f0d9-11e3-9ebc-2ee6f81ed217_story.html.
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
An Introduction: I Used to be Black
Chapter 1: Iranians Have No Gaydar and Other Things I Learned Growing Up in Palm Springs
Chapter 2: Hairy Legs, Short Shorts, and the Mexification of Negin Farsad
Chapter 3: Negin and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: aka High School
Chapter 4: When Fig Newtons Are the Last Straw: On Leaving Palm Springs
Chapter 5: A Protester Is Born: Dave Matthews, Pleated Khakis, and the Reverend Al Sharpton
Chapter 6: My Lady Parts and My Comedy Parts
Chapter 7: Bootleg Islam
Chapter 8: Where My Staplers At?
Chapter 9: My Own People Don’t Like Me Very Much
Chapter 10: A Taxonomy of Haters
Chapter 11: White People Love Conferences
Chapter 12: My Boyfriend Is Black and a Mini-Bout of Racism
Chapter 13: Do Immigrants Spit Out More Patriotic Babies?
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Reading Group Guide
Questions for Discussion
Q&A with Negin Farsad
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
This memoir reflects the author’s life faithfully rendered to the best of her ability. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of others.
Copyright © 2016 by Negin Farsad
Cover design & illustration by Jennifer Heuer
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group
