As an Egyptian American, I am constantly finding myself unable to fit or feel comfortable with the racialized definitions given by the colonizers. Even the term Middle-eastern bugs me. Middle East to what? Europe. My identity is still centered around Whiteness.

This also applies to “Arab.” While ethnically and culturally my family and I consider ourselves Arab, Arabs came into my homeland, colonized it, forced religious conversion to Islam, got rid of our indigenous language (Coptic), and made my ancestors adopt their culture.

The small minority of Christian Egyptians (that I belong to) don’t often identify with the term indigenous, I believe this is a result of successful Arabization of the coptic/native Egyptian people. This is why my faith is so important to who I am. It links me to my ancestors.

When people hear Egypt, they often think Islam. Because in fact, today this group is the majority (~90%). I am always assumed to be Muslim (and I don’t take offense to that). But it plays into the erasure of my people, and that is what hurts.

In conclusion: racialization and the racism that accompanies it has permanently fractured self-identifying groups of people into hierarchical categories that leads to the displacement and erasure of peoples. This is a global phenomenon, and I hope we think about it that way.

I also want to add the layer of complexity of going from a land where there is widespread religious persecution and discrimination against Christians to coming to the US where I that same identity placed me in a position of extreme privilege. Much to unpack there but next time