You Don’t Look Like an Ahmed

Another thankless shift at the start-up fashioning strange golems from the mud of the networked frontier and I figure the only thing to be done about it all is to head to the old haunt of my literary heroes and start drinking.

“Ahmed, eh,” says my Uber driver, whom I’ll call Omar, in thickly accented English as I close the door and put on my seatbelt. “Quite a burden you carry, with a name like that.”

Omar is bearded, looks to be in his thirties, with a verse from the Quran dangling from his rearview mirror. He tells me he moved to this country from Yemen six years ago.

I always feel apprehensive when I see an Arabic name linked to the cartoon car on the app screen after ordering a ride because it often results in a journey in which I’m forced to reckon with and defend my apostate ways.

You Muslim?

Eh, it’s complicated.

What mosque do you go to?

Haven’t been to one in years.

Do you fast for Ramadan?

Not since I became addicted to coffee.

Do you even speak Arabic?

Used to.

These answers are unsatisfactory, and a sermon about the glory of Allah often follows. On rare occasions, the questions don’t come, and the driver just tells me how he sees things, assuming that we embrace the same worldview. I like it when that happens, because I get to hear what a real Arab man in America actually feels about US foreign policy, Israel, women, etc. While I disagree with some of what is said, I offer a slew of California-tinged “Totally, man”s without fail, because I am a coward who is averse to conflict and also because I like to hear people speak their truths.

This is all by way of saying that I’m surprised by the olive branch Omar offers me.

“I mean, it’s like, whatever, you know,” I say to him.

Omar tells me that, like many Uber drivers, he uses the job to supplement his main gig, which in his case is dealing herb in the rough-and-tumble Tenderloin. He says that I’m his last ride for the evening and that after he drops me off, he plans to go home and get stoned.

“Smoke is only way for Muslim Arab to stay sane in this country, in this world, brother,” he says. “If everybody smoke? No war.”

“Totally, man.”

He says his wife is pregnant, and that he hopes to raise several children in the United States. He will not give them Arabic names.

“Why make it harder for them? Why screw them?”

That’s good thinking there, Omar. World’s tough enough for us Ahmeds. Though I have it easy, all things considered. I speak in a stoner drawl and I shave what is a relatively merciful unibrow. Year-round Bay Area weather of just a little too cold and cloudy leaves my skin a sickly yellow. All of which is to say: I pass.

But that’s just it though, isn’t it? I pass, except for the name. Confuses the tech bros at networking events who look at my name tag before taking in my face. “Huh, you don’t look like an Ahmed.” Confuses the baristas who act like I’ve just hocked a loogie instead of pronouncing one of the most common names in the world. Depending on my mood, it makes ordering lattes either a real pain in the ass or an opportunity to try out calling myself Bob or Jedidiah. Which I do, from time to time.

On the other hand, I get to have that good kind of Person of Color status. The kind where you’re an object of interest to advocates of social justice, despite a life otherwise defined by privilege. The kind where you get a free pass to blame at least some of your misfortunes on forces beyond your control. The kind where folks come up to you after a politician says another dumb-ass thing about Muslims or Arabs and ask you if you’re okay.

I remember something I haven’t thought about in years as Omar talks about his kids: After moving to San Antonio, Texas, for my seventh-grade year, I told the teachers and students to call me Matt. My older brother Ibrahim tried out Brian. Our cousins Hassan and Soma went by John and Joe. Another cousin lucked out and got Alexander at birth. Now a wealthy businessman who plasters his name proudly upon the design projects of gentrifying neighborhoods. Coincidence?

“Matt” lasted for a year, until the towers fell and all that. Sand nigger, camel jockey, and Osama were my names after that. Names spoken in jest in Axe-soaked locker rooms and nouveau riche hot tubs, and when you don’t laugh they say, Jeez, Awk-med, I’m just fucking with you, don’t take it so personal. Stupid ventriloquist comedian with his “Achmed the terrorist puppet” schtick didn’t help matters much. White friends all stoned and laughing late at night, the puppet yelling, “Silence! I kill you!” and you, sitting there all quiet. Where’s your sense of humor, man? And you say, I’m just high is all.

“Smoke is only way for Muslim Arab to stay sane in this country, in this world, brother,” he says.

And you want this to be home, and so you train yourself to laugh; you want this to be home, and so you don’t say anything when your girlfriend’s aunt says Arab men are angry by nature; you want this to be home, and so you don’t disagree when your best friend says Islam is an inherently violent religion; you want this to be home, and so you get high every damn day of your life. Only way to stay sane in this country, ain’t that right, Omar?

Something approaching anger rises to the placid stoned surface as I stare out the window at the junkies shooting up in FiDi, the businesspeople walking past all biz biz bizzy in a hurry to get to the BART station and head home, paying the junkies no mind.

“Actually, I think I’ll just get out here,” I say to Omar.

“You sure? Long walk to North Beach.”

“Yeah, no, I’m just gonna take the 5 home,” I say. “Trying not to drink so much these days.”

“Alrighty, brother, ma’assalama.”

“Ma’assalama, Omar. I wish you and your wife happiness.”

“Insha’Allah.”

“Insha’Allah.”

I stand in the crowd on the Market Street sidewalk. The anger, it comes, and when it comes, I got to put it down. Cause that’s the thing, man. That’s the thing. It’s that being-both-at-once thing. That no-place-quite-fitting-in thing and how it dogs the hell out of me. That no-good answer to The Question. And how it rises up in those moments when some well-intentioned soul in the Zendo who maintains eye contact for too long—when some high-off-their-ass hippie at the psychedelic festival, when some fresh-on-the-street busker in Jack Kerouac Alley, when some white (always white) woke San Franciscan—will hear my name and ask, “So where are you from?”

And when I answer, they will say: “No, but like, where are you really from?”

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