Finally, a new post on being a sand nigger

I have been busy with school, I passed my classes with a 4.00, including an A in introductory Modern Standard Arabic and receiving a certificate in competency in Healthcare Essentials.

But now we shall address the issue of race in the Muslim scene and what it means to lose social whiteness when one converts to Islam from the Judeo-Christian trajectory.

Race is a social construction, whiteness as a social contruction was not always so broad. Recent definitions of whiteness include the original inhabitants of North Africa and the Middle East, regardless of their actual skin color.

Being white in America was a sign of assimilation to the mainstream majority culture, though this rule never applied to African Americans, who are involuntary migrants to the United States.

But being Muslim and white is tricky, you see, I look "ethnic" but my skin color is white. Pull up my shirt and look at my torso, I'm almost ghost white.

I can claim the race card for graduate school admissions, I know how to play the script well though I do not feel necessarily oppressed by Anglo hegemony.

My name is Gustavo, and well people think of this South American tennis player from Brazil, a nation where the white-black dichotomy takes a different twist.

Race is understood differently in Latin America than in Anglophonic North America. The one drop rule there states you are "white" if you possess one drop of European blood even if your features are indicative of indigenous Amerindian and African origins.

But being a fair skinned minority, I possess social whiteness. I am not "Muslim" in stereotypical appearance, I do not have facial hair, I do not wear a kufi, and I sometimes wear clothing that may not be CAIR-approved.

But this brings me to an interesting intersection in my life, my outward appearance affords me the opportunity to overhear Islamophobic remarks made by "God-fearing Christians" on a trolley train in Mission Valley.

I never say anything, I simply observe and absorb it in.

So I say with pride, I'm a cameleon sand nigger, Johnny Jihad, hajji, camel jockey, etc.

Are these words offensive to you?