Friday, November 13, 2009

Race hierachy in Hummus Homeland

Yassine in Lebanon sent me this (I cite with his permission): "So I live 30 meters away from mat'am Barbar but this is not a mana'ish story, though I love them as well. Today, a Syrian worker arrived to my appartment to fix some holes in the roof - I live on the top floor. And my Bangladeshi porter came up and launched a tyrade against the poor Syrian worker: 'you f*cking Syrians, you lazy people, you do not know how to work' ... And he just stood there taking it, he was working perfectly well. I do not know Lebanon that well, but could this signal a change in Lebanon's race hierarchy? Meaning that Syrians went down on the ladder. I can't believe how much racism is ingrained in this society."