Second Critical Analysis on "How Does it Feel To Be A Problem"

The story “How Does it Feel To Be A Problem” by Moustafa Bayoumi has many stories in it of young Arab, muslim, Iraqi, and Palestinian men and women that struggle to live in New York City after the terrorist attack on the world Trade Center, they struggle to live because of different societal issues. One of the stories that Bayoumi takes us through is a man named Omar. Omar is a man who is looking for work in the media, but having no luck getting a job. He believes that this is because the different companies don’t want to hire someone who’s Arab or muslim. This is an example of racism, which is a major social issue, Bayoumi shows this concept of racism in many ways. One way that she show this is when Omar is telling us about how he is having a problem getting a job, he also has acquaintances that are having trouble finding jobs. “But Omar’s worries over employment discrimination in the new age of terror are hardly unique. I hear the anxiety echoing everywhere around the young people I encounter, and some of their stories are cautionary tales.” Showing us that this is an issue that Bayoumi has often seen in our society and that telling the stories are ways for people to know the issues that people are going through. Another example is Bayoumi telling us different examples of people who are losing their jobs because they are Arab and muslim, “An earlier case involved twelve Muslim, Arab, and South Asian workers who filed a claim with the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) against the ‘severe and pervasive harassment’ that they underwent at the Plaza Hotel months after the terrorist attack.  According to the suit, managers wrote ‘Osama,’ ‘Bin Laden,’ ‘Al Qaeda,’ and ‘Taliban’ instead of the employees’ actual names when handing out key holders with room keys.  the employees were repeatedly called ‘terrorist’, ‘Osama’, and ‘Al Qaeda’, “Taliban’ and ‘Dumb Muslim’.  They were accused of destroying the World Trade Center and cursed at for ruining the country.” This upsetting thing to think about that just because someone of their race did something badly, everyone starts to think that everyone that looks like that person is a terrorist. When those people were hired they probably weren’t even accused of being terrorists, but when the 9/11 plane crash came around everyone turned their back regardless of what they had to say just because someone of the same race did something horrible. This a major example of racism that occurred just a few years ago in our society and we are still recovering from the loss of jobs. This is how Moustafa Bayoumi shows the societal issue of racism in Omar’s story.

Moustafa Bayoumi want you to feel like you are in the same situation as Omar. She tells us, the reader, little anecdotes to help us make an image of what other people are going through. Because we live in New York City we can read this and think about how we may not be confronted with this issue of racism everyday in our life, but Omar has friends that are being sent falsely being accused of being a terrorist daily. One example is when Omar gets a part-time job at the Non-profit Housing- Development Organization, Omar recently worked at  Al Jazeera it was an Arab media show, but he just had an internship so it ended after five months. Al Jazeera isn’t a good thing that he had on his resume because many people assume that the Arab people are saying bad things, but really no one knows what they are saying because mostly none of them speak Arabic. “‘I used to work for Al Jazeera,’ Omar said ‘And it’s actually one of the best new organizations in the world today.’/ Brian was unconvinced ‘How could you support something that promotes beheading? That promotes terrorism?’ he said blandly./.../ ‘Then how do you know what they are saying?’/ ‘Because Fox tells me’ Brian said./ ‘But it’f Fox’s interest, as their competitor, to show them in a negative light.’ Omar tried to explain” this is how rumors turn into lies and then people start believing them, because Brian thought he knew everything he thought that he was right, but he was actually making a false accusation.

In reading his story Moustafa Bayoumi does a good job to show us that there's a lot of racism in New York City and some people don’t even notice it on a daily. Because Bayoumi Omar’s story and everyone else’s story we can gain a better sense of what racism is in our city.