Hello Carol, I see how SF Ali has responded. I agree with his statements. Because this humorous article is about Ali’s religion and culture and is in many ways, gently and maybe not so gently poking fun at stereotypes, I not only enjoyed it, I learned from it.

I’m going to share a discussion we just had in my extremely diverse Southern California classroom this morning. First, we were learning about “description” and reading Amazon reviews aloud in class, and most class members were laughing so hard, tears were forming in the corners of their eyes.

Second, for many years, I have taught students who are recent immigrants from the Middle East. Many are Persian, but others are from other Middle Eastern countries and backgrounds. I also teach students who are relatively recent immigrants from South and Central America, and students from a number of Asian nations, who are specifically coming to Orange County in Southern California for an education.

And third, all of the actual living, breathing, highly intelligent, brilliant and creative students in this classroom mentioned how tired they were of the way many instructors were lecturing them in their classes about the present Administration, and also, some mentioned their children were coming home from public school with unwanted, non-educational messages regarding current U.S. politics.

I’m not writing about myself here or my opinion, though I felt pretty good hearing that the students were as tired of hearing about these things repeated over and over, as I was. At a certain point, if there’s no actual thing there except people’s fears or extreme biased opinion that is the same every 4 or 8 years and all in-between (I’m a very old hag and I remember this type of thing said about pretty much every Republican presidential candidate or actual elected official).

Many of these students have experienced situations of extreme violence and fear that — in my opinion, are unlikely for you to be able to picture or comprehend. I try to picture them and see a huge difference in our experience here in the U.S. in recent decades, and cannot really understand what they are their families have been through. I’m a survivor of some pretty frightening violent crimes and I do not think telling someone else what they should or should not think, feel or do is an appropriate response in a situation of trauma and fear. The students also spoke of being stereotyped and caricatured, both as individuals, and their nations or cultures.

So that’s my opinion. I used to do very in-depth marketing research for the businesses I worked with, during the time that was possible, before the end of start-up funding for actual businesses instead of some type of scam or richie Mc richerson’s relative, lover or pal’s “dream business” or yet another thing meant to take monthly fees from people who can ill-afford it. This research involves talking to people, listening, and doing the hard work of figuring out the right questions to ask.

Ali is giving information and I really appreciate the opportunity to listen to him. He helps me to understand the right questions.