12/7/41 and 9/11/01 “I didn’t go back to sleep”

I was working on a legal case, it was a New York law firm which was located in One Chase Manhattan. And in fact we stayed at a hotel right across the street from the World Trade Center. And my father, who’s also a lawyer, had flown from Egypt to work on this case. And we were in New York for the whole week, staying in this hotel, meeting with lawyers, and so on and so forth. And one day before the terrorist attack, Monday I believe, I returned to Los Angeles and my father returned to Egypt. And I was asleep and my wife woke me up and she said, “Khaled, I don’t think, after hearing this, you will want to go back to sleep.” And then she told me and she was right, I didn’t go back to sleep.

Aftermath “The agony has not subsided”

My reaction very soon after it happened was anguished hope that Muslims were not involved in this. And actually I remember very distinctly sort of a degree of feeling ashamed about having that hope, because you would like to respond to something like this at a human and universal level. You would like to feel like, Muslim or not Muslim, this is just terrible, period. It’s really irrelevant who has done this. But because of what I knew, what it’s going to mean for Muslims, I knew that the sort of hyphenation of whether a Muslim did this or not was going to make a big difference for me, for my friends, for my family, for my son. That’s a reality. And the agony of it has not subsided because the worst fears, that this is going to open a door of much suffering for many human beings, has fully materialized.

Being American “The greatest power is knowledge”

My loyalty to America, to my country, is when I work extremely hard in school to be an intelligent and educated citizen. My loyalty is when I can speak in public to enrich the public discourse, to make it more nuanced, more responsive, more subtle, more sophisticated. My loyalty is when you work extremely hard to be a teacher and to raise minds. And that you understand that in our world today the greatest power is knowledge. So for me, to be ignorant, bigoted, prejudiced, is far from loyal to America, in fact, it’s a betrayal.

Fear “Fear describes everything”

The word fear describes everything. There is fear of fellow citizens being killed. There is fear that you yourself will be the subject of a terrorist attack. Terrorism doesn’t have an exemption clause for Arabs or Muslims. If I was on that plane that day, the fact that I was Arab or Muslim wouldn’t have made an iota of difference. So you run the risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack as much as any other member of society. But you now also run the risk of being blamed for it, just simply by the fact that you’re Arab or Muslim.

Identity “They don’t feel comfortable sitting next to you”

We belong on this plane and on our seat, you don’t. You’re here because we allow you to be here. It’s as if it’s a privilege. You’re different, it’s a privilege that you are allowed on this plane. And when I started wearing suits and ties consistently, regardless of how long or short the flight is, I’ve noticed that the treatment has gotten better. But it’s always anxiety producing, not just for the normal security concerns, but because it’s an unknown sum. You just don’t know whether you’re going to run into someone who’s going to say something rude, something hurtful, whether you’re going to sit next to someone who asks to change seats, which has happened to me, because they don’t feel comfortable sitting next to you. Every time you pick up something from your travel bag, or you take out a magazine, or take out a book, they look like they’re going to have a heart attack. Or constantly staring at you. It’s just, it’s an extremely anxiety producing experience and the irony of it is that if, God forbid, there is a terrorist attack, and I am on a plane, I’m just like everyone else, I die just like everyone else.