So, I have this Iranian co-worker. Not American of Iranian extraction, but actually from Iran.
Lately, I’ve been pestering him to go to Tower Records with me and help me pick out some good belly dance music. He swore he didn’t know anything about Midde Eastern/ West Asian music.
I said, “Come on, Cyrus, you have to know Persian music, you’re from there”.
No, he tells me. “I listen to rock’n’roll and jazz, I don’t know anything about Persian music.”
I still can’t get over it.
I mean, he’s from there.
Is it racist of me to assume that someone who was born and spent his formative years in Iran would know enough about Persian music to help pick out some CDs? Is it really that unreasonable?
I’m thinking about running to the casino across the street where I worked a couple of years ago and asking an Iranianformer coworker if he can recommend some good belly dance jams…
I don’t think it’s particularly wrong to ask if they have an opinion on the music, but to expect that they should have an opinion on it … well, that’s the crux.
Just because someone grows up in South Central LA doesn’t mean that they’re an authority on rap or hip-hop. Similarly, just because I’m from Minnesota doesn’t mean I know about polka music from lutefisk feeds in basements of Lutheran churches.
But if you get the chance – that polka music is to die for.
People take this whole “racist” thing way too far and it weakens the argument when it really does take place.
So what if you assume a group of people from a particular geographic area or culture should have a common understanding of certain things? How is that bad?
It isn’t like you’re thinking that Iranians/Persians are stupid, sneaky, lazy, etc. and you can’t trust any of them and you won’t hire them, give them a loan and so on.
I suppose I simply don’t see how making assumptions (even through stereotyping) is always bad. It probably isn’t accurate, but that doesn’t mean it is such a terrible travesty of justice.
I’d say its not racist but…
My friend Tara is Korean, but was adopted by a white family as a baby. Her boss was badgering her to try and read something in Japanese to him (theyre all the same right?)and, no matter how many times she protested he knew as much about it as he did, he wouldn’t drop it. It really upset her, and that’s not the only time its happened to her.
My ex’s mom was from Iran too, and acted more “american” than I did.
I’m Irish…but i don’t speak Gaelic…
I guess its safer to treat people as individuals, rather than members of an ethnic group.
People ARE too “PC” these days IMHO, but a little sensitivity can’t hurt.
I don’t think “racist” is the best term to use, here, in that you are not in a postion of power from which to impose certain oppressions on your co-worker.
I do think it is prejudical to assume that a person ought to have a certain knoweldge of music from the region of the world where he lived. I was born and raised in Chicago, but it’s only in the last few years when I have lived in Virginia that I have begun to take an interest in Blues.
As for H82W8’s point, I would agree that this is not a travesty of justice, but it is an irksome thing that can be very, very wearing. As an Asian American, I have been the focus of “model minority” stereotypes, and too often it puts me in the position of educating someone whether I want to or not.
Surely there must be a way for you garner the information you need without imposing unwarranted assumptions on others. How about posting in Cafe Society for any and all dopers with an interest in belly dance music to makes some recommendations?
Oh yah, ya lyin’ sunuvabitch? I seen ya dere last Toosdy wid Ingrid Hovenkamp, donchaknow. So don’t be goin’ aroun’ spreadin’ fertilizer like dat, I’m wise to ya.
I don’t feel it’s racist or bigoted, but it is wee bit ignorant.
I’m an Italian-American, and I can’t make a decent tomato sauce or shake down a small store owner for protection money. Well, actually I never tried, so I’m not sure about that last point.
You mean to say all Italians aren’t opera experts … or all Spaniards aren’t bullfighters and flamenco dancers? and all French people aren’t wine and cheese experts? I am shocked to hear that. Shocked!
(I am trying to think what the stereotype would be for Americans… they would experts on… hmmmm… can’t think of anything. I guess the stereotype is all Americans are ignorant.)
I’m with Ino here – asking him initially as a reference is okay, but when you were expecting him to be an authority (after he told you he wasn’t), it’s crossing the line.
I mean, I’m Chinese, but if you came to me and asked me to help you pick out Chinese albums, I wouldn’t have a clue where to begin. And my brother would have even less – unless you quizzed him about rap, which he’s thoroughly vested in, and definitely contradicts the stereotypes.
For penance, I suggest you ask Cyrus to recommend a good jazz CD, then buy it for him.
BTW- I wouldn’t necessarily expect someone from Chicago to know the blues, etc. American music is well… I mean, American Culture is an oxymoron- we have so many subcultures, cultures within cultures…
But when you’re talking about most other places in the world, you are talking about a group of people in a geographical area where culture, customs, musical/dance styles would be homogenous within, but distinct from the country next door (with enclaves of ethnic minorities sprinkles in for extra flavor, kind of like spicing your hummus up by throwing in some crushed red chilis which I did for a pot luck dinner on the request of a nice kid of Irish extraction last year- he loved it).
Besides, I’m not asking him to cook Persian food for me- actually, rumor has it that Cyrus makes a mean spaghetti sauce- he spent a good part of his teenage and young adult years in Italy- as much as I love Middle Eastern/Mediterranian/West Asian food (my Italo-Greek Byzantine Catholic Church has a few Arab families in it, so I’m becoming accustomed to things like hummus, babaganoush, tabouli, not to mention some of those wonderful meat dishes that melt in your mouth, served with saffron rice, with fresh mint leaves in place of a salad <drool> -actually, I think we’re all, slowly but surely, turning into Arabs).
I wouldn’t expect Cyrus to know anything about Kurdish music, even though he’s from northern Iran, where he would have been bound to run into the odd Kurd here or there. Or about Arab music (despite the contentions of some of my coworkers, no it does not all sound alike)
Certainly not racist, but from your OP and then second post in the thread, I wonder if perhaps you are seeing “homogenous” as an absolute. Iran may be more homogenous than the US, but it’s still a far cry from the Borg. Depending on this person’s age, background, and personal taste, it’s not that surprising that he doesn’t know about a type of music that he’s not intersted in. Just to throw something out there, remember that during the Shah’s reign, some middle and upper class Iranians had a more Western focus than might be typical now. Even in a culture that seems homogenous when compared to us Americans, there are still about a million forces at work that shape an individual’s interests and preferences.
Not racist, but kind of dumb. A better approach would be “hey, being from X country, do you know anything about X music?” I got pretty tired of people in China trying to get me to sing “My Heart Will Go On,” I can tell you that much. Generalizations are always bad.
Another point is that he spent just his first years in Iran-he may have not be aware of good performers there anymore. I’m from the Caribbean and when I lived there, I didn’t pay much attention to a lot of the music unless I heard it on the radio and liked it. Then I would usually have to go ask someone else in my family about the song song (singer, title etc_-they were *much * more into local music than I was.
Now, when someone asks me about music from the Caribbean (haven’t lived there in over 10 years), I am completely clueless.
OK, look, my favorite rock band is Deep Purple. If someone asked me to recommend good American music… (yeah, I know, but rock is essentially an American form)
So, I really wouldn’t mind bellydancing to music by an Iranian artist who died of old age a decade or two ago. It would probably be better than this weeks Iranian Top Forty anyway.
I think he’s pissed off because you KEEP asking him about it, and INSISTING that he must know.
I mean, why would he lie? You asked, he said he can’t help you, end of story.
As people said before, not racist, but certainly ignorant and IMHO quite rude too.
I’m not going to bash you for being “ignorant” though, because I think most of us are to a certain extent. We can’t all be cluey about every culture on the Earth, so of course we are going to make assumptions based on stereotypes every so often.
Prime example…I went to the supermarket the other night to buy some miso to make some soup. I’ve been living in Japan for eight years, married all that time, a housewife all that time…I think it makes sense that I would have learned to make miso soup by now. But the checkout chick was stunned…“Can you make miso soup? Wow, that’s amazing.”. And she KNOWS I’ve been living here for ages. Hubby and I had a bit of a giggle about that.
Well, actually, at first I thought the problem was that he thought of belly dance as primarily an Arab/Egyptian art form, and he doesn’t know Arab music. Fine and good. I didn’t realize that he also didn’t know Persian music, which he once told me he didn’t really think of as belly dance music anyhow. Me, if I’m in the right kind of mood, I’ll belly dance to Surfin’ Bird. I don’t like to limit myself.
When he finally told me he doesn’t know about Persian music, I gave up.
I’m not that into the middle eastern culture, but I believe there isn’t much of a belly-dancing scene in Iran. IIRC, after the fall of the Shah, they became a pretty fundie conservative nation. Also, I believe that before then the persian style was quite different from the rest of the middle east.
Untitled (has “Simarik” as the first cut) (Turkish)
Absolutely anything by The Sultans or Omar Faruk Tekbilek. And if you have a choice, take “FireDance” before anything else. (American-Turkish)
Passion - sources on the RealWorld label. This has styles from Morocco to India. Among other things, this has a Hossam Ramzy cut. I don’t like Hossam Ramzy, so I can’t recommend anything by him, but most dancers love him.
Sunyata
by Vas - This will be in the “New Age” type section and is somewhat New age-y. The singer is Iranian, but not following tradional Persian styling.
Albums you may need to order from a BD web site.
Bert’s Baladi (Egyptian?)
Dark Fire by Light Rain (American)
Also, if you can listen to music over the internet, live365.com has multitudes of middle eastern music stations. I recommend Raks Radio
I used to listen to NileRadio, which was wonderful, but it doesn’t seem to exist anymore.
I think the word that describes your thinking in this is “stereotyping.”
When someone makes it clear, as this guy seems to have, that he isn’t interested in what you propose why persist? You surely realize, or do you, that even if he were the world’s greatest expert on belly dancing and its music, he has a perfect right to decline? And that should be the end of it.
