Here in the Dhabs, we are still on holiday break and won’t start back at school until the ninth. Friday, I met up with a friend from work—we’ll call him “Alex.” After my three hour afternoon jet-lag nap, I hit him up and we met for shisha. We went to Idioms, the local hookah spot and smoked and chatted for nearly four hours. He’s a friend, colleague, and Black educator from South Carolina. We talked for a spell about our families, the complications of distance, and our lives outside of the US. I am from Tacoma, Cascadian to a fault, but my roots, like his, are in the South. My father was born in Laurel, Mississippi in 1930. My grandfather plied his trade as a shoe shine man and the Army brought my father to Fort Lewis during the Korean War. My mom was born on a farm in Arkansas in 1940. My step-dad, who raised me, hailed from Houston. I think of myself as having a Southern ROM, but a Washington RAM & UI.
“Alex” and I spent a long while chopping up the contradictions of our current lives. The UAE is firmly an authoritarian state, an absolute monarchy with hereditary rule. But we are both happy here, with an undeniable and shared sense of peace. I have tried to explain it elsewhere but I always come up short trying to convey the sense of dread that comes with being in the US. Racism and the threat of arbitrary violence (state violence or otherwise) are like a fanny pack of anxiety you carry your entire life. Literally, every institution in the US has racialized outcomes: lower life-expectancy, lower median income, lower credit access, higher rates of homelessness, higher rates of incarceration, higher infant mortality, ad infinitum. We know all this data, but you aren’t truly aware of the weight of it until you get the opportunity to take that bag off. My assorted travels exposed the pervasive baseline anxiety that racism creates in my life. The only time that I get the full benefit of “Americanness” (whatever that even means) is when I depart the US.
With the recent acquittal of the clearly guilty Pierce County Sheriff and upcoming trial of the police that murdered Manuel Ellis in 2020, law enforcement back home is front of mind for me. Despite the years of protests, despite the narratives about police “having their hands tied” and “not being able to do their jobs,” US police killed more people last year than any year on record: 1,176 people, This equivalent to the population of the entire towns of Ruston, West Pasco, Ilwaco, or Waterville, Washington. Every encounter I have with US law enforcement, from airport customs to local police, is an awkward dance where I have to bury my fear and hide my contempt. When I encounter police abroad, I don’t feel anxious—I feel they’re generally there to help. When I encounter cops abroad, I usually assume they mean me no harm. When I drive in the UAE and pass a police car, I don’t start going through my “what if I get pulled over” mental checklist.
It may seem contradictory, but when I am in the Gulf, I find myself missing friends, family, and my old haunts in Tacoma. But each time I’m in the States, I feel a deep sense of relief when it’s time to leave. I don’t know how to square those competing sentiments. I have fewer absolute freedoms living in a monarchical state, but I have a better quality of freedoms: I am free from fear. I am free from being hassled for existing. I am free to live my life on my own terms.
When people ask “when are you coming home to stay?” I always demur. I can’t give a straight answer. This mental tug is largely why.
