Racist talk among Arabic speakers is evidently one of the least discussed topics among Arab and non-Arab linguists. The curiosity evoked by the topic is inspired by the fact that some Arabic slurs can fall at a unique, complex intersection of religious, linguistic, tribal, and racial prejudices. A good example of the interplay of these elements is not too unfamiliar in the relatively diverse Saudi Arabian society, where metapragmatic social connotations shape and are reshaped by each of the abovementioned socially-constructed privileges. For instance, being attacked with an anti-black slur often means also being “altercasted” as having an inferior, impure, non-tribal blood; as being a secondary user of Arabic since it’s not the mother tongue of the addressee’s ancestors; and as being less competent in religious issues as the addressee's ancestors were supposedly religious newbies that learned Islam only through members of the center. However, an overview of Saudi racial slurs used on popular social media can reveal an assortment of both conventional (derogatory) and--most interestingly--unconventional (seemingly non-derogatory) uses of anti-black slurs. Aided with an interview with an African Saudi, an analysis of the linguistic ideologies underlying the latter type of usage can reveal that the change it proposes, which is to reclaim or normalize these words as non-offensive, is not the smoothest nor the most promising.
Overview of Saudi Anti-black Slurs on Social Media
Viral videos that appeal to pathos in their depiction of racism, such as the “ بنت تشتكي ان “صاحباتها ما يحبونها عشانها سودا typically incite a flow of anti-racist speech among Saudi users of the Internet, especially through locally trending Twitter hashtags like “#عنصرية_لون.” Notably, many of the hashtag users didactically recycle some hackneyed quotes of the religious discourse that warns against racism, without providing much of their own metalinguistic reflections on racial slurs.
Upon researching anti-black Saudi racial slurs in YouTube, a number of videos pop up--many of which are unfortunately mocking and derogatory. These videos often pander to metapragmatic ideologies that feed the socially-constructed archetypes of African Saudis as the funny dancers, disheveled female, or lustful male.
On the other hand, some other videos do not seem to particularly advocate any overtly offensive messages. That is, a slur is sometimes used as a supposedly normative reference to the person appearing in a video or in the course of describing the content of the video: e.g. “متحدين خال ياكل فلفل شوف شصارله” and “خال ينصح ناصر الشمراني.” Even more surprising is the use of anti-black slurs in videos that supposedly challenges racial prejudice: "عمرك شفت خال في داعش ؟." Such unconventional uses, in which the speaker seems to be attempting to reclaim the term and strip it of its negative connotations through normalization, is a linguistic move that invites thorough reflection; inspecting the attitudes of a person at the receiving ends of these terms can provide a more just and panoramic view of the implications of the different uses of such slurs.
Perspective of an African Saudi
Below is an interview that I conducted with a male African Saudi regarding his experience with and take on the different uses of anti-black racial slurs in Arabic--whether malignant or not:
● متى أول مرة شعرت إنك بلاك؟
في أولى ابتدائي الأستاذ الفلسطيني الله يسامحه بس كان يضربني يضربني عشان أتكلم عربي لأني كنت أتكلم صومالي بس ما حسيت مرة إني مختلف لأنو كنا عايشين وإحنا صغار في حي كله من نفس الطبقة الاجتماعية يمنيين وصوماليين وبخاريين وسعوديين مخلطين ما حسينا بفرق عن بعض حتى المدرسة في نفس الحي مفصولين عن الباقين فما حسيت إلا في الجامعة بديت اسمع كلمات
● مين كان يقلك كلمات ؟
في الجامعة القبليين بدؤوا يقولوا هادا حضري هادا بدوي هادا ايش يرجع
● في الكلاس في لغة مارجناليازيشن؟
دايما كنت اسمع كلمة يا خال في الجامعة يا خال ياخال ياخال مرة ماااااأانسى موقف صار لي مع مدرس الله يرحمه كنا نوضي بعض صب عليا الموية عشان أتوضا قام قال: "الله يرحم فيصل" يحسبني ما اعرف بعدين قال امزح امزح انتي عارفة فيصل اللي حرر العبيد كمان الطلاب كانو يقولو عبد
● هاو دو يو فيل من الكلمات هاذي؟
اتوجع زي يمدحو ابوباما بس يقولو الخال أوباما اقوللهم لوسمحت لااااااا تستعمل الكلمة هاد يتذكرني بأشياء مو حلوة زي صح قلتلك السيكيوريتي اللي يسألني في المطار يحسبني مو درجة اولى لأني عنده خاااال
● هل تشعر اللي يقولك هذي الكلمات متعلم؟
في مو متعلمين بس كتير متعلمين اللي يقولها اكثر شي احسه اللي يقولها بيكون شي كدا قبلي
● طيب تستعمل هاذي الكلمت بينك وبين اللي مثلك؟
ايوا عادي اشوف واحد خال أقله هادي الكلمات ويقولي لأنه مافي بيننا باور من أول
● طيب والمزحات بهذي الكلمات من اللي الكلتشراللي وايت؟
شوفي هي حسب الكونتكس بس ستيل مو مفضلة عندي
● طيب ممكن احنا لو كلتشراللي وايت نغير معناها ونهدم المعنى السلبي باستعمالها ككلمات عادية وصفية أو مزحات؟
ممكن لكن بس اذا كانت العلاقة مرة مرة قوية واقدر امزح معاه نفس الشي لكن مو أي احد صعب
Reflection
While an overview of racial slurs خn social media exhibits a number of different uses--derogatory or merely referential--my African Saudi interviewee seemed to have conservative attitude towards the general use of such words--which made me realize that taming these words and stripping them out of their negative connotations may not be the easiest nor the most practical way to control them.
Actually, as the interviewer, I found myself naturally obliged to avoid mentioning the specific slurs in my own questions and rather refer to them as “words” or “those words”(“ الكلمات هاذي” ) although I would not be using them with the intention of offense or harm. Indeed, my linguistic act was only a natural result of the fact that interviewee showed his discomfort with the mere mention of such slurs (even though they are not meant to be malignant in this context) when he initially referred to them with the generic noun: “words” “كلمات” in his answer to the first question. Also, my abstinence from mentioning the words was also a natural result of hearing the emotional rises in his intonation (indicated by italics), which were most pronounced when (upon my request for more details) he later ended up mentioning the particular slurs he received. The speaker’s charged intonation showed the painful memories left by such words in his past experiences (of which he mentions a few: being offended by students at college, by a college instructor or by the airport security). In this case, I think that the linguistic ideology of personalism, which emphasizes that intention determines whether a word is offensive or not, is not of much use: Obviously, the mention/remembrance of these words--whether produced with a malignant intention or not--can be enough to evoke a load of unpleasant memories and negative feelings in the subconscious of someone whose life was rampant with disturbing experiences with these words. That is, even if the intention is to merely refer to or identify someone, the hostile associations of these words have left deep scars in some African Saudis’ minds, and any form of their reproduction through people who belong to the hegemony revives their evocative “performativity:” they “hurt” in the past and their re-use by the historically and socially privileged, regardless of their intention, is like throwing salt in these psychological “wounds” engraved in the subconscious. Therefore, the interviewee owns up that culturally-white people’s joke that evoke slurs--even as an attempt to bond--are “not his favorite” (“مو المفضلة عندي”).
Besides, I think that the descriptive phrasing that is sometimes used on social media still endorses linguistic racism with its “linguistic markedness:” a person of an African descent has to be labelled according to their race and thus seen as the “Other.” Meanwhile, anyone else would be normalized as the “Standard,” i.e. as merely a person who is referred to with his/her particular proper name or with generic nouns: e.g. “واحد/وحدة” or “شخص.” Such markedness--or inclination to differentiate--can definitely be seen as the root of racism: the interviewee narrates that he never had a sense of the concept of “race” until he left the socio-economic group with which he grew up and went to college and felt “different” or “مختلف” as he encountered discourses that marked different social categories there: “يقولو هادا حضري هادا بدوي هادا ايش يرجع.”
Moreover, unlike linguistic ideologies that draw on the folk theory and picture users of slurs as marginalized and ignorant, the linguistic ideology held implicitly by many users of Saudi Arabic is often that the user of anti-black slurs has a privileged voice that belongs to the coveted center. The interviewee points that out: a voice that uses anti-black slurs is not necessarily uneducated; rather, it feels higher in the social hierarchy; it feels tribal: “في مو متعلمين بس كتير متعلمين اللي يقولها اكثر شي احسه اللي يقولها بيكون شي كدا قبلي.” Therefore, when a culturally-white person tries to strip anti-black slurs of their connotations by normalizing them as “peaceful” descriptive or referential words, the speaker might be--unbeknownst to them--covertly reinforcing their position of power in the minds of the audience. Such a hurdle, again, can make speakers of Saudi Arabic question the effectiveness of attempting to normalize these words as non-offensive and merely referential or descriptive.
Final Thoughts
An examination of the way anti-black slurs are used on social media indicates a positive trend that is moving away from merely derogatory uses and towards language that tries to demolish racial prejudices. However, if this change is to fully and successfully take place, the attempts of normalizing racial slurs as merely descriptive or referential is not the best way to conduct it since it still provokes a number of inevitable objections and hurdles, especially due to the linguistic ideologies that underlie it: even when used without an intention of causing harm, these words are still “performative” in their evocative quality since they are closely connected in the subconscious of their receivers with painful experiences, and--thus--they somehow silently revive their wounds. Furthermore, these words depend highly on “markedness” and thus constitute a blueprint for “Othering.” Also, deeply grounded linguistic ideologies often portray those who feel confident enough to freely use these words as members of the center; thus, re-using these words in any way might re-emphasize the speaker’s identity as a member of the privileged top of the hierarchy, which would defeat the purpose of normalizing.
With all of these limitations in mind, re-taming these words is definitely limited to few possible forms: it might be somehow less troublesome (but probably not completely free of controversy) if speakers of the African Saudi periphery--rather than the center--decide to take it on (as in the “أنا الخال” song by an African Saudi YouTuber). When members of the African Saudi speech community decide to re-use and reinstate these words themselves, they are not tied by the mental associations of supremacy that culturally-white Saudi speakers are tied to in the social subconscious. The interviewee does point that out: “ايوا عادي اشوف واحد خال أقله هادي الكلمات ويقولي لأنه مافي بيننا باور .” He points out as well that reinstating those terms could take place through using them in playful teasing that deconstructs them and mocks their absurdity. Yet, beware: such reclamation can only happen if the speakers’ friendship is “deeply, deeply” entrenched and the center/periphery dichotomy is fully deconstructed as both are willing to hear playful slurs related to their identity. He emphasized, “بس اذا كانت العلاقة مرة مرة قوية واقدر امزح معاه نفس الشي.”
Given the severity of the psychological repercussions of the use of Saudi anti-black slurs, such stipulation on the attempts to re-code them are absolutely worth considering. Indeed, it is significant to promote self-reflexivity among different speakers on the actions that their words flying off in the air--even with harmless intentions--can perform since they unequivocally can do much to the hearts and lives of other humans.
References
Hill, J. H. (2008). The everyday language of white racism (Blackwell studies in discourse and culture, 3; Blackwell studies in discourse and culture, 3). Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell. http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0814/2008013078.html
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