So Two Muslims Walk Into Starbucks: Or, My Hate Crime Experience!
By: Sf Ali
Tags: Startup, Life Lessons, Politics, PPC Marketing, Life

Tonight, I’m working from the Penn Station Starbucks. After some time, my laptop’s battery needed power, so I walked over to where a fellow patron was seated, said “excuse me”, and plugged in my charger.

I wasn’t sure what I did to merit this, but this particular patron proceeded to mutter expletives and mock my appearance audibly loud enough to decipher his words. My beard. My hair. My clothes. Umm, okay.

He then assumed I’m Muslim. Surprise, surprise. He asked if I am Muslim, to which I instantly replied “yes”. Force of habit. He then began a half-hour rant, filled with expletives and threatening gestures.

His specific bone to pick? The mistaken notion that all Muslim men, in his words, “fuck seven women”. Shit, I should be so lucky.

Shit, I should be so lucky.

I’m trying to work, by which I mean manage my mentions on Twitter, and this guy’s getting close enough for the born-and-raised New Yorker in me to simply no longer afford the luxury of ignoring his insanity.

He asked a flurry of questions, by which I mean hurled insults and bigoted assumptions about Islam. I asked him if we had met. He ignored me. Then he asked me if I had seven wives. LOL.

I told him, that’s not the case, nor is that allowed in my faith. I tried to clarify and drop some knowledge of elementary orthodox Islamic jurisprudence, but he kept shouting “seven women! It’s degrading!”

Clutch pop culture reference FTW

Buddy, the grimy particulate chaos that constitutes your pathetic existence is degrading. The look you’re going for, that of a poor man’s Mickey Avalon, is degrading. Your intoxicated state is degrading.

Anyway. The bemused, jaded Starbucks staff eventually realized the usual volume of bullshit had been replaced by high-octane horse shit, and decided to intervene. They asked him to leave, finally.

“I’M HAVING A CONVERSATION!” he shouted at them. At this point, every patron and several onlookers outside are staring, some recording this incident for posterity. This might end up on WorldStar…

But I’ll settle for your Snapchat story. The police arrived shortly thereafter, and tried talking sense into him, a fool’s errand, and eventually dragged him out. I couldn’t help the intrusive thoughtstorm after…

I’m not ugly. My beard is not unkempt. My hair is fucking fabulous, you should see my regimen. Maybe it’s the longterm effects of antidepressant medication, maybe it’s my worldview, maybe it’s my hustle…

But I found this experience hilarious. Of course, that’s because I’m physically unharmed, dripping with privilege not afforded to my hijabi and niqabi sisters, more easily identifiable and therefore vulnerable…

Fuck off, France

But what does this mean? I fear for the next time, when it’s not a raving drunk but a locked-and-loaded hater with too many bullets, too few scruples and a lot of misunderstanding and appetite for my blood…

I fear for my mother and sister. I fear for my nephews. I fear for my friends. I fear for my community. This is obviously not okay. There’s so much to unpack here, and I’m still choosing to laugh instead of cry…

Okay, that’s again because of the antidepressant. I can’t cry, but that’s beside the point. I spoke with the police officers who detained the gentleman, and will follow up with wherever these cases go to die.

fluoxetine and Farooq: better love story than Twilight

If you were looking for some feel-good New Year’s lesson in all this, there’s no silver lining, so scroll elsewhere. I’m no hero. Neither am I a victim. I’m living my life unapologetically as I always have and will.

Sorry I’m not sorry. If there’s anything I gleaned from this experience, it’s that I look Muslim, which means my faith has been racialized, which means every Islamophobe can shut the fuck up that it’s not.

Also, I want seven girlfriends. One for each day of the week. Oh, that’s the testosterone, not Islam, speaking. See what I mean? Religion, texts, even human beings aren’t inherently good or bad.

this line was featured in Lon Shapiro’s “Tao of Blogging” #shamelessplug

Among many other things, I’m a marketer. As they say in my industry, content is king, but context is god. It’s all contextual. Let me place myself in his shoes. I could make seventy excuses for him…

Maybe he wasn’t loved as a child. Maybe he’s not a hugger. Maybe nobody kissed him as the confetti cleared after midnight on New Year’s. Who even knows? I know that I don’t know anything.

Know what’s funny? I don’t even drink Starbucks coffee! I prefer caffeine pills. I came here for the free Wi-Fi. I’ll be 27 in exactly 6 months from today which means this all happened on my half-birthday…

hey look even more pills — are you starting to sense a pattern here?

It could have been worse. He could have been carrying a knife or gun. Ever have an out-of-body experience where time slows down, everything seems realer, and you suddenly feel so mortal?

We take risks like this all the time. Living is risky. But what are you gonna do? Be afraid and not go outside? I tried that. It sucks more than the alternative, putting yourself out there and dealing with crap.

There’s going to be haters. There’s going to be unforeseen circumstances and coincidences and boos coming from the cheap seats. Keep it moving. They don’t want you to win, word to DJ Khaled.

Q: Is DJ Khaled even relevant anymore?

Honest to God. There’s probably some evolutionary biology explanation for the idea of hypergamous genetic replication through sexual reproduction seeming so odious an idea to the “civilized”…

James Baldwin

But don’t get me started on the “civilized”. James Baldwin did a much better job describing it than you and I ever will: “The “civilized” have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately…

and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their ‘vital interests’…

are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death; these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the “sanctity” of human life, or the conscience of civilized world.”

Would you like milk and sugar with that?

TL;DR: we drop bombs on brown kids a world away to feel safer and sleep sounder at night. What does that have to do with this? What does polygyny have to do with productivity at Starbucks?

You tell me. I’m told I’m a halfway decent writer, but I know I’m terrible at advice, philosophizing, and theorizing, so why bother? I’m trying to be more honest this year. Again, I don’t know anything.

I’ve faced hate crimes since 9/11 happened 15 years ago. I tried to kill myself for the last time over two years ago. Since then, I’ve recovered and found my voice. I live for telling stories. Let’s grab coffee.