My name is Ibrahim. Flexibility being a virtue of this blog, it is about more than politics. The name One Last Parting Shot, is in part a reference to my occasional desire to have the last word, but it mostly refers to my tragic tendency towards staircase wit. One purpose of this blog is to serve as a processing center. When I unravel my thoughts and consider the options, the lost causes, and things I should have said, I find all I can do is hold them for a moment before they're lost to wherever it is ideas go to die. This is an attempt to capture a little of that lost eloquence and spirit, and channel it into something hopefully productive.
These thoughts often revolve around the rights of people, and the ways of the world. A world I've never been comfortable inhabiting. My discomfort is a function of foreignness, flux, learning, experiencing, and the mixed blessing of a desire to find what truth I can. I've benefited from having a place at more than one cultural table, and I have also faced some inevitable consequences. I have seen ugliness that people have embraced because they are accustomed to it, and have not learned to live without it. I've learned to enjoy my status as an ideological traveler of sorts, and have become comfortable not having a real home except the one inside my head.
I'm not as smart, as fast, as interesting, as strong, and as accomplished as I would like to be. Hardly perfect, I've come to terms with the racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, and other common bigotries that I casually enjoyed as a function of growing into this highly imperfect world. I've never been a vocal racist, an overt sexist, or a violent homophobe. I had only ever espoused the most mediocre prejudices, the kind that are born of “common wisdom.” I haven't been on this earth long enough to do real damage, and now all I want to do is help without breaking anything.
We all have our oppressions and our privileges, and I would like to see an end to both. I'm a man who does not want the unearned privileges of being born male. I'm a minority who does not want the unjust penalties associated with being Arab or Hispanic. I am an antiracist, a feminist, a womanist, a humanist, and an itinerant amateur scientist. I like people, all people, and I want to see them thrive.
This brings me to what this blog is ultimately about: It's about the obstacles we face, the victories we share, and my personal coming-to-terms with it all. It's about finding what it is to be a man in a world where men need not rule, and about being a person in a world where personhood is tragically conditional. It's about finding appropriate detours from, healthier substitutions for, and willfully surrendering that cultural ugliness we have collectively acquired a taste for. I want to be strident in my objections and courageous in my convictions. Things need to change, and for the better. This is my chance to refine my ideas on how that happens.
