You represent everyone with a scarf on...everyone who speaks Arabic...everyone from MENA...etc.

It hit me once (because it had hit me before)...when I was standing in front of my very first poster presentation at a professional conference. I was green as a researcher, only my second year in graduate school, but I knew a thing or two about being a minority and people's reactions to an overtly/obviously Muslim woman. What I didn't know was what form that reaction would take in a professional meeting. 


A professor walked up to my poster (on how Spanish-English bilingual children analyze and understand humor in language and what it means for metalinguistic awareness). He read it in silence...then looked pointedly at me and asked, "So how do children understand humor in Arabic?"  I stammered. I had no idea. I told him...well...humor is always in different dialects in Arabic...so...and I'm not really sure. I don't know what kind of humor Arabic-English bilingual children are exposed to?  

He walked off with a frown saying to me, "You should've explored that." 


What?? I kept wondering...what is this person saying? Thinking? Implying? ...Can my research only be legitimate if I were to study Arabic kids? How did he assume that I know Arabic? Is my study not worth anything just because I'm exploring other than Arabic-speaking children? Is metalinguistic awareness (a universal cognitive skill) different in different languages? Am I just making too much of it? Am I supposed to speak for Arabic only? This study isn't about Spanish specifically...it's about cognitive skills...Can I actually make a contribution regarding cognitive development? 


It angered, hurt, and frustrated me. It also woke me up. Again. In the world of empirical inquiry.  

How Knowledge is characterized...

Some people say knowledge is power...
Some people say it is a weapon...
and then there are those who say...that knowledge is light. 


Clearly there s a significant difference between the first two characterizations and the last one. 


It just struck me a few days ago that people characterize knowledge in such a way that it often seems like a talisman...an amulet to ward off evil...but also bearing a somewhat pernicious quality. Power as well as weapons are (no pun intended) double-edged swords...they are used in the defensive rather than the offensive. I can see that knowledge protects one from the harm or dangers of ignorance, but ignorance seems rather a dark abyss than an enemy whom you need power to overcome and weapons to battle with, no?


Knowledge is light...Now that one leaves me scratching my head. Of course, it sounds nice and wonderful...poetic really, but where's the protective aspect of the first two characterizations? Something sounds inherently more benign and more attractive in knowledge being portrayed as light than it being portrayed as a weapon or power. I'm not sure what it is though...


It's at the tip of my tongue....