{"id":55095,"date":"2017-11-10T02:29:42","date_gmt":"2017-11-10T02:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=55095"},"modified":"2017-11-10T02:29:42","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T02:29:42","slug":"you-got-a-little-soul-in-you-i-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=55095","title":{"rendered":"You Got a Little Soul in You, I See"},"content":{"rendered":"

You Got a Little Soul in You, I See<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Root<\/a>
\n2017-11-04<\/p>\n

Nabil Ayers<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nNabil Ayers with his mother (courtesy of Nabil Ayers)<\/small><\/p>\n

I am often asked about my name. \u201cNabil. It\u2019s an Arabic<\/a> name,\u201d I\u2019ll say. \u201cIt means noble, learned and generous,\u201d which usually demands further interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are you from?\u201d They\u2019ve likely narrowed down their guess to somewhere in the Middle East<\/a>, hoping for a story as interesting as the name itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York<\/a>. My mother found the name in a book she liked.\u201d I rarely take the time to explain that I\u2019m named after Nab\u00edl-i-A`zam<\/a>, the author of The Dawn-Breakers: Nabil\u2019s Narrative<\/em><\/a>, which chronicles the Babi<\/a> and Baha\u2019i<\/a> faiths\u2019 beginnings in the mid-19th century.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not unusual for people to then grow more curious, as if I\u2019m withholding something remarkable. Their eyes look more closely at mine, or my nose, or my beard, searching to latch onto a distinguishable feature. I know that they\u2019re trying to determine my race.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father is black and my mother is white,\u201d I tell people…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not often have I felt unsafe because of my race. I feel accepted by black people, who can generally tell that I\u2019m part black. I feel accepted by white people, who often can\u2019t figure out what I am. My worst racially motivated experience occurred when a small pack of baseball-capped, denim-jacketed hicks in Fort Collins, Colo., surrounded me and demanded, as they looked me up and down, \u201cWhat are you?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,8,20],"tags":[27592,3234],"class_list":["post-55095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-nabil-ayers","tag-the-root"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55096,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55095\/revisions\/55096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}