Disgraced

“If anything, I guess I should be grateful to José, right? Broke your dad in. I mean at least I spoke English.”

Amir brings up his wife’s ex-boyfriends with a hint of jealousy. This joke about Emily’s family reveals a lot about Emily’s upbringing. The play focuses on the way Islam and Judaism can instill certain values and prejudices, but Emily’s upbringing as a White girl comes with its own racism and bias. Her seeming tendency to date men who are not White is an act of rebellion against her parents. In fact, Emily’s father still mentions José. Emily may attempt to overcorrect her White-centered rearing by romanticizing Islam and other cultures, but she does so without understanding the intricacies of her own privilege.

“You know how much easier things are for me since I changed my name? It’s in the Quran. It says you can hide your religion if you have to.”

Abe has maintained his Muslim faith while also redefining himself as all-American with an American name and style. Abe looks up to his uncle and believes that he is camouflaging himself in the same way that Amir is hiding his roots. Amir has rejected Islam, while Abe attempts to maintain a dual cultural identity. In the end, Abe decides that hiding is conforming and only appeasing people who hate him.

“White women have no self-respect. How can someone respect themselves when they think they have to take off their clothes to make people like them? They’re whores.”

Amir claims that he makes this statement about White women in order to demonstrate the anti-White misogyny ingrained in Muslim culture. He says this early in the play, before he admits to his own deep-seated prejudices. In light of his confessions at the end of the play, it seems likely that he was taught to believe this and it’s one of the prejudices he fights within himself. This shapes the way we understand his marriage to Emily and the way his rage manifests into violence when he loses control.

“But when it comes to the imam, it’s like you don’t care. Like you don’t think he’s human.”

Emily tries to convince Amir to help the imam, describing the ways that Amir’s internalized Islamophobia has caused him to dismiss the holy man. As a Muslim, Amir would be required to show the imam respect and reverence, but Amir tries to prove his rejection of Islam by speaking disrespectfully about him.

“I’m not one of his own people.”

Amir is desperate to believe that he is no longer Muslim, that he can escape a culture that is despised by the country he wants to belong in. Both Abe and Emily insist that the imam is still one of his own people. Amir may be able to stop believing in Islam, but he cannot get away from his ethnicity and roots. No matter how much he covers them up, they are still waiting to be discovered beneath the surface.

“Isn’t that how it works? Isn’t that how all you guys cover up the fact that all anybody cares about in your world is making money?”

Emily attempts to shame Amir for his unwillingness to be identified as supporting Imam Fareed. By doing this, she shows that she does not understand the stakes of Amir’s hidden identity. Amir is afraid because his life is built on the foundation of a small lie about his name and country of origin, but Emily believes that Amir is worried that the partners will not support philanthropy.

“Let me get this straight: Some waiter is a dick to me in a restaurant and you want to make a painting. But if it’s something that might actually affect my livelihood, you don’t even want to believe there could be a problem.”

Amir tries to impress upon Emily the gravity of the situation if he is exposed as a Muslim, but Emily is focused on the small act of racism she witnessed, unable to fully believe that the men who Amir has worked with for years—men who have treated Amir like family—will turn on him. She understands that racism and prejudice exist and are problems but doesn’t see how enormous the consequences of racism could be.

“About me being a white woman with no right to be using Islamic forms? I think you’re wrong about that.”

Emily is referring to previous discussions with Isaac about whether she is authorized to utilize Islam in her work. Isaac’s change of heart may be genuine, or it might be because he wants to manipulate her into bed. Emily doesn’t realize that her access to Islam has been through her husband, and that her privilege as a White woman allows her to use Islam without the prejudice that her husband endures. She is claiming rights to the parts that she thinks are beautiful without understanding that, for those who belong to the religion, there is the very real threat of hatred and prejudice.

“The Islamic tradition’s been doing it for a thousand years. Pardon me for thinking they may have a better handle on it. It’s time we woke up. Time we stop paying lip service to Islam and Islamic art. We draw on the Greeks, the Romans… but Islam is part of who we are, too. God forbid anyone remind us of it.”

Emily is correct when she asserts that western civilization does not give enough credit to Islam or other eastern cultures and religions. But there is a difference between directing people to appreciate a culture and claiming the culture as one’s own. During the dinner party, it becomes clear that Emily has appropriated techniques of Islamic art but has never fully read the Quran, thereby picking and choosing which parts she wants to accept.

“That’s why Jews were doing it. And then mergers and acquisitions became all the rage. And guys like Steven and Mort became the establishment. We are the new Jews.”

Amir’s faith in his standing at his firm has declined from the first scene, when he was certain that he would be made partner. He sees the Jewish lawyers as businessmen who started by taking the scraps and doing work that others deemed undesirable. Now, Amir realizes that he will never be partner and believes that he and Jory are now the ones who must do the undesirable work. In this statement, Amir reveals that he believes that Jewish people are bottom feeders. Later, when he identifies himself as a racial epithet for African Americans, he demonstrates his internalized belief in White supremacy.

“That firm will never be ours. It’s theirs. And they’re always going to remind us that we were just invited to the party.”

Amir does not know that Jory has been made partner. He assumes that she will remain at the bottom of the food chain with him because she is Black and not Jewish. Jory attempts to deflect the conversation, but this insight into the way Amir views Jory sets up his later accusation of duplicitousness. He feels betrayed that someone who ought to have stayed at the bottom has risen to the top.

“The work you’re doing with the Islamic tradition is important and new. It needs to be seen. Widely.”

In part, Isaac is trying to seduce Emily, but this statement is ironic because they are referring to ancient traditions, which Isaac is describing as new now that they have been appropriated by a White artist.

“Your very own personal Moor.”

Amir has never been tacitly disapproving of Emily’s portrait, but he has also not expressed appreciation. While drinking, Amir demonstrates that he sees the painting as Emily viewing him as the very thing that he is trying not to be; Emily is treating him as exotic and romanticizing his Islam upbringing by equating him with a Moorish slave.

“Islam is rich and universal. Part of a spiritual and artistic heritage we can all draw from.”

By generalizing Islam, Isaac offers up another culture’s religion for any White person to appropriate. He praises Emily for discovering Islam as something that can be universalized. This attempts to negate the closed aspects of Islam, the sacred and spiritual beliefs and rituals present in any religion that are only meant to be practiced by those who have committed to the belief system. Isaac and Emily both attempt to claim Islam while praising themselves as culturally sensitive White people for discovering and appreciating it.

“The next terrorist attack is probably gonna come from some guy who more or less looks like me.”

Amir vocalizes a common Islamophobic statement that casts Muslims as potential terrorists. At airports, Amir offers himself to security for searches. Emily sees this as passive aggressive because she doesn’t see how much Amir hates himself for being Muslim. To Amir, asking security to search him is a way of proving that he is one of the safe Muslims. Amir wants very badly to be accepted into White American society, so he feels the need to constantly prove that he is different from other Muslims.

“When it comes to Islam? Monolithic pillar-like forms don’t matter… and paintings don’t matter. Only the Quran matters.”

Amir is attempting to explain that the romantic view that Isaac and Emily have of Islam is based on art, and that art is separate from Islam. Amir cites the Quran, which states that angels avoid homes with art. Therefore, appreciating Islamic art is not the same as appreciating and understanding Islam.

“It’s like one very long hate-mail letter to humanity.”

After Jory interjects that she found the Quran to be angry when she read part of it in college, Amir agrees and adds that the Quran expresses rage and hatred against humanity. As Isaac and Emily attempt to prove that Islamic art demonstrates the beauty in Islam, Amir insists that the actual religion is about suffering and submission rather than beauty.

“The veil is evil. You erase a face, you erase individuality. Nobody’s making men erase their individuality. Why’s it always come down to making the woman pay? Uh-uh. There is a point at which you just have to say no.”

Jory, unlike Isaac and Emily, is not White and therefore does not feel the need to prove that she is not racist. Although her perspective on women covering their face is very much centered in western tradition, she responds to the concept of the veil from her own experiences and feminist beliefs. As a Black woman who has succeeded in a field dominated by White men, Jory is familiar with the ways that women are subjugated and suppressed.

To be Muslim—truly—means not only that you believe all this. It means you fight for it, too.”

Amir asserts that militancy is an essential part of Islam, but he touches on something that is present in many different religions. For those who really believe that an ideology or religious system are true, the stakes of those beliefs, and of those who agree to convert to those beliefs, are life and death. When, as Amir describes, religious beliefs are not separated from government, religion gains firepower and military clout to fight for those beliefs. Amir is talking about Islam, but his statement also applies to Israel.

“Yeah… I guess I forgot… which we I was.”

Amir identifies that religion, like nationalism, is about the indoctrination of group identification. As a child, he was indoctrinated into Islam and learned to support Muslims as the righteous ones in any battle. When he separated from Islam, Amir began teaching himself to identify as an American. On September 11, his Muslim identification felt at odds with his identification as an American. His immediate thought was, “we were finally winning” (63). As Amir explains, he has to work to remind himself to identify with Americanness.

“He’s looking out at the viewer—that viewer is you. You painted it. He’s looking at you. The expression on that face? Shame. Anger. Pride. Yeah. The pride he was talking about. The slave finally has the master’s wife.” 

In attempting to convince Emily to leave Amir for him, Isaac interprets the expression on Amir’s face in her portrait of him. The three emotions that Isaac describes—shame, anger, and pride—are certainly emotions that Amir expresses in the play, but Isaac’s conclusion is dehumanizing, suggesting that Amir is incapable of seeing Emily as an equal or as anything other an object to obtain. Of course, since the audience never sees the full painting, there is no tangible evidence to assess.

“When you step out of your parents’ house, you need to understand that it’s not a neutral world out there. Not right now. Not for you. You have to be mindful about sending a different message.” 

Amir sees Abe, who has become militant and angry, as vulnerable in the United States. Amir fears for his nephew’s safety, because he sees shedding his American name and camouflage as removing his armor. Similarly, Amir’s armor was forcibly removed when his identity is discovered. In contrast, Abe believes that by claiming his identity and anger, he has put on new armor. Abe argues that he is not afraid of the FBI or deportation, but Amir knows that the United States can be a hostile place for someone who is openly Muslim. 

“They’ve conquered the world. We’re gonna get it back. That’s our destiny. It’s in the Quran.” 

Abe demonstrates Amir’s earlier claim that Islam requires not only belief, but the willingness to fight for that belief. This contradicts Abe’s claim at the beginning of the play that the Quran allows followers to hide their faith. When Amir and Emily discuss the way the text is interpreted in Scene 3, they raise the question as to how much of the American understanding of Islam is based in the religious text and how much is based in interpretation.