Readers engage with Arab characters through shared ordinariness, not their visible differences.

Evidence

I think there’s a very simple principle operating in my book. You could call it recognition with difference. People discover that the characters in my book are very much like themselves, except for the fact that they have these extra burdens to carry, such as immigration detention, workplace discrimination, and profound questions of identity in a time of war. One might believe that the characters’ differences from the mainstream, such as wearing a hijab or a kaffiyah, are what entrances most readers, but I don’t think so. Rather, I think it’s the ordinariness of the characters. The relentless repetition in the popular media that all Muslims and Arabs are potential monsters means that the ordinariness of these young people and their simple human vulnerabilities are actually very meaningful and oddly surprising. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 1217

Categorization

• SEED: An article or craft note on narrative empathy: the ‘recognition with difference’ device as a correction to media saturation, applicable beyond this book.