pyraxis | When a white man encounters racism and fights back

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When a white man encounters racism and fights back

or, What not to do when crossing the fourth wall.

Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari, the author of the popular activism blog "A Gay Girl in Damascus", has just admitted that she is really Tom MacMaster, a 40-year-old student in Edinburgh.

The blog recently got major media attention when a family member of Amina reported that her cousin had disappeared near the Abbasid bus station, seized by three young men who were probably members of the Baath Party militia. Gay activists in Syria have been investigating her arrest and attempting to contact her at personal risk to themselves.

"Ever since I was a child, I’ve wanted to write fiction but, when my first attempts met with universal rejection, I took a more serious look at my own work and I realized that I could not write conversation in a natural way nor could I convincingly write characters who weren’t me." Tom wrote in his apology today. "I was involved with numerous online science-fiction/alternate-history discussion lists and, as a part of that process, I saw lots of incredibly ignorant and stupid positions repeated on the Middle East. I noticed that when I, a person with a distinctly Anglo name, made comments on the Middle East, the facts I might present were ignored and I found myself accused of hating America, Jews, etc."

When he was unable to improve his writing using conventional exercises, he invented the Amina persona, who began commenting on the same blogs and mailing lists that Tom was already a part of. Almost immediately, he discovered that Amina's posts provoked friendly reactions, where his own had only provoked hostility. The momentum grew - he created a Facebook page for her, found photos online of a woman who looked like her, created her blog. Amina started getting requests to write articles, which she delivered. She exchanged hundreds of emails with a Canadian woman, developing a romantic relationship. She posted a story about her father's love and protection and it went viral. (A timeline of the events)

Now, Tom MacMaster is frantically and humbly backpedaling, while the pageviews of his blog approach 900,000. Sami Hamwi, the editor of GayMiddleEast.com, wrote, "To Mr. MacMaster, I say shame on you!!! We have to deal with too many difficulties than you can imagine. What you have done has harmed many, put us all in danger, and made us worry about our LGBT activism. Add to that, that it might have caused doubts about the authenticity of our blogs, stories, and us. Your apology is not accepted, since I have myself started to investigate Amina’s arrest. I could have put myself in a grave danger inquiring about a fictitious figure."

I am struck by how similar his story might be to the experience of a member of a multiple system who fought for equal treatment and didn't compromise on their own personality, opinions, and background.

What would the media response have been if, instead of saying "I made it all up," Tom had said, "Yes, I am multiple; Amina is a member of my system"?

It also hilights just now pervasive is the new disenfrancisement that white males believe they face in a world where minority groups are rapidly gaining control of social discourse. "I didn’t mean to hurt the causes which I myself believe in," Tom said. "I only wanted to set forth real information through the use of artfully crafted fiction."

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I know someone who claims to be a Vietnam Vet, and can recount quite seemingly real stories of his time as one (though I am certainly no expert) and obviously believes himself.

But ... he isn't in any records for having been over there. Something quite strange - either he is making it all up, or changed his name or something. Possibly multiple with a personality that believes he was there but wasn't physically. (At which point questions of his authenticity still apply). Or is appropriating someone else's stories, which I have heard of people doing before, because of the attention and sympathy it gives them.

Thinking of people like that, perhaps this dude isn't so strange after all? Just somehow a bit repulsive in its duplicity.

Interesting comment about the different "voices"

From what I have heard, things going viral on an ordinary person can be really really stressful and disturbing. Not, shall we say, a situation we really evolved to deal with. If his/her work had never gone viral the outcome of the story might have been very different?

i think that "b" option can easily get missed, especially if the whole of a group you care passionately about engaging with is largely composed of people who are ignoring you because of social position.

for me i sorta feel sorry for the guy. i can see very much how things could get to the point they got with him, it's just a shame that he couldn't. i think he thought outside the box just enough to get him into trouble but not enough to turn the idea into something marvelous.

if the whole thing had been written with the intent that one day people would find out it was him and it was a commentary on both the real-life situation, and the peripheral problems that had left him feeling marginalized in the community of activists, it could have been good in more than one way.

in a sense, i think it's still useful tho because it has lots of people talking about it and a lot of the discussion i've seen has been pretty intelligent.

so while it was wrong for him to expose other activists to danger, and to exploit a canadian girl's feelings to create a false relationship with her, on some level this kind of pr about the plight of homosexuals in the muslim world probably never would have happened. suddenly, it's something everyone is talking/thinking about, and even if it's because of a deception being unmasked, that's still a good thing!

~kat

I tend to agree with everything you say here. I do wonder how much of the going viral meant it did explode beyond anything he dreamed of.

I think your "he thought outside the box just enough to get him into trouble but not enough to turn the idea into something marvelous" is spot on!

As for the relationship with the girl in Canada, I just realised my reaction to that was a very multiplistic "Well, hey, so some woman inside him was having a relationship with that girl. So where is the problem?" And the penny just dropped and I realised HE thinks the woman inside him is make-believe, and now so does the woman in Canada. Ouch. Poor girl. Even if there is obviously grounds for a lovely romance between the him that created/embodied/empowered the persona of the gay mulsim woman, and the Canadian girl, he must surely have done his dash with her because of betraying her trust.

see, and the reason it occurred to me first is because we feel very strongly about not hiding who we are from anyone we're interested in romantically. the idea of the girl in damascus being in a relationship with someone is fine, as long as she was open about who she actually was(a "character" made up by the guy in scotland).

for me the definition of "fictional" is a fluid one, and sometimes fiction can be more "real" than things that are called "fact". i think that's ok, and if this fictional person becoming "real" to everyone had been beneficial then it would be a completely different story.

i wonder if part of the reason why people are having such an emotional reaction to this story is because the border between "fact" and "fiction" is being blurred and it makes them uncomfortable. for the activists and people who cared deeply about the issues personally it makes sense, but this story wouldn't have the impact it seems to be having on less-involved people if it didn't strike some basic chord that makes it worth talking about.

~kat

i do think it's sorta sad that it's so hard for people to talk about racial issues without having their ideas dismissed. doesn't matter what your ethnic background someone will dismiss what you have to say because of some stereotype.

and while it's not ok to pretend to be someone more "acceptable" with whoever you happen to be talking to about those issues, it is tempting. we've even been tempted to say we're native american because of a friend who has tribal affiliation insisting that she thinks we must have some kind of native heritage because of how we look(but also partly because much of the culture and history is so interesting and valuable to us, which is apparently rare among the natives she actually does know).

it's also very easy, as a white male(which i physically am), to feel like you are a boring person, and like your opinions and ideas are undervalued because you are in the majority. this does happen but there's nothing really to be done about it(other than move somewhere where you're the minority!). it's an odd thing, cause people of color often have their opinions excluded or ignored by the majority, but people in the majority have a different sort of issue with not really being able to stand out, and in modern discussions of race, there is a natural reversal. if you are a white male and have a good idea or really want to contribute to the dialogue you often can't because your motives are questioned. in addition you get the situation where white males have often marginalized anyone else's ideas so now theirs are. "a taste of their own medicine" whether it be deserved or not(both occur frequently).

i think the whole thing is a bit tragic. growing up we were always the odd person who broke the mold - only white person willing to play on the "black" little-league team(in a louisianan town where we got subjected to racism along with the team), only non-druggie who enjoyed associating with stoners or other outcasts. a member of all the "geeky" school clubs who was friends with people from the popular cliques, a christian(at the time) who was willing to be friends with pagans and atheists...

we see all of the wonderful persepectives that people have, and they overwhelm the flaws(which are also universal). we've even liked a few of the painfully racist people we've met in rural arkansas and hopefully with our words maybe tweaked their perspectives slightly. we certainly understand their fears better for having actually listened to them.

i just wish everyone was willing to put aside their differences and really. just. listen. sometimes it happens naturally for little bits of time, but often it takes big ridiculous things. like some guy causing an international uproar for pretending to be a gay syrian girl, to get people sitting down and thinking about how they think and feel, and talking about the personal why's behind all of their ideas.

overall we hope that maybe this situation will result in greater awareness of issues around the interaction of homosexuality, ethnicity, and religion.

it's discussions like this one on your journal-posting that make me think that those hopes we hold onto are actually justified!

on some level tho i see what you are saying and it does scare me because here i am: a bisexual girl who isn't willing to conform to the semi-acceptable "transgender" category that has been created in my society. i have actually had a transgender friend tell me that all this "plural identity" thing is just me trying to avoid coming to terms with my transgendered nature, and i wonder: where do i fit? must i either be a guy who has some issue that makes him act femme and has more than one person in his head(which is what some people think) or must i fit into the category of transgender in denial that my friend assigned me(because of her own past issues)?

i wish people would be less insistent that their preconceived notions applied to everyone else. maybe if we could do more of that then we would do a better job of helping each other deal with the problems each of us face, whether it be emotional, religious, psychological, political, or whatever. the key is to listen, and to care, no matter how hard to understand or unlike you the other person may be.

~kat

i think that's probably really true. we feel pretty sorry for him. while it doesn't really excuse his mistakes, we definitely can put ourselves in his place and understand why he made the mistakes he did. his apology seemed mostly sincere, if still probably pretty overwhelmed by the whole situation, and a bit in denial about some of it turning out the way it did. we also get that he doesn't want to feel like everything he did was worthless and wrong, and on some level i have to hope that it doesn't all go to waste. he wrote some very powerful stuff when we read some of that blog a month or two back.

~kat

I think you are right about the striking a basic chord in people. To be honest, it just mostly puzzles me, but what I have seen/heard elsewhere suggests people have reacted very strongly negative.

Having written a book or two and edited other people's fiction, I too find that line between fact and fiction very fluid, and indeed I presumed it was true of most writers. As a piece of fiction sounds like his work was outstanding, and doing what we as a society pretty much require of our fiction - it drew people in, opened their eyes, inspired them, made them care about the characters.

I feel a bit sorry for him too. We have a show on tv here that has highlighted a couple of times the randomness of things going viral on the internet and how adversely it can affect the people involved - though often it makes them very rich!

Did you read the blog before or after you knew it wasn't "real" so to speak?

yes. i had actually made a mental note to subscribe to it and follow the next time we got on blogger(which we don't do that often). this was i think two months ago or something. i felt worried and sorry for her when i first heard it on the news that she had been abducted or imprisoned. when i found out the other day along with everyone else that she had been a fake it was weird. i think also part of the overall outrage comes from people who genuinely cared about her as a person. the shock of her suddenly not being "real" explains a lot of what is being said by her former colleagues now who risked their lives to try to support her when she was imprisoned.

i actually experienced something vaguely similar the first time i came out to anyone as plural. their reaction was "so that person i've been friends with for the past few years was a fake?!" and then anger and a feeling of betrayal. this was from someone who later came to completely accept us and to understand us better than most other non-plurals who really know us.

i hope in a month or two we will be hearing from people who are expressing forgiveness to the guy, especially if he continues to be really genuinely contrite for misleading people. and it's why i think probably the most wrong thing he did was carry on that long-distance relationship with the girl. he broke that poor girl's heart and i'm sure has fucked with her head and given her pretty long-term trust issues at this point. :/

~kat

yeah, we actually played with writing a horor-blog in a similar vein. the problem is that it is considered unethical to present fiction as fact unless it is done in a literary style that makes it obvious that it is still fiction like in say dinotopia or dracula or house of leaves.

lots of people are uncomfortable with the idea of fiction and reality overlapping, and i think it's probably mostly from people being very hung-up on the idea of "truth" being a fundamental part of reality that is universal and doesn't vary between people. even people who say "truth is relative" really usually just mean that other people's truths are relative but that theirs is still absolute. i even do that sometimes and i really really know better! i think it's sorta built into the psyche of moder humans and has to do with wanting a solid grounding of reality. until books and "civilization" people didn't have that much at all, and on some level it ties into the "fear of the unknown" that is behind most human fears.

i think writers of fiction and other storytellers(actors, artists, poets, etc.) are the main people who actually try to make use of the fluid nature of reality to benefit humanity, while scientists and other philosophers try to fit reality into boxes so we don't have to be afraid of it. i don't have a problem with science and philosophy, i just think that "modern" society is a bit too caught up in these things and that's why the slightest instability in "truth" often makes people freak-out. at least for some people.

~kat

I can really understand the anger of people who risked their life to support her when she was (presumably also fakely) imprisoned. But also there must surely (I would think) an anger in them that this person who was so convincing in "her" writing that she really did understand the issues and realities that they too were facing, turned out not only to have duped them, and to have endangered their lives in that duplicity, but also demonstrated very clearly in his actions he actually DIDN'T have the understanding they thought he did, otherwise he would never have done to them what he did.

Or only would have if he was a sociopath. Which he doesn't sound like he is.

I do wonder too, that a lot of the more widespread anger is at being duped. No one likes that. People usually base a lot of their security in life on being able to spot fakes and abusers etc from a distance, and not get sucked in. He has shaken that fundamental belief in a whoooooooooole lot of people.

I have only kinda really experienced that "The woman I love is a fake?" from people. My own path through multiplicity didn't consist of any great uncloseting to someone I love, as I was diagnosed so long ago, and told people important to me I was multiple, but I didn't even really understand what that meant in full itself (Sure we knew "I" was "we" hence the diagnosis, but the fuller implications in our wider life took a long time to reveal themselves) so they kinda learned alongside me.

I don't know that this situation is all that comparable to coming out as a multiple. Like... we are er, both (?) multiple, so our paradigm is gonna be that! So we are only able to really understand it from that perspective. I mean if it had been me I would have sat the chick who wrote that blog down inside and said "Oiy! You know the house rules - no hurting our body or anyone inside? Well they apply to others outside too. What the HELL are you thinking in lying on such a massive scale, to people who care about you. YOU might be from wherever, but your body's life experience here ISN'T what you are saying it is."

I just can't begin to understand how it happened in a singlet, and ... and I guess ... what to make of it, because I just can't understand it. I can only judge the consequences. And honestly, for the vast majority of people he duped I would say "well, you ought to know you need to check your sources on the internet."
But I would add in to the list of wrongdoing, the endangering of lives of the people who supported him, in addition to the poor Canadian girl. :-(

Interesting thoughts about "truth" and the tolerance for an unstable basis for your reality to be built upon. Coming from a scientific background, the best science historically have come from people who could accept the basis of reality they were taught was Truth, just might not be so.

I think the being too caught up in it is not so much science per se (I know nothing about philosophy so I will take your word on it :-) but about society, and perhaps the interplay of media, science (historically a discipline with very little wider-media savvy) and the general populace who DO tend to think our basis for reality IS stable.

No idea why they feel that way. Or why the interpretation of science generally has led to that belief. Maybe it is how science was taught for a long time - that of "We know everything".

But the best teachers in science I have emphasise the body of knowledge and understanding of the world is always growing and changing, being challenged and disproved or unable to be disproved.

They reveal it to be an exciting and dynamic area of study, not staid and boring and ... kinda finished off. Passe. Nothing else needed to be understood. (BORING!!!)

Your comment " even people who say "truth is relative" really usually just mean that other people's truths are relative but that theirs is still absolute. "
Really cracked me up. So true!!!

What you say about "fear of the unknown" it is kinda the diametric opposite to science as I know it. I remember some dude saying to me "The trick is to learn to be comfortable in your lack of certainty"
So it is really quite ironic that science has come to symbolise a rigid truth of reality.

Regarding writing the horror blog, I think that is why I was drawn to writing fantasy, myself. It is so obviously "fiction" that within it there is a LOT of scope to write truths, and even truths that conflict so long as you can convince the reader to swallow it. That isn't so hard in fantasy or sci-fi because part of the reader "contract" is. "I will suspend belief for this story".

I don't really know enough about horror to intelligently discuss the pros and cons of that style of storytelling, but I do know what you mean about "unethical" to present fiction as fact.

Yes, I think it would be hugely disorienting in a stage-fright kind of way. Suddenly realizing your words and actions had a much greater impact on the universe than you had ever dreamed.

However I disagree that humans haven't evolved to deal with such a thing. I believe you said elsewhere that as it's currently understood, what humans didn't evolve for is prolonged stress. A viral explosion happens over the course of days or hours. Not quite the immediate fight-or-flight of coming face to face with a bear, but still calling for fast and decisive action.

If his work had never gone viral, he might never have had to face the growing seriousness of the consequences of his actions... or never realized that his voice was being heard.

it's discussions like this one on your journal-posting that make me think that those hopes we hold onto are actually justified!

You are very kind. That's the most inspiring thing anyone's said to me in a while.

I like your comparison between the issues faced by those in the majority and those in the minority.

PS It will be interesting to see if the discussion goes anywhere on your blog. Already I saw one response that I doubt anyone would have dared present here.

Seems to me MacMaster had no conception of multiplicity or soulbonding, though that's a bit surprising if he hung out in alternate-history communities. I was tempted to write to him and say, "Hey, have you ever considered..." I'm sure the message would have been lost, though, in the flood of information.

We actually wrote to someone once, in a smaller but similar conflagration on a newsgroup, long before we even knew there was a multiplicity community, and got "you're the only one who seems to understand me".

This situation is familiar to us. We discovered we were plural because James created his own online life, and he too got involved with people who believed him "real".

Perhaps Tom would have been more readily accepted if he hadn't put others in danger by saying 'Amina' was kidnapped. He put the lives of others in danger for no reason. That's unacceptable. His blog project was okay with us up until we read that.

I got the impression the effects of going viral were, although very quick to start, quite long-lasting. Like once you are famous on the internet you tend to stay very high profile, which can take a lot of skills to handle well, a fair few high profile people don't seem to have!

Meh, don't know, just throwing thoughts out there.

Sadly I think you are right about the message being lost in the flood.

How interesting about the newsgroup person's response! Huh!

Oooh that sounds interesting, is it unlocked? I might swing by and see if I can read it.

eternally curious Leonie :-P

Huh, that is interesting!

I too agree about the putting people in danger bit. Up till then it was ... intriguing and understandable from a mulitple perspective, but that went over the line.

Oh, meant to say, love the icon!

Yep, it is unlocked.

You might be right. I had been thinking the fame was lost as quickly as it came, as people's attention got diverted elsewhere. It probably depends on the circumstances and how the person handles the fallout.

Oh heh, well, you see, I was thinking of some kid who was filmed having a bit of a chew on his little brother's ear in England, someone stuck it on youtube a few years back and it went viral. Apparently the entire family went into hiding but it STILL gets so many hits they earn 700 pounds a week from advertising.

Me I would have said "I don't care how much money this earns us, enough is enough" and taken it off. But obviously they feel the money is worth the disruption and intrusions to normal life for both their kids and them *shrugs*

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When a white man encounters racism and fights back

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ethnicity, sexuality, religion, and communication

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