Yay! for Bollywood!

I just finished watching My Name Is Khan.

Wow.

A little on the cheesy side--but a tear-jerker, and an eye-opener.

One of my sisters had told me that it was really good.  I don't remember her telling me exactly what it was about though--but that's my brain these days.  It's the post 9/11 movie I've been dying to see.  I've kinda been waiting for one with this message to come out, and just didn't realize that it already was.  My heart breaks for Muslims in America.  Though relatively mostly Christian, we seem to base our judgements on looks.  What we see first.  Most Americans cannot distinguish between people of different ethnic backgrounds.  Asians are the most noted, where most Americans used to consider everyone Chinese.  Thankfully that is waining.  However, those from the Middle East are now being lumped into mis-cadigoration.  The worst part for Middle Easterners, a large portion of Muslims don't even come from the Middle East.  They come from the South Pacific.  Indonesia.  Malaysia.  And many also come from various countries in Africa (the largest population of people to be mis-categorized--by Westerners--we cannot distinguish anything about that continent and have labeled the entire continent as one country...aside from Egypt and sometimes South Africa and Morocco).

My point, though, is not that we're mis-categorizing who is Muslim and who is not; we are not paying attention to the Muslim religion itself.  Or to the people to practice it.  This is what the movie is trying to convey.  An Indian man, practicing Muslim is no more a terrorist than a one who practices Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Christianity.  What makes a terrorist are the fundamentalist ideas and the 'need' for violent revenge.  Christianity has had its own terrorists, posing threats on other Christians.  There are several forms of Christian fundamentalists, some of which we pay attention to, most of which we deem ugly.  I'm quite sure the KKK can be labeled as a Christian fundamentalists.  And just as an American has a hard time telling an Indian from a Pakistani, we also have a hard time telling a Catholic from a protestant, a Baptist from an Episcopalian, a Morman from a fundamentalist Morman (one fundamentalist belief is that they prefer to believe in polygamy, not most of the Morman church), an Adventist from a cult member (that's an Adventist joke).

You can't tell them apart.  In the end, you have to rely on your 'good' judgement to watch their behaviors.  Personally, if I had to choose between two babysitters for my baby A, and one was a kind Christian and the other a selfish Muslim, I would choose the Christian.  Or, if one was a Christian bigot who angered easily and the other a kind Muslim who treated others with respect, I would choose the Muslim.  And yes, just as this movie portrays, they exist.  

I'm well aware that being under threat, as we unfortunately are, you must use extra precautions.  However, it seems that a lot of the threat is really built up paranoia from the media and social inspirations (or from our imaginations).

I only wish that a story like this was real (aside from a boy dying).  At least the movie is a step towards social knowledge, as long as the story gets out.

This is one movie I will ask my friends and family to see.