[News] Iron Sheik: Palestinian Hip Hop

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<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/08/22/CMGO87TBMQ1.DTL>The 
Iron Sheik
Rapper Will Youmans taps into the American minority experience to address 
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict
- Laila Weir
Sunday, August 22, 2004

It's 5 p.m. when Will Youmans and I board a crowded plane at the Oakland 
Airport, headed for Los Angeles. We sit in the front row so we can 
disembark quickly because he's due to perform at the UCLA law school soon 
after we arrive.

His day job is teaching political science at Diablo Valley College in 
Pleasant Hill. Onstage, Youmans, 26, is known as the Iron Sheik, a 
Palestinian American rapper who tells a story of prejudice that reaches 
back to his mother's experience in the Middle East and his childhood in the 
United States.

"Whether in Dearborn or in the sticks, I was always dealing with racist pr 
-- ," raps the Oakland resident in a song called "Growing Up." "I remember 
being called a camel jockey, other kids circled me and tried to mock me."

Youmans is part of a growing number of young Palestinians, in the United 
States and in Israel, using hip-hop and rap to express their frustrations. 
Their choice of medium is not accidental. Faced with two Americas, white 
and black, many young Palestinians now identify more with the latter. The 
title of a book of poems written by Suheir Hammad, a prominent young 
Palestinian American artist, sums it up: "Born Palestinian, Born Black."

These artists document a modern diaspora. The Palestinians are 
predominantly Muslim, some Christian and occasionally Jewish Arabs who are 
originally from what is now the state of Israel and its occupied 
territories. Some of the world's 8.5 million Palestinians live in towns and 
refugee camps in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Others are dispersed 
around the world, refugees from the war that established Israel in 1948, or 
exiles from the occupied territories. A few remain in Israel.

The existence of the Palestinian people was denied, forgotten or ignored 
for many years, but as other youth remind the world of their existence by 
throwing rocks or blowing themselves up, these rappers are making 
themselves heard through rhyme. They are self-produced, operating in the 
musical underground of live shows and Internet sales -- Youmans' 
performances are mostly at university rallies or Arab conferences. He'd 
like to reach a wider audience, but says his main goal is to increase 
awareness among his peers.

"I'm trying to educate those who don't know [about Palestinians], but do 
know about imperialism, colonialism and so on," says Youmans. "At the same 
time, I also want Arab Americans to learn their history, the history of the 
Palestinian people -- the politics -- and to gain a view that it's cool to 
be political, it's OK to speak your mind and speak truth to power."

In some ways, it's an uphill battle. Many of the 70,000 or more 
Palestinians in the United States (nearly 6,000 in the Bay Area) arrived as 
refugees and tried to fade into their new surroundings. In "Growing Up," 
Will raps about Arabs who deny their roots to avoid prejudice: "Some hide 
their identity and claim Italy, or some other country, doing what they do 
to blend in for protection. ... Ali's name becomes Antonio from Spain."

A generation ago, the "Antonio" phenomenon was more widespread. "Some 
Palestinians would say they were Lebanese or Jordanian," says Jess Ghannam, 
a Palestinian psychiatrist and board member of the local American Arab 
Anti- Discrimination Committee. "They would pick a place or a country they 
thought was less frightening to Americans."

Today, more are speaking out, possibly because more American-born 
Palestinians are coming of age than ever before. At least half of all 
Palestinians in the United States arrived after the late 1960s, when 
Congress ended tight restrictions on non-Western immigrants, and when 
Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Ghannam says Palestinians who were born in the United States are more 
likely to speak out than new immigrants. "I think it's a lot easier for the 
younger people to put themselves out there," he says. "The second 
generation, and in some cases the third generation, ... it's much easier 
for them to be active politically."

As we settle into our tight quarters on the Los Angeles-bound plane, I ask 
Will to tell me about his family. He looks around uncomfortably. "This is a 
weird place to be doing this," he murmurs, but begins. His father, a 
European American lawyer, knew little about Palestinian culture before 
meeting Youmans' mother in Michigan in the 1970s. Youmans' mother, a 
schoolteacher, is a Palestinian Israeli who moved to Michigan in her 20s.

She grew up in Nazareth, one of a million or more Palestinians among 
Israel's 6.4 million citizens, but her family's roots were in nearby Yaffa. 
Her father had left Yaffa to work and was trapped when the 1948 war 
started, Youmans says: "He wanted to get back home, but he could only get 
back to Nazareth ... which means his family ended up losing all their land 
to Israel."

The 1948 war erupted after the declaration of the state of Israel, but the 
conflict had begun more than half a century before, with the movement by 
Europeans for a Jewish state. The Zionist leaders chose Palestine over 
other locations because it coincided with the biblical land of Israel and 
began recruiting Jews to emigrate. Hundreds of thousands did. Particularly 
after the Holocaust in World War II, the immigration drive gained momentum 
under the motto "A land without a people for a people without a land." But 
the land was not unpopulated -- 1.3 million Palestinians lived there under 
colonial British rule.

The immigration efforts, combined with international lobbying and a surge 
of international sympathy after the Holocaust, culminated in a United 
Nations recommendation to divide the land into separate Jewish and 
Palestinian states in 1947. But neither the Palestinans nor the neighboring 
Arab states agreed to go along with the proposition. Even before the plan 
was final, Arab/Jewish fighting began. The Zionist forces prevailed. The 
neighboring Arab states nearby then invaded. But they were no match for the 
Israeli forces, and when the fighting ended, Israel held more than 
three-quarters of the land that currently constitutes Israel and the 
territories. Like Youmans' grandfather, not all the Palestinians fled 
during the 1948 war; 165,000 remained in Palestinian communities such as 
Nazareth. They became the Palestinian Israelis, more often called Arab 
Israelis. Today, many complain of being victims of racism and having to 
live in poor, neglected neighborhoods.

Recently, a few have formed rap groups that are attracting notice inside 
and outside Israel. One group, Dam, known for its song "Who's the 
Terrorist?", has toured in England. Another, MWR, whose "Because I'm an 
Arab" laments Israeli prejudice against Palestinian citizens, toured the 
United States and visited San Francisco in March. Youmans' mother grew up 
an Israeli Arab.

As we approach Los Angeles, Youmans suggests we stop talking to save his 
voice. Then he starts asking me to critique his hair. I can't tell; it's 
short, dark, and it doesn't seem as if much could go wrong with it. His 
concern continues until he finds and puts on a ski cap just before the show.

We land and are preparing to deplane when the white-haired man sitting next 
to me leans over me to talk to Youmans. "What name do you record under?" he 
asks over the sound of the engines. Youmans hesitates. The man says he's 
with Mercury Records. Youmans quickly digs into his bag -- "I should give 
you a CD." The man takes it, saying, "I'll give it to someone to listen 
to," as he leaves.

We get off the plane and walk to the exit, where Youmans' friend Kumar will 
pick us up. The encounter is still on Youmans' mind. "What would I do if 
they offered me an album, said they'd promote me, let me use their studio, 
pay me lots of money, but I had to record as Ali the Terrorist and my music 
had to be like it is on the radio?" he questions the space in front of him, 
rocking back and forth on the curb. He looks up toward the dirty gray sky, 
pondering the question. "I love the music way too much. And I have a law 
degree, so that's kind of my safety net," he says, then pauses. "But that 
would be my dream; I'd love to do this stuff full time."

Then Kumar arrives in a shiny black Acura with rapper Mos Def playing on 
the stereo. As he zigzags through traffic, Youmans tells him about an 
Israeli rapper who challenged him to compete.

"I got an e-mail from an Israeli guy, it said, 'Wanna battle?' He said, 'I 
saw that you rap about your homeland just like I rap about my homeland. We 
can send each other freestyles. But don't be as critical as you are in 
'Olive Trees.' " I didn't even respond. I would've responded if he asked me 
a question about, 'You said this in 'Olive Trees.' But how can you be like, 
'Let's battle, but don't hurt my feelings?' "

"Olive Trees" is Youmans' lyrical history of Israel and the Palestinians. 
It begins, "Trouble began before 1948, when Zionists founded the Israeli 
state. Zionism called for a Jewish homeland, but they picked Palestine as a 
land with no man. One major flaw with all of this: They forgot the 
indigenous populace!" "Olive Trees" ends by comparing the Palestinians' 
situation in the occupied territories to that of American Indians: "As a 
Palestinian, feel more like an Indian, driven into reservations, living 
under occupation, as a shattered nation, a Western creation."

Abell chimes 7 as we arrive at UCLA and hurry across the campus toward the 
law school. We find about 50 students standing in a little courtyard next 
to a folding table stocked with alcohol and a lanky DJ in a faded "No War" 
T- shirt spinning hip-hop. The night is T-shirt warm, and the sky is fading 
to a dusky, grainy peach with an orange glow from the smog.

The sound system is bad, and some of Youmans' lyrics are lost in the static 
and the noise of conversation. But as he runs through his songs, 
interspersed with jokes and stories, the audience is drawn in. His 
characterization of Israel as a Western colonial power has hit home. "Me 
being Puerto Rican, I can relate since my land is a colony," a third-year 
law student named Luis Rodriguez tells me.

Lingering by the drinks table, a black South African named Robert Nuengaye, 
who studies international conflict resolution, compares the Palestinian 
situation to his experience growing up under apartheid. "It's the exact 
same thing," he says. "It's just like South Africa."

The sympathies go both ways. Just as Rodriguez and Nuengaye say they feel a 
connection to the Palestinians' experience, some Palestinians say they feel 
connected to groups they see as victims of colonialism or prejudice. In 
"Growing Up," Youmans talks about banding together with other American 
minorities to avoid racism. "When there weren't enough Arabs to get my 
back, those who got my back were Asian, Mexican and black -- other groups 
who face superiority."

That's a change from a long-standing relationship of distrust that has 
existed between Palestinian corner grocery-store owners in poor 
neighborhoods and their black or Latino customers. Alaa Zubaidi, a 
soft-spoken Silicon Valley software engineer whose parents fled Nazareth to 
rotate between Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait and the United States and who talks 
about an endless feeling of not really belonging anywhere, says tension 
between Palestinians and other American minorities still exists. But he 
also sees a different trend. "The people who live in these grocery stores, 
especially young kids, they embrace the culture that's around there ... 
They act, dress, talk the way black Americans or Latinos do," he says.

"Even if they were born here, the sense of [not] belonging, the sense of 
oppression, is still with them," says Zubaidi, 31. "I think [rap] appeals 
to them because of that ... It's a way of distinguishing yourself from what 
you believe is a culture that doesn't give you your rights."

Bay Area hip-hop personality Davey D says Palestinians who use rap to voice 
a sense of oppression are reflecting the music's origins and the way it was 
used by "conscious hip-hop" pioneers like Public Enemy. "The expressions 
that we call hip-hop are really a reaction to oppressive conditions, 
initially, " he says. "[Public Enemy's] whole 'Fight the Power' mantra 
really resonated with a lot of people."

Rap originated as the music of the minority, and that is part of its appeal 
for Youmans and other Palestinian rappers. "Racism drove me crazy 
sometimes, that's why I like rap," sings Ragtop, a member of rap group the 
Philistines. A Palestinian American born in Israel and raised in Tennessee, 
Ragtop says the music itself first drew him to rap, but what kept him with 
it was "the message of hip-hop, a voice for the people, protest music in 
the truest sense."

Youmans started rapping as a young teenager in Michigan, performing over 
beats he got from the B-sides of popular albums. His attention shifted away 
from music when he went to the University of Michigan, where he got serious 
about learning Palestinian history and became politically active.

Then in 2000, an Arab filmmaker told Youmans he needed a title track for a 
movie he was making, "The Tale of the Three Mohammeds." It was inspired by 
the rush to blame Arabs, incorrectly, for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, 
for which Timothy McVeigh was later executed. Youmans offered to write the 
track and created a freestylelike rap about prejudice that kicked off his 
career as the Iron Sheik. "The media's hyped and judging us as guilty," he 
wrote. "Stereotypes see what they want to see ... Just because we're Arabic 
doesn't mean we're suspect."

All of the Palestinians I talked to lamented media images of Arabs: 
negative stories of Palestinians as aggressors in the news, images of 
Palestinian militants on television and Arab bad guys in movies like "True 
Lies." Kamal Naser, a 29-year-old Silicon Valley worker, says, "You hear 
bad things all the time on the news, you're always the bad person on the 
TV, you're a terrorist, blah blah blah. And during an age when you're 
really self- conscious -- like in high school or whatever -- it's not cool 
to be an Arab."

Such stereotypes developed largely in response to the Israeli-Palestinian 
conflict, according to Helen Samhan, executive director of the Arab 
American Institute Foundation. "New negative stereotypes emerged in and 
permeated throughout advertising, television, and movies, particularly 
those of the nefarious oil sheik and the terrorist," she writes. "The Arab 
as villain has been a favorite scapegoat of popular American culture ... 
The stigma of unpopularity and controversy motivated some to mask their 
ethnicity."

Youmans reacted the opposite way: He says those same stereotypes inspired 
him to choose the name Iron Sheik. He lifted the title from a 1980s World 
Wrestling Federation star who -- in a traditional keffiyeh head scarf and 
drooping mustache -- battled the likes of Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant. 
"He was the stereotypical Middle Easterner and was part of the media 
representations that teach young Arab Americans that we are the bad guys. I 
decided to co-opt it in order to redefine my community: to speak for 
ourselves while smashing stereotypes."

Philistines' front man Ragtop echoes that emphasis on redefinition. He says 
he hopes using the name Ragtop -- the equivalent of "camel jockey" -- sends 
a message that "the targets of such slurs are aware of and fighting 
American racism."

One cold evening, I go to see Youmans perform at the opening night of San 
Francisco's Arab Film Festival. His baggy jeans and oversize sweatshirt 
look out of place at the front of the grand 1920s Castro Theatre, but as 
soon as he takes the microphone, he has the audience enthralled. "When I 
was growing up, the only Arab I saw on TV was the Iron Sheik, the Middle 
Eastern villain on WWF," he says. "To be Middle Eastern in this country is 
to be a villain." The 1,400-seat theater fills with applause.

He performs "Olive Trees" and the audience joins in as he raps: "They 
exiled us and stole our homes. Now all we have are old keys and new poems..."

That tale of dispossession is all too real for many Bay Area Palestinians. 
Peter, a 40-year-old technology worker who asked that his real name not be 
used, said his parents fled to East Jerusalem during the 1948 war, only to 
find themselves under Israeli control in 1967 when Israel annexed East 
Jerusalem. The state issued them Israeli identification cards. For 
international travel, they had Jordanian Palestinian passports. They were 
living in Israel now, but they remained as stateless as the Palestinians in 
Gaza or Jordan or other places where Palestinians have floated since 1948.

That statelessness followed Peter to the Bay Area when, at 14, he and his 
family moved here to seek a better life. When he became an American 
citizen, the officials asked his city of birth so they could put it down on 
his passport. Jerusalem, he said. OK, Jerusalem, Israel, they said. No, not 
Israel, Peter said, because, after all, he never had Israeli citizenship. 
OK, Jerusalem, Jordan, they said. No, I'm not Jordanian, he responded. 
Well, they said, we have to put a country down, and Jerusalem is the 
capital of Israel. But, he told them, if you put Israel, that means I'm an 
Israeli, but I'm not an Israeli, I'm a Palestinian. But Palestine does not 
exist, they said. Back and forth it went. "I have eight family members, we 
have eight different passports. Some say Jerusalem only, some say 
Jerusalem, Jordan, some say Jerusalem, Israel," Peter says, laughing.

But it's not funny. He calls the constant explaining a burden. The burden 
of telling people that he's Palestinian -- No, not Pakistanian, he says, 
Palestinian -- and explaining what that means, where he is from, how he can 
be Arab and Christian at the same time and why he has no country.

Peter is of the old school of Palestinians in the United States. While he 
says he's never hidden his Palestinian identity, he's uncomfortable with 
the idea of being politically active and says he stays away from the 
subject of politics. "I'm not a politician," he says. But as the suicide 
bombings of the intifada, in which close to 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 
Israelis have died, filled the news, American friends began questioning 
him. Their negative views were hard to overcome.

"It always comes down to a dead end -- you cannot really make your point 
and they cannot convince you," he says. "So what happens is it creates more 
like a wall and you start wondering, 'I'm not into politics, why is this 
wall getting bigger and bigger and bigger?' "

Peter hopes people like Youmans can take some of that burden off him. Peter 
doesn't like hip-hop much himself, but he thinks maybe rap can capture the 
youths' attention and teach them about his people.

Can music like Youmans' really convey the story of people like Peter for an 
audience that doesn't already sympathize? I go to see Youmans perform at a 
UC Berkeley rally that has attracted about 100 supporters and knots of 
students who pause to see what's going on. I ask some of the passers-by 
what they think of Youmans rapping, and the response is positive, at least 
regarding the music. But the listeners are less interested in his sound 
than in his message, which all call "powerful" or "determined," though they 
differ over whether it's "inspiring" or "insensitive."

Perhaps someday rappers like Youmans and Ragtop can carry their message to 
a mainstream American audience. But the guy from Mercury never called, 
Youmans is producing his next CD on his computer just like his first, and 
the journey to recognition looks likely to be a long one.

For now, though, Youmans seems to be doing what he said he wanted to -- 
teach the new generation of Palestinians about their history. Maybe that's 
as important as taking their message to the mainstream. At the end of our 
interview, Peter suddenly talks about politics and defiance after all, and 
about the importance of remembering.

"[The Israeli government] figures that sooner or later the old generation 
will die and the new generation will be after living free and forget what 
the hell is going on," he says. "But it's backfiring ... That's the part of 
the plan that's not going very well. They were hoping that the new 
generation would forget and just go after partying, technology, cell 
phones. But what's happening is the opposite."

Laila Weir is a Berkeley freelance writer. Her work has appeared in 
Tri-Valley Magazine, Wired News, the Jakarta Post and various newspapers 
around the country.

---SUPPORT THE SHEIK - BUY A CD at 
<http://www.ironsheik.biz/purchasing>www.ironsheik.biz/purchasing---

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