Friday, April 05, 2013

Angry Arab accused of being an...Angry Arab

I was at the hospital with my brother in Boulder, Colorado in his last days.  I came to the hospital with a lot of medical questions and inquiries (and a dear friend and comrade from the faculty of Harvard Medical school supplied me with plenty of questions to the doctors there).  So I was very inquisitive, and insisted on second and third opinions.  A day after my arrival, the chief of the ICU unit came to me and quietly told me that I may be asked to leave the hospital because doctors, nurses, and staff in the hospital felt that I was too "aggressive" and "bullying" and "even threatening".  And he then used that word that I most hate in this context when he said: "this could be cultural".  I had to tell him firmly: this has nothing to do with culture.  It has to do with the fact that he is my brother and he taught me how to read, among other things.  Who does he think I am, I thought? Some Angry Arab?  Did he google me, I wondered. True story.