My son is not the same as me: race, power and Islamophobia

By Martin Punaks

Martin Punaks

As my son grows up, he and I are becoming increasingly aware of one big difference between us: I have white skin and he has brown skin.

We sometimes play a game in which I pretend that his arms are made of chocolate and I try to eat them, much to his amusement. In between giggles, he reminds me that he is not, in fact, a chocolate bar, but a little boy, and we both laugh.  Things like this are endlessly funny when you are five-years-old with a brown complexion.

But sometimes in a pensive moment, my son asks me why his and his mother’s color is much darker than my pale skin. This innocuous question precipitates into a discussion about his Pakistani and English heritage, about why we live in Nepal, why some people are Muslims and Christians while others are Buddhists and Hindus, whether there is a God and whether he lives with Buddha in heaven, and why Jesus was not at his own birthday party when we went to church once on Christmas Day in England.

Martin Punaks is a British man working for a United States NGO in Nepal where he lives with his British-Pakistani wife and son. This article originally appeared on AltMuslimah.com and is partially republished here with permission. The author’s views are his own. To read the rest of the article click here.

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