After the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11, many Muslims were viewed with overwhelming suspicion. My father, an African American Muslim from Louisiana, went to the airport in a Kufi cap and was met with disapproving glances. Though he was worlds away from the "terrorists" reported on in the news, "Islam" had become one category. When I watched Amir Ramses' documentary Jews of Egypt, I thought about my father, and the ways that cultural and religious specificity can become subsumed by an overwhelming homogenization. The stories in the film are ones we've heard before; where all Muslims become terrorists, and all Japanese become spies and bombers. In this documentary, Ramses explores...
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