Egyptian Immigrant in Detroit Still Fighting to Be Classified As Black
When Mostafa Hefny immigrated to the U.S. in 1978, he got a rude awakening. As the customs agent welcomed him into the country, the brown-skinned Egyptian-native was told that he was now considered white.
Despite the fact that Hefny, now 61, looks like a black man, he was classified on his government-issued documents as Caucasian, a designation he’s been fighting ever since.
Due to Directive 15 of Office of Management and Budget Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity, a person is defined as white if they have “origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, North Africa or the Middle East.”
While some would relish the opportunity to be classified as white, Hefny has been actively fighting to get his legal designation changed for decades. An educator, Hefny says he’s lost multiple jobs slated for minorities because he’s listed as a white man. But his fight is deeper than that. Hefny argues that being classified as white, despite the fact that he’s a proud black man, is a slight to his heritage.
“As a black man and as an African, I am proud of this heritage,” he told the Detroit News. “My classification as a white man takes away my black pride, my black heritage and my strong black identity.”
Hefny considers himself an Egyptian Nubian, and filed a lawsuit with the government in 1997 to have himself classified as black; his case was dismissed. Now, he’s appealing to President Obama for help.
Hefny recently wrote a letter to Mr. Obama about his situation.
“As you can see in the enclosed photo, I am a black man,” the letter reads. “My complexion is darker than yours. I was born and raised in Africa (Egypt) and you were not, yet you are classified as Black and I am classified at White.”
Hefny, who started an online petition to gain support for his cause, is also appealing to the United Nations and the Justice Department to have his racial designation changed.
He May be a Nubian but because he is from North Africa i.e the arab speaking countries like Morroco, Libya, Algeria, they consider themselves arabs, now he is in the predicament he is in because he is born in Eypt but but his ethnicity is nubian. (This is one of themany racism and ethnicity problems thats found in the war between Sudan and South Sudan, the new Sudan consider themselves African but North Sudan doesn’t.. most would consider themslelves arab, despite appearances). Therefore why he has been classified as white. But good luck to him
The irony here is Arabs aren’t even Caucasian :)
Egyptians didn’t even consider themselves Arab until Nasser. Many Egyptians still don’t consider themselves Arab. My dad’s family is Egyptian but all of our traceable ancestors were Europeans and in America my father benefits from white privilege every day of his life. Anyhow, Egypt is a lot like Latin America or anywhere else there has been colonialism & immigration. Egyptians come in all sorts of shades and from all sorts of backgrounds, probably more so than anywhere else in the middle east other than Israel. If I had a dollar for every time some white person said “oh you are half Egyptian, that must be why your skin is such a lovely shade of brown” I would be rolling in money. Nope, I’m brown because my mother is Black person (American).
Trying to maintain hegemony, at least on paper, I see. >_> I wish you all the best of luck in your fight, Mr. Hefny.
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No. Egyptians have various skin tones and hair textures.
The purest Arab bloodlines are some of the first Caucasian lineages to evolve. Arab Caucasian evolved before Nordic Caucasians.
You do have lineages like in Iraq and Oman that have sub-Saharan ancestry, but in places like Saudia Arabia, they are straight Caucasian, despite not really being seen as such by whitebred western types.
As a Muslim woman, I’ve made three Hijj pilgrimage to Macca Medina and I can honestly tell you that Saudi Arabians are not Caucasian even in looks. If anything UAE has more white Arabs from places like Bosnia and Croasia. From my assessment, there were no superficial different that I saw in Saudi that is any more or less distinct than other Arabs from Qatar or Bahrain. However, I do agree that people from Yeman and Omen are darker and similar in facial/body features of people from across the red sea like Eritreans, Ethiopians, Somalians, etc.
What do you mean, even in looks? The first Caucasians to evolve were brown/darker skinned people. They were not pale.
Race is not a scientifically definable term. People that are from originally different geographic regions tend to look different because of local adaptation to climate and genetic drift. Today the situation is even more complex since most people ancestors tend to come from different regions of the world. So, you are neither black, white or Chinese. You are a human being. But you are free to pick a group to belong to if that makes you feel more comfortable.