Pride and Prejudice

Like so many Americans, Audie Attar reacted in horror to last week’s terrorist attacks. The UCLA linebacker grieves for the victims’ families. He wants the terrorists held accountable.

Like so many Arab Americans, Attar fears that neighbors, classmates, maybe somebody in a car or on the street, will recognize his ethnicity or see the prominent Arabic tattoo on his left shoulder that honors his dead brother and respond with rage.

He would like nothing more than to sit his fellow Americans down one by one and articulate the complex tangle of emotions he feels.

“You have ignorant people who did this to our country,” he said, “Now you are going to have ignorant people who stereotype a whole group of people for the actions of a few.”

A day after the attacks, a friend of Attar’s mother was pulled out of her car in West Covina and beaten so badly she required hospitalization. Her crime: wearing a veil in the Muslim fashion.

Attar, 21, is aggressive by nature. UCLA coaches consider him one of the team’s hardest hitters. He is expressive and passionate in conversation. But he is an avowed Muslim who abhors violence.

“There are good and bad people in every culture, in every religion,” he said. “Don’t be fooled by rotten people. Don’t think all Muslims and Arabs are bad. And don’t turn on innocent people who had nothing to do with it.”

This isn’t the first time he has felt alienated. Although he has lived most of his life in Southern California, Attar is Iraqi, born in Baghdad. He was visiting relatives there when the Gulf War broke out in 1991.

A fifth-grader, he returned home to Claremont and felt the sting of stereotyping for the first time.

“I didn’t understand why kids said these things,” he said. “It hurt to have people not understand how it feels to be the only person at school from a certain background.”

Attar fought back with his fists then. Now he uses words.

“I do not disagree with what the American government was trying to do,” he said. “The people there were angry with their government and still are. A man [Saddam Hussein] was making mistakes. But innocent people died.”

He hasn’t returned to Iraq since. There is an embargo on commercial flights into the country, which is rebuilding from the war at an excruciating pace. Attar remembers Baghdad as a beautiful place, one of the world’s oldest and most historically significant cities.

“We went over there and indiscriminately bombed civilians,” he said. “People in Iraq felt like we feel right now. Many Americans can’t grasp that.”

Grieving over the loss of a loved one is something Attar understands. His brother, Eddie, was the victim of an unsolved murder in their home when Attar was a sophomore at Claremont High. Against his parents’ wishes, Attar had Eddie’s name tattooed on his shoulder in Arabic.

“Every time I touch the tattoo I remember him,” he said. “Now I worry because people will see it and not know what it means.”

Anger is in the air. Attar belongs to campus Arab American and Muslim organizations. He points out there are about 7 million Muslims in the U.S. and 3 million Arab Americans. The great majority are peace loving. But he knows it is impossible to set everyone straight.

“Nowhere I’ve studied does it say you should hurt innocent people in the name of God,” he said. “God is very merciful and loving and so is the Muslim faith. It is very similar to Christianity in teaching how to treat people.”

UCLA, like most colleges, is a melting pot. Attar shares an apartment with an African American basketball player, a white football player and a Jewish woman.

However, not many Arab Americans play football at major colleges or in the NFL.

The few include Iranian lineman Sherko Haji-Rasouli of the University of Miami and quarterbacks Doug Flutie of the San Diego Chargers and Jeff George of the Washington Redskins, who are of Lebanese-Syrian descent.

Long before wondering whether he would be stereotyped as a terrorist sympathizer, Attar viewed himself as a pioneer. “It’s like back when the first black person played football,” he said. “They’d probably know how I feel. It’s very different.”

Bruin punter Nate Fikse surprised Attar a couple years ago by telling him he was part Syrian. Fikse has surprised others too.

“I’ve had people say things about Arabs, either stereotyping them or trying to make a joke, and I let them know right away they are talking about me,” Fikse said.

Ethnic differences are celebrated on a Bruin roster peppered with African American, white, Hispanic, Polynesian and Armenian players. Everyone gets along, Attar said, and even the usual good-natured locker room jokes about ethnicity have ceased in the last week.

Attar doesn’t hear many negative comments outside football, either. At a muscular 6 feet, 210 pounds he’s not an easy target for bullying. That said, he fervently hopes his only fight is for playing time at weakside linebacker, where he backs up senior Ryan Nece.

“There wasn’t much racial tension toward Arabs until this happened,” he said. “Now I’m afraid the number of people harmed because of this tragedy will escalate.

“America is not about being white. It’s the land of the free where everyone comes together to fulfill their dreams. President Bush talked about this bringing us together. I hope that happens.”

Attar wants to be included in the unity. “I am an American,” he said. “If we have to take a stand, if we have to make a move against someone who harmed our country, let’s do it. As long as more innocent people don’t get hurt.”