Persuading

Our high school is all abuzz because we are going to have a renown guest speaker who will be addressing our student body, along with parents, alumni and other guests. We want to model academic debate to our students, so we have picked a topic and a panel and hope to have a lively and stimulating debate.

The topic: Israel. Palestine. Questions related to democracy. And should we, Christians, support Israel?

The panel: The guest speaker, another teacher and me.

Most people would think, what's the problem? You have something to say, a perspective to offer. Certainly reasonable, articulate and mature adults can have a discussion about these political topics. But the reality is that I will not have a level playing field.

First, I am the only woman on the panel. This means that I will have to meet the (much older) men on the panel on their ground, not on my own. I will not be able to use the persuasive techniques that I am best at because they are "feminine" in nature and therefore discredited. I am good at ethos, proofs based upon my experience and personal credibility and pathos, proofs based upon emotional appeals. No matter how legitimate these appeals, I will have to avoid them. Instead, I will have to use logos, logical appeals based upon cold facts and evidence.

Second, I will certainly be the only Palestinian, and the only Arab, and possibly the only person who has travelled in the Arab world (with the exception of my other panelists) in the room.

Third, even though I am a Palestinian, no one there will see me as one. Instead, they will see me as Mrs. M, their teacher for the past five years. Their coworker who graduated from a college in Chicago. If I were a guest speaker, there would be at least a little deference for being the "other" in their midst. There would be a little trepidation that would prevent them from asking the really offensive question. Instead, I am too safe. Would you ask the same questions to a minority person as you would in a room without a single minority? But when I am offended, I am seen as just overly touchy.

Fourth, for everyone else in the room, this will be an intellectual exercise. This is neutral territory. For me, this is my life. This is my identity. This is my family tree, my home, my history, my people. So, while everyone else will be cooly arranging the pieces on the chess board, I will probably be bleeding inside and still need to remain cool and factual on the outside.

Fifth, in order to be persuasive, I have to leave behind my Arabness. Arabs are not persuasive to Americans. Americans are persuasive to Americans.

My first thought when I was asked to be on this panel was: not me! Allow me to suggest someone else. But then, as I ran down the list of all of the people who would be better at advocating for my people than I would be, I realized that every single one of the people that I thought of were white American men. Passionate, intelligent, articulate white American men. They would all be SO much better at this than me.

Why in the world am I doing this? I am still not sure. I said yes, I know, but my heart really sank when I was asked. Then again, how can I turn this down? Isn't my calling to educated American Christians about this topic? Isn't this precisely the call that God has given me?

So, I say yes. But I know that this is going to take so much out of me. I know that I am going to stand up there and say what I need to say, but that the personal emotional cost is going to be very high to me. While everyone else in the room will walk out intrigued or bewildered, persuaded or annoyed, satisfied or thoughtful, I will be the only one who has to limp.