Race

One thing about living here that should be noted is that the U.A.E. nationals are multi-racial. Skin color can vary radically. I have seen red-haired, blue-eyed Emiratis and have several students who would be called African-American back in the States (though I doubt whether my students have been to either Africa or America). There seems to be no differentiation among races or based on skin color.

I hadn't really given it much thought until today when two of my students who were jokingly giving each other a hard time began calling each other the worst word in the English language, a word so bad that I can't even type it out fully: "*i**e*!" While I should mention that they both have dark skin and seemed fully aware of what they were saying, it did surprise me to hear and I asked them to stop. At the end of class, I took the two of them aside and made sure that they knew fully what they were saying and that some people might find that word offensive. They said that they knew but would be more careful.

I did think the whole thing was kind of funny. One of the guys identifies with African American culture so obviously knew what he was saying. There isn't much of a distinction by race, only by nationality.