Riz Ahmed’s Essay on Being Muslim in a Post-9/11 World Should Be Required Reading

Being a recognizable actor does not make you immune from being racially profiled. Riz Ahmed, the actor who portrays Nasir Khan in the Summer's hit HBO show The Night Of, wrote a powerful essay demonstrating what it's like to be Muslim in a post-9/11 world. Ahmed was born in Wembley, England, to parents who had immigrated to the United Kingdom from Pakistan.

The essay, called "Typecast As A Terrorist", was published by The Guardian and written for a collection of essays titled The Good Immigrant. It explores 33-year-old Ahmed's encounters with law enforcement, airport officials, and everyday people around the world. Ahmed describes several experiences where he was profiled because of how he looks, but a few standout.

After starring in a 2006 film called The Road to Guantanamo about detainees who were falsely imprisoned, Ahmed received international accolades. He started traveling more for work and was wrongfully detained and assaulted by British detectives coming back from a film festival because he looked like a suspect. Ahmed recounts, "Returning to the glamour of Luton Airport after our festival win, ironically named British intelligence officers frogmarched me to an unmarked room where they insulted, threatened, and then attacked me." The incident was later deemed illegal and the story attracted media attention.

As Ahmed's career took off, he had his sights set on Hollywood. He describes how he was no longer typecast as the radical Muslim in films, but he was still typecast in reality. "When that happens enough, you internalise the role written for you by others. Now, like an over-eager method actor, I was struggling to break character," he wrote.

In another encounter at an airport, this time with American immigration officers, Ahmed was once again profiled. After three hours of waiting and questioning, he was released but the experience served as a reminder: "you are a type, whose face says things before your mouth opens; you are a signifier before you are a person; you are back at stage one."

The entire essay is worth reading because it illustrates that no matter how successful you are, your skin color will still affect how people perceive and treat you. Ahmed's frequent experiences of racial profiling and accusations of terrorism are the norm for many people. Unlike him, they don't have the recognition to prove that they are not, in fact, terrorists.