Overview
The film is dedicated to a vision of whiteness that is anti-racist and rooted in economic justice.
Silk Road Rising's Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs, and the Contours of Contested Whiteness (24 min, 8 sec), released in 2012, is a documentary film that explores the complicated relationship of Arab and Slavic immigrants to American notions of whiteness.
Not Quite White expands the American conversation on race by zeroing in on whiteness as a constructed social and political category, a slippery slope that historically played favorites, advantaging Northern and Western European immigrants over immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and the Middle East. Inspired by Jamil Khoury’s short play WASP: White Arab Slovak Pole, Not Quite White integrates scenes from WASP alongside interviews with Arab American and Polish American academics who reflect upon contested and probationary categories of whiteness and the use of anti-Black racism as a “whitening” dye.
In Not Quite White, director Jamil Khoury draws upon his own Arab (Syrian) and Slavic (Polish and Slovak) heritage as the lens through which to investigate the broader issue of immigrants achieving whiteness and hence qualifying as “fully American.” The film advances on-going conversations about the meanings of whiteness and efforts aimed at redefining whiteness.
The film is dedicated to a vision of whiteness that is anti-racist and rooted in economic justice.
Creative Team
Directed by Jamil Khoury and Stephen Combs
Executive Producer Malik Gillani
Featured Experts
- Roxane Assaf
- Ann Hetzel Gunkel
- John Tofik Karam
- Dominic A. Pacyga
Director of Photography & Editor Stephen Combs
Music Director Peter Storms
Featured Experts
- Roxane Assaf
- Ann Hetzel Gunkel
- John Tofik Karam
- Dominic A. Pacyga
Essays
Special Thanks
- 123RF.com
- Arab American National Museum
- Archival Images
- Arts Work Fund
- The Chicago Community Trust
- The First United Methodist Church at the Chicago Temple Building
- John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
- Johnny Knight
- Michael Brosilow
- Roxane Assaf & Family
- Smithsonian Images
- Stephen Combs
- United States Library of Congress
- Wikimedia Commons
Screening History
April 18, 2012 | Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, IL
May 5, 2012 | Green Festival, hosted at Navy Pier, Chicago, IL
October 4, 2012 | Columbia College Chicago, Chicago, IL
November 9-10, 2012 | 19th Ann Arbor Polish Film Festival, Ann Arbor, MI
November 13, 2012 | Benedictine University, Lisle, IL
October 21, 2013 | DePaul University, hosted at Silk Road Rising, Chicago, IL
December 9, 2013 | American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
May 22, 2014 | University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
September 30, 2014 | Knox College, Galesburg, IL
November 13, 2014 | Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference, hosted at DePaul University, Chicago, IL
July 15, 2016 | The University of Chicago Startalk Program, hosted at Silk Road Rising, Chicago, IL
January 25, 2018 | Tufts University, Medford, MA
May 1, 2018 | Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, IL
June 11, 2019 | American Center, Moscow, Russia
July 30, 2019 | Exelon Corporation, Chicago, IL
September 7, 2021 | Becoming: Unlearning White Supremacy workshop, hosted online by Collaboraction Theatre Company, Chicago, IL
November 15, 2022 | Marhaba Business Resource Group at Nielsen, hosted online by The Nielsen Company, Charlotte, North Carolina
March 23, 2023 | Ohio Northern University, Ada, Ohio