BINGOArab literature ≠ Arab-American literature ≠ Arabic literature. There are overlaps, and a writer can shift and move between all three, but the spaces/ platforms afforded to each are not the same. If you refuse to acknowledge this, you are part of the problem. (1/4) https://twitter.com/monakareem/status/1381745077454827522

You can lament your generational trauma all you want, but making this an attack on “diaspora” is once again shifting the conversation and taking up space when the conversation is not about you, and the space you are trying to take down ( @arablit) is not created for you. (2/4)

Let’s discuss the racial/colonial dynamics of publishing, absolutely. But focus on your own spaces and not one that- however imperfect, and certainly developed with white/American privilege - is one of the few spaces highlighting *Arabic* (not Arab) Lit in English. (3/4)

That is not your fight. It is not your space. And if you try to come for it unprepared, without an understanding of the dynamics of Arabic language lit and the Arabic publishing scene, people will come for you. And it reeks of the US colonisation with which you were raised. (4/4)

(I woke up at 4am from the most bizarre corona dream to tweet this, so may regret re-engaging in all this when I wake up again in the morning)