Not Quite White

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 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 ongoing conversations about the meanings of whiteness and efforts aimed at redefining whiteness.

Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs, and the Contours of Contested Whiteness is dedicated to a vision of whiteness that is anti-racist and rooted in economic justice.