The other day a coworker and I were talking about cultures when she spewed out the following sentence. “I don’t understand why all you Arabs are so violent, all you guys want to do is blow stuff up” It seemed as though an hour crept by as I tried to articulate my reply. As curse words began forming themselves in my mind and my lips began to parse together to begin the first crucial letter of “f” I opted to bitch slap her in a more humane, yet equally painful way, I decided to educate her. Being that I did pass 3rd grade Geography I knew that she was from El Salvador, and being that I have heard plenty of stories of the hatred or I should say the lack of cohesion between the Salvies and Mexies. I began my lesson. “First off I’m Afghan, not Arab” she replies, “afghan, arab, ah it’s all the same to me.” I said “you know you’re probably right we are all the same, just like all you Mexicans.” (Brief pause) I think this is where her Pentium Uno Processor for a brain was just begin to crunch up the 1s and 0s. “She says oh I aint Mexican I’m Salvadoranian”, I said “Mexican, Salavadoranian, it’s all the same you’re brown they’re brown, you wear funny hats, they wear funny hats, you cook burritos, they cook burritos, I don’t see what the difference is.”

“ahhh” she nodded and then smiled… good for her, she finally passed 3rd grade Geography.

Mostafa, please educate me. Why do Iranians still refer to themselves as "Persian"? Last I checked, Persia wasn't a country. Help!

Marla my pretty, the Persians have a very proud history of world domination (sort of)...funny how the whole humanicide thing makes people into a proud culture. So to answer your question it’s all about historic perception. You never want to give up the things that made you something even if that’s something in your own mind. So the term Persian IMHO is fading out with the newer generation of Iranians (God bless education). They seem to now rally around their country more so than the fading national history, the newest fad in this crazy thing we call ethnic pride is that they are Iranians who speak Persian. I love me some Persians but every time I go to persiankitty.com I don’t see any Persians, or kitties for that matter.

Oh my dearest Stawf, if you only KNEW how hot Marla was, you'd tremble too much to write a long defense of Perszhia.

Besides, don't Iranians speak Farsi?

I dont know how hot Marla really is, but I bet she aint half as hot as that Steve Cody.