Throughout The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Hamid shows how people judge on another based on characteristics like clothing, skin colour and their mannerisms. This is shown by "a speaker of your language" spoken by Changez to the American listener, this 'soft' racism in the first page of the book really sets the tone for the rest of the book. Within the rest of the book there are other 'soft' racism comments, for example when they travel to Greece together, while not rude or disrespectful to him, his friends think of him as an exotic “pet”; even Erica is attracted to Changez because he is “different.” This is in reference to his Pakistani heritage which enforces how different his appearance is in comparison to their persons.
Changez encounters more overt and hostile forms of racism in America. He’s called an 'Arab', though he’s Pakistani, and is detained at an airport and harassed by a bigoted security officer. Changez refuses to “cave in” during these confrontations, in defiance of what he sees as their profound unfairness and viciousness, deliberately changes his behaviour and appearance to appear even more obviously foreign. In the novel Hmaid shows how racism helps to create the very thing it fears. In Changez’s case, racism ultimately drives him from his adopted country of the United States back to Pakistan. The racism and prejudice stemming from the fear of fundamentalism leads him, a lover of America, to become at minimum more critical of the United States, and, possibly, a fundamentalist.
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