In 2012, Silk Road Rising (now Silk Road Cultural Center) released Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs, and the Contours of Contested Whiteness — a deeply personal documentary film that probed the national zeitgeist. The questions it posed persist to this day; only the contours have changed (somewhat). What does it mean to be “white enough,” and who decides? How do immigrants—especially those from the Middle East and Eastern Europe—navigate an ever-shifting American racial order built on advantage and exclusion?
Over a decade later, we’re revisiting Not Quite White because the political landscape of 2026 continues to wield “whiteness” as both shield and sword: protecting privileges for some, drawing boundaries for others, and mutating in response to new waves of migration, economic insecurity, and social anxiety. The conversations about racial justice, political solidarity, and cultural belonging have deepened—but so have the harms that whiteness produces and feeds upon.
Not Quite White was and remains a call to grapple with whiteness, not as an identity to celebrate or condemn, but as a system—historical, adaptable, and capable of change through collective reimagining. As more Americans confront the legacies of colonialism and imperialism and the realities of economic inequality, the film invites us to consider a redefinition of whiteness that is anti-racist and economically just—one that dismantles hierarchy instead of perpetuating it, a world in which we are linked, not ranked.
Below is the original description from the film, which captures its essence and the challenges it levels:
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.
As we continue the work of the Polycultural Institute and our Evolve podcast, my hope is that Not Quite White can spark dialogue—between immigrants and their descendants, and between those who identify as white, not-quite-white, and BIPOC. How do we build coalitions across these inherited, sometimes arbitrary lines? For whiteness to evolve toward justice, it must relinquish its gatekeeping power and embody collaboration, accountability, and humanity. May the struggle continue.
You can watch the documentary here:
🎥 Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs, and the Contours of Contested Whiteness
Creative Team
Directed by
Jamil Khoury
Stephen Combs
Executive Producer
Malik Gillani
Director of Photography & Editor
Stephen Combs
Music Director
Peter J. Storms
Featured Experts
Roxane Assaf
Ann Hetzel Gunkel
John Tofik Karam
Dominic A. Pacyga
Featured Experts
Roxane Assaf
Ann Hetzel Gunkel
John Tofik Karam
Dominic A. Pacyga
