// "It is what it is" has a very long history indeed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fihi_Ma_Fihi//
Eye popping - especially after "lock them up forever" threads x 500 today
saw that ( fihi ma fihi) and thought that says- - - "it is what it is" in Arabic - the article says it is Persian which I dont think is right. 1280s slang which would be OK for downtown Aswan in 2018
Mawlana Celalladin Ar-Rumi (*)wrote mystic stuff in the 1280s and this was VERY popular in England in the seventies - "yeah wow man he says thing to me etc". The only thing is that - he was a mystic(**) so that when he says - "it is what it is" may be a humourous reference that in a mystic sense - "it is what it is" - erm isnt.(***)
(*) rumi in arabic is - "from Rome" - and means um Greek - the second Rome was Constantinople
(**) home base - modern Konya - you know where the whirling dervishes come from. Ancient Iconium in Nicaea (in Latin) - now Turkey
(***) o god they were all really mental - I think his son kills his fave pupil ( hur hur hur ) so ar-Rumi wanders off for twenty years - you know like AWOL, no postcards no emails - and returns to Konya 20 y later and says "now where was I?"