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The Hoodie & The Hijab — Our Common Struggle for
Human Rights<br><br>
<br>
Social Justice<br>
March 25, 2012<br><br>
<font size=4><b>The Hoodie & The Hijab — Our Common Struggle for
Human Rights<br><br>
</b></font>Written by: RoyaAziz<br>
<font size=1>
<a href="http://www.dominionofnewyork.com/2012/03/25/the-hoodie-the-hijab-our-common-struggle-for-human-rights/#.T3XNj9WepRT" eudora="autourl">
http://www.dominionofnewyork.com/2012/03/25/the-hoodie-the-hijab-our-common-struggle-for-human-rights/#.T3XNj9WepRT<br>
<br>
<br>
</a></font>s a good friend prepares to put together a book on the topic
of hijab in America I referred her to an incident during then-Senator
Barack Obama’s televised presidential campaign rally in Detroit when two
hijabis were barred from sitting behind him. The event occurred at a time
when there was close scrutiny of Obama’s identity: the phonetic
similarity to Osama, his very Arab middle name, Hussein, and, of course,
the rumors that he was actually a practicing Muslim, not that there was
anything wrong with that, to borrow the inappropriate disclaimer. Obama
apologized to the women and vowed to fight discrimination of this sort.
To many American Muslims it was perplexing because much of the racism
directed at Obama at the time was being couched in anti-Muslim bias. At
that moment he was not Obama the inspiring candidate, but Obama the
typical American who showed his own anti-Muslim bias.<br><br>
In the wake of 9/11, American Muslims took to Islamophobia with some
borrowed humor: ‘driving while black’ became ‘flying while Muslim.’ And
so, as it is with wearing a hoodie, wearing a hijab elicits similar
prejudices, as Geraldo Rivera reminded us during his TV appearance last
week. In the same commentary where he claims Trayvon Martin was killed
because of his sweatshirt, Rivera cites Juan Williams’ comments about
being scared when he sees Muslims in religious garb at the airport (one
presumes hijab is among the articles of clothing that terrify Williams).
Rivera writes that Williams was copping to his fears, but it was a
cowardly cover — if a black man like Williams, whom Rivera pointedly
refers to as “among America’s sharpest commentators” can say he’s scared
of Muslim women, it should be valid for him to say that a black kid in a
hoodie had it coming. The implications of his comparison are
unsettling.<br><br>
While anti-Muslim bias is nowhere near on the same level as the racism
encountered by generations of black Americans, for American Muslims there
are some clear parallels. My veiled friends are often regarded with looks
of confusion, disgust and/or plain fear. As a former hijabi, I know the
stares. Shaima Alawadi, who wore a headscarf, died Saturday after being
brutally beaten with a tire iron in her own home, ostensibly because she
was Muslim and Arab, which are often erroneously conflated to be one and
the same. She was just 32 and a mother of five. The Southern Poverty Law
Center details similar hate incidents against Muslims dating between
2001-2011.<br><br>
Interestingly, one of America’s earliest introductions to Islam came from
the Nation of Islam. This introduction was accompanied by American fears
of Black Muslim militancy. Decades later, public awareness of Islam has
expanded beyond the NOI, but the associations and fear of violence
remain. For Muslims — converts, immigrants and generations born here,
Latinos, Asians, whites and others — Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X are among
our few mainstream representatives, but their black identity and struggle
for civil rights is more established than their identity as Muslims. When
Yassin Bey (Mos Def) raps “Black like the veil that the Muslimina wear …
black like the slave ship belly that brought us here,” young American
Muslims identify with the lyrics. We see a blending of Muslim identity
with American history, but these representations are not quite cultural
mainstream. Islam is primarily associated with Muslims outside of
America, inspiring images of foreigners from strange lands, which in turn
shaped perceptions of Muslims in America. Edward Said in his 1997 edition
of Covering Islam details how U.S. media representations of Muslims
contributed to negative public perceptions in the years before September
11. As DoNY contributor Bilen Misfen recently wrote, a large part of the
problem is that a culture of fear continues to be reinforced by the
media, contributing to the presumptions of guilt and suspicions, of black
people as criminals and American Muslims as terrorists.<br><br>
The hoodie and hijab also converge with the issue of civil rights. My
generation was taught in American schools about melting pots. For a girl
whose family migrated from xenophobic Germany to California in 1989, it
was the kind of message that shaped my myth of America. Yet today
American Muslims do not contend with Islamophobia alone, but with the
very real possibility that a donation to a charity or a monitored phone
call could warrant “material support” for terrorism. The surveillance of
Muslim-owned restaurants by the NYPD and FBI programs that will be
declassified in the distant future recall the era of COINTELPRO. Civil
rights attacks are sometimes framed as controversies. They are not
controversies — they are violations that apply to everyone, Muslim or not
— and they’re a reminder of the scary powers of law enforcement when
certain communities are targeted.<br><br>
In the wake of the murders of Trayvon Martin, Shaima Alawadi and others
like them, I recall Malcolm X’s words: we don’t face a black problem, a
religious problem, or even an American problem — it’s a human problem.
<br><br>
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