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I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.

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Re: I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.

#61

Post by icebraining »

dgesang wrote: post #48
ceejayoz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you think "look at you funny" and "called me a terrorist" are equivalent.

The latter was said by a child, so it's not even worth talking about. The mother acted wrongly, not the child. But lets twist it, only without the masquerade: Imagine 'Ela' is on holiday in the Near East and wears a tank top. Don't you think that people would 'look funny at her'? She also might get molested for not being dressed properly. Local women even get stoned for that.

So what? Is being "not as bad as fundamentalist states" enough?

Re: I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.

#62

Post by TallGuyShort »

When I see a woman in a hijab, I also tend to look away - but it's because they're worn for modesty and I worry it would be disrespectful to them to "gaze" longer than necessary. Can somebody more familiar with Muslim thinking comment on this? I've visited muslim households where modesty was so important, the women would not even present themselves (however well covered they were dressed) in front of men outside their family. So although this style of hijab is much more "modern" - I still don't want to make a muslim woman feel uncomfortable.

Re: I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.

#63

Post by wpietri »

dgesang wrote: post #48
ceejayoz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you think "look at you funny" and "called me a terrorist" are equivalent.

The latter was said by a child, so it's not even worth talking about. The mother acted wrongly, not the child. But lets twist it, only without the masquerade: Imagine 'Ela' is on holiday in the Near East and wears a tank top. Don't you think that people would 'look funny at her'? She also might get molested for not being dressed properly. Local women even get stoned for that.

Total false equivalence. We aren't responsible for what happens in other countries. We are responsible for what happens here. And if Ela is on holiday and wearing a tank top, she wouldn't be doing it for religious reasons.

Re: I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.

#64

Post by mgkimsal »

ceejayoz wrote: post #51
mgkimsal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly, but how can I be sure? Really not trolling at all, but trying to make any assumptions about what's 'safe' in situations where someone's life may be at stake, I err on the side of caution.

How can you be sure they're not part of a fringe cult that doesn't require head coverings but still kills people for making eye contact?

30+ years of experience has given me enough confidence that the chance of that happening is pretty low. Honor killings and female mutilation is statistically higher than non-head-covering eye-contact-killings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing_in_the_United_Sta...

Re: I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.

#65

Post by guylhem »

wpietri wrote: post #46
Jach wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us have walked in the others' shoes, at least in this limited case of discrimination based solely on clothing. Guess what? Humans discriminate on clothing! You can drum up the social justice network and try to remove this neural programming without drugs, good luck with that. You can try and fight it, again, sincerely, good luck, I agree that clothing is irrelevant when judging other people, but I don't think…

Terrible analogy. People aren't discriminating because they think hijabs are unfashionable. They're discriminating because they correctly interpret the hijab as a religious marker. Did you notice that your advice basically amounts to "do your best to look like a straight, white, middle-class Christian"? And that you are basically blaming the victim? Both strike me as terrible advice.

Sorry if this is rude, but this post feels like a bleeding hart white liberal voluntary experiencing with discrimination caused by obvious self sabotage - and then discovering that discrimination exists indeed, and blogging about her discovery.

The obvious next step is converting to some religion or faith which requires unusual clothing or body painting, to "make a statement"/ taunt/provoke and then complain about how unfair the world is, for her VOLUNTARY CHOICES.

It's not about blaming the victim - here I would like to blame someone who wants to play the victim, while people are actual victims.

Such a voluntary self sabotage is insulting to people who suffer from discrimination for something they can't change (such as unusual appearance coming from different ethnicity, disease, etc.)

Re: I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.

#66

Post by icebraining »

guylhem wrote: post #59
ktizo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were a muslim girl getting discriminated against for wearing a hijab, I'd stop wearing the hijab. So you would, I guess, also suggest that Sikhs should stop wearing turbans, Jews should stop wearing a kippah, nuns should stop wearing habits, pagans should stop wearing pentangles, etc. Not only is your suggestion frankly both offensive and pretty idiotic, but the world it would lead to would have even more discri…

Excellent point. But "if the result of happiness_from_identification_with_current_religion + happiness_from_how_people_make_me_feel" is negative, maybe a) you are unhappy, b) it's not an untractable problem because c) there is something you can change in the equation, and there is something you can't change. You know the saying - you can't change the others, only yourself.

Some things are worth being unhappy about.

"The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became."

Re: I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.

#67

Post by rdtsc »

sergiotapia wrote: post #8

So? If I were to go to Saudi Arabia and wear jeans and a wife beater I would get looks as well. You find it strange that people look at you funny when you wear a hijab in a western country? I have a Muslim cousin and she sometimes wears a hijab to university but stopped because people would stare at her. Obviously! She stuck out like a sore thumb amidst a sea of people with no hijabs. She got tired of people asking h…

The difference is that propaganda taught us that the "West" is educated, culturally sensitive and inclusive. The "West" loves to spread high ideals like "Democracy" and "Freedoms". And it seems most have internalized that attitude.

Saudi Arabia makes no claim about being open or tolerant of other religious practices, sexual orientations and so on. So at least they don't pretend, in that respect, they also don't get criticized for hypocrisy, while the "West" does.

Re: I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.

#68

Post by [deleted] »

sergiotapia wrote: post #8

So? If I were to go to Saudi Arabia and wear jeans and a wife beater I would get looks as well. You find it strange that people look at you funny when you wear a hijab in a western country? I have a Muslim cousin and she sometimes wears a hijab to university but stopped because people would stare at her. Obviously! She stuck out like a sore thumb amidst a sea of people with no hijabs. She got tired of people asking h…

[deleted]

Re: I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.

#69

Post by ktizo »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #34
wpietri wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a turban? You could go for a Sikh turban: http://www.sikhnet.com/pages/tyingturbans or a Muslim one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r1_HfOMRBM I'm sure you could go to a local gurdwara or mosque and ask for pointers. They'd probably be over the moon. It's also not particularly hard to look verging-on-homeless poor.

Right, but I am white as paper and it takes a while to grow a beard. I would look like a male convert, something that (to me) seems much more exotic than a tanned person wearing a turban.

The complexion doesn't matter, they are religions, not ethnicities. Also you are likely to get an even bigger reaction as you would probably then be viewed by some people as some kind of traitor.

Re: I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.

#70

Post by wpietri »

guylhem wrote: post #59
ktizo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were a muslim girl getting discriminated against for wearing a hijab, I'd stop wearing the hijab. So you would, I guess, also suggest that Sikhs should stop wearing turbans, Jews should stop wearing a kippah, nuns should stop wearing habits, pagans should stop wearing pentangles, etc. Not only is your suggestion frankly both offensive and pretty idiotic, but the world it would lead to would have even more discri…

Excellent point. But "if the result of happiness_from_identification_with_current_religion + happiness_from_how_people_make_me_feel" is negative, maybe a) you are unhappy, b) it's not an untractable problem because c) there is something you can change in the equation, and there is something you can't change. You know the saying - you can't change the others, only yourself.

Right, and this is basically saying that we should be aware of how much anti-Muslim prejudice sucks to experience, so that we can start changing ourselves.
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