It is hard to not have stereotypes, but it certainly is important to try. Some Americans feel fear when they see Muslim women who wear the veil. Others feel pity. Others feel anger at the suppression of her rights. Husna Haq explains why you shouldn’t feel any of those for her. She writes:
I knew I was in trouble the moment I sat down. I’d just taken a seat next to an elderly Asian woman on the D-line train, on my way to a college class last year. She immediately stiffened. I began reading a book. She started twitching and looking around the train. We passed the first stop. She took out her pocket Bible, reading rapidly aloud as she rocked back and forth, clearly agitated. I felt awful, but I didn’t know how to calm her. Before we reached the next stop, she gathered her bags, hurried down the aisle, and quickly took a seat next to someone else.
I’d just scared a sweet, elderly woman with my petite, head-scarf-wrapped frame, and I felt like a monster. I was upset that my hijab – a strip of cloth, a head scarf – had become so loaded with negative connotations that it inspired such distrust.
Her hairdresser told her she didn’t need to wear it in America. “My hairdresser was trying to liberate me from hijab. But for me, hijab is liberation. It is the freedom to assert my identity and live according to my values.”
Read the whole thing.
HT: E-baad-E news
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This is an interesting post. Of course, the offended woman in the story could read the parts of the Bible that suggest a Christian woman should keep her head covered as well, but we Christians have been “liberated” from such conservative actions, I suppose. I shouldn’t be so sarcastic about it. I don’t feel like Christian women should wear scarves either. It is a point of personal preference, and I say go for it.
i’m 1 of them and i’m soo proud …listen STRANGER…DO U THINK THAT MOVING FROM GUY 2 GUY AND HAVE THE GROOOSE SEX like A DIRTY STREET ANIMALS LIKE U ALL is something from WOMEN ‘S WRITES !!!!!!… ofcourse u r nothing but a dummhead ..f u really belive of freedom u shold leav evry 1 with his convinces and thoughts and don’t get to the things that it’s not of ur business coz u will pay in the future f u just got ur self in to things that it’s not 4 ur business
amirecans or the stranger peopole shold leav us alone with our convinces y dont we talk about the girls ‘s act there OMG what a pity like alla saied dirty street animals
i’m sooooooo proud of my hijab and what they say in the streets of america doesent get me sad at all …it gets me confedince coz they dont kno that they r a dirty sex obgect have no dignity dont concider it like an insult coz they r throwing them selves on guys it’s the true and fact i olways get teezed and sorry 4 them evry time i c there photos published in the sites having sex OMG