I went to the mall, and a little girl called me a terrorist.
My name is Ela. I am seventeen years old. I am not Muslim, but my friend told me about her friend being discriminated against for wearing a hijab. So I decided to see the discrimination firsthand to get a better understanding of what Muslim women go through.
My friend and I pinned scarves around our heads, and then we went to the mall. Normally, vendors try to get us to buy things and ask us to sample a snack. Clerks usually ask us if we need help, tell us about sales, and smile at us. Not today. People, including vendors, clerks, and other shoppers, wouldn’t look at us. They didn’t talk to us. They acted like we didn’t exist. They didn’t want to be caught staring at us, so they didn’t look at all.
And then, in one store, a girl (who looked about four years old) asked her mom if my friend and I were terrorists. She wasn’t trying to be mean or anything. I don’t even think she could have grasped the idea of prejudice. However, her mother’s response is one I can never forgive or forget. The mother hushed her child, glared at me, and then took her daughter by the hand and led her out of the store.
All that because I put a scarf on my head. Just like that, a mother taught her little girl that being Muslim was evil. It didn’t matter that I was a nice person. All that mattered was that I looked different. That little girl may grow up and teach her children the same thing.
This experiment gave me a huge wakeup call. It lasted for only a few hours, so I can’t even begin to imagine how much prejudice Muslim girls go through every day. It reminded me of something that many people know but rarely remember: the women in hijabs are people, just like all those women out there who aren’t Muslim.
People of Tumblr, please help me spread this message. Treat Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Taoists, etc., exactly the way you want to be treated, regardless of what they’re wearing or not wearing, no exceptions. Reblog this. Tell your friends. I don’t know that the world will ever totally wipe out prejudice, but we can try, one blog at a time.
this is so perfect in absolutely every single way.
This reeks of privileged people talking over those who are not. Similar to the Christian man who pretended to be gay for a year, it wasnt enough to listen to the voices of those who experience this every day. They had to experience it for themselves. The difference is that the privileged can go back to their lives with hardly a second thought. Those who experience discrimination do not have that option.
For serious, big problem with this.
I can tell she means well but it’s not happening - it should be her Muslim friend’s story we’re listening to, who has to go through this everyday, who already knows inside and out the discrimination she has to face and that others don’t. Fair enough, you want to try it for yourself, and it may be good for forcing some empathy, but when you write up your account and it gets propagated more than hijabi women’s it talks over them.
Also bear in mind ‘terrorist’ automatically connotes with ‘brown’ as well as Muslim. Even in wearing hijab she is still privileged by virtue of being white.Reblogging for more truth.
Tracy's Little Corner
This is a tumblelog, kinda like a blog but with short-form, mixed-media posts with stuff I like. Scroll down a bit to start reading, or a bit more to read more about me.
Why Vikings and Scots and THE REST OF EUROPE should not be portrayed as only white folk!
An African king named Gormund ruled Ireland during the Anglo-Saxon period in England reports the medieval historian Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Halfdan the Black was the first Africoid king to unite Norway.
When the British Isles were invaded by the Vikings some of these Norse raiders were Africoid. In fact, different varieties of ‘Viking’ Africans lived in Scandinavia during the middle ages and are frequently mentioned in Viking sagas.
There were Black Huns! The dictionary describes the Huns as “a fierce barbaric race of Asiatic nomads who led by Attila, ravaged Europe I the 4th and 5th centuries A.D.” The Gothic writer Jordannes described their infamous leader, Attila the Hun as having “a flat nose and swarthy complexion.” He describes the types of Huns he had seen as “of dark complexion, almost black… broad shoulder, flat noses and small eyres.”
The African Moors dominated southwest Europe during the
Middle Ages for 700 years: 711-1492 A.D. African Moors ruling southwest Europe centuries, darkened whites in this area, especially Portal, which was “the first example of a Negrito (African) republic in Europe?”Moors ruling Scotland in the 10th century mixed with whites until the black skin color disappeared.
Black Celts (Silures) & Black Vikings vexed with the Scandinavia people. A prominent Viking of the eleventh century was Thorhall, who was aboard the ship that carried the early Vikings to the shores of North America. Thorhall was “the huntsman in summer and in winter the steward of Eric the Red. He was a large man and strong, black, and like a giant, silent, and foul-mouthed in his speech, and always egged on Eric to the worst; he was a bad Christian.”
Another Viking, more notable than Thorhall, was Earl Thorfinn, “the most distinguished of all the earls in the Islands.” Thorfinn ruled over nine earldoms in Scotland and Ireland, and died at the age of seventy-five. His widow married the king of Scotland. Thorfinn was described as “one of the largest men in point of stature, and ugly, sharp featured, and somewhat tawny, and the most martial looking man. It has been related that he was the foremost of all his men.”
The black blood type is common even in Nordic Europe where intermixing has been happening since antiquity.
Black slavery lasted in England for about 400 years (1440-1834), during which time much intermixing occurred.
(more at the link)
yall needta stop crushin white folk dreams
Yes, white people, you are this predictable. You all need to sit and think about why it is that you always claim to not be racist, but you, and every other racist and/or privilege denying white person make the exact same arguments every god damn time. If you really think it’s only coincidence, you need to reevaluate yourself in way that will make you uncomfortable before engaging with another PoC again.Oh God!
… They’re just sooo predictable. It makes me sick to my stomach.
Truth here, everyone. I’ve seen more than half of these reactions on tumblr and elsewhere.
For reals, though
If you’ve never been made to feel ugly for the color of your skin or hair or eyes
If you’ve never had to wonder why nobody in the popular media looks like you
If you’ve never felt isolated, marginalized, or otherwise less than because of your race or ethnicity
You have no fucking right to comment on the representation of People of Color in the media, cool?
preaaaaaaaaaaaaaaach
Wow, “Girls” is SO revolutionary
This is exactly what TV has needed for so long! A show set in one of the most racially diverse cities in the world and yet entirely devoted to the opinions and stories of white people!
Never seen that before.
Seinfeld
Friends
Will & Grace
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Flight of the Conchords
Sex and the City
Damages
Blue Bloods
How I Met Your Mother
The King of Queens
Tru Calling
Two Broke Girls
Gossip Girl
Rescue Me
So freaking revolutionary.
Momma and I have a name for a majority of the shows on this list: White People Shows That I Don’t Get.
to be fair, the only show on this list I like, King of Queens, does have a regularly recurring Black couple, the dude of which is in probably over 3/4s of the episodes.
#41
White privilege is living on stolen land, and having the arrogance to say “Go back to where you came from”.
Dear fellow white people:
No, criticizing racism on the Internet is not “just as bad” as actually being racist.
Fuck’s sake.
Taylor Swift hugs a dude with a swastika shirt. Mainstream America doesn’t care.
Motherfuckers are really going to believe that Taylor Swift didn’t know what a swastika was.
Really.
That’s her actual response.
And people will actually believe it.
Because she’s a cute white girl and it’s totally believable that she’s innocent enough to not know what’s going on around, because there’s no way someone as pretty, white, and blonde as her would ever do something so terrible.
But soft! What middle finger through yonder window breaks? It is M.I.A.’s and she is the worst person ever for doing it.
Mmmmm dat whiteness.
About
Hello, my name is Tracy. I am a white, bisexual, cis woman with Asperger’s syndrome. I live in Colorado with my family. I generally like to fangirl about things I like and rant about things I dislike.
If you’re misogynist, racist, ablest, cissexist, queer bigoted and/or just an uncaring insensitive asshole then please don’t bother following this blog. Thank you.
These are the other sites I go to:
ELLJAY: http://fairy1234.livejournal.com/profile
DEVIANTFART: http://tamatava.deviantart.com/
