Guilt for Not Covering (in Relation to Hate Crimes)
Women that do not cover emphasized the guilt that they feel when they hear of other Muslim women being the targets of hate crimes. They know that they hold a privilege because they are not visibly Muslim and therefore have great sympathy for the women that do bravely wear hijab when these kinds of attacks are so common.
Zohra
Yasmine:
Sobia:
Zohra
- "I definitely feel for my friends who wear hijab and are scared to go out and are especially impacted by it because they are automatically seen as Muslim and I have the appearance of not being immediately assumed as a Muslim. I have that privilege basically but it doesn’t impact my decision at all to wear hijab but I do feel for them and know that I am in a privileged situation where I don’t have to worry about that too much but then if I out myself as Muslim then it’s different."
Yasmine:
- "It does impact my decision to not cover in that it makes me in a way, not glad that I don’t cover, but it makes me feel safer because I can’t be easily identified as a Muslim woman. But also, it doesn’t impact it because it doesn’t make me change anything, but it does make me realize how my choice not to cover makes me a little bit safer and makes me a little bit different. It also makes me a little bit more sensitive to events like this because sometimes when I hear about this, I want to talk about it, but then people will say, “Oh I didn’t even know you were Muslim. You don’t dress like one, you don’t look like one. I’ve never heard you talk about religion.” Because I don’t talk about religion very often unless I’m comfortable with somebody. So, a lot of people don’t know that I am Muslim and so it’s kind of like when these events happen, and because I don’t cover, sometimes it makes me feel like I have to be delicate in how i bring it up."
Sobia:
- "At the same time, though, I completely recognize that I’m not carrying the burden that my hijabi sisters are. Because they are visibly Muslim, there’s sometimes expectations from Muslims and non-Muslims that they represent Islam, and this adds a lot of everyday pressure."
- "When I hear about these hate crimes, I feel guilt for not being visibly Muslim. I’m not living with constant fear of being attacked for my identity. Through conversations with my hijabi friends and family members, I know they don’t have this luxury. In our time of rising Islamophobia, wearing a hijab carries a new weight."