Justice for all

[lydy]

One of my student workers is a nice young woman named Sumaiya Mamdani. She's from Kenya, looks Arabic rather than black, and is a practicing Muslim. She's lived most of her life in this country. She's smart, pleasant, out-going. She welcomes my clumsy questions about Islam, delighted to talk to someone who is interested. She wears the hijab, which makes her easy to confuse with my other Muslim employee, Munazza, even though they don't look much alike at all. Munazza's from Pakistan, so their cultural commonality is primarily Islam and immigrant. I'm ashamed to admit that I sometimes find it difficult to remember which one is which, the veil confuses me, too. They are both great employees, but they're very different people. Munazza laughs at my sarcastic jokes, Sumaiya does not. Sumaiya is sympathetic to my firery political rants, Munazza looks... patient.

We were looking at Sumaiya's drivers license, because evidently the under 21 licenses have changed in design. Sumaiya's picture showed her in her hijab. I made an off-hand comment about not being able to do that, anymore. I was referring to a court ruling that said that it was legal to require a Muslim woman to remove her veil for her passport photo. Sumaiya was annoyed in an outraged sort of fashion, and said that she'd deal with it the next time she needed to renew her passport. She went on to talk about problems her relatives had had while traveling. Mostly, she seemed amused by the stories.

Her cousin was stopped by security after going through the metal detector. The detector hadn't beeped, but the guard insisted that she remove her head scarf. The cousin refused. The guard insisted. She asked for a separate room with only a female guard. She was refused, and the guard said that she had to take off her head scarf right now, in the open, in front of dozens and dozens and dozens of people. She refused. The guard called the cops, the cops came and took her away in handcuffs. Needless to say, she didn't make her flight.

Sumaiya's mother was traveling with a small prayer book which she intended to read on the plane. Security flatly refused to allow her to board for as long as she kept the book. She finally relinquished her book, and they let her board. I fumed, "They wouldn't have done that if it were in French. Or German. Or God help me in Russian, in the Cyrillic alphabet!" Sumaiya responded mildly that it was actually in Urdu, but that Urdu looked a lot like Arabic.

I was embarrassed. Again. I know that Sumaiya's milk tongue is Urdu. I just never remember it. I was casually lumping her and her family into my "oppressed Arab" slot, even though I look down on other people who make similar mistakes. Plunging on, like a bull in a China shop, I said, "I'd apologize for my country if I thought it would do any good."

Sumaiya smiled at me and said, "It's my country, too."

Comments

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I had a leaving do last week to go to, for one of my staff who has been promoted. I found myself at one point chatting to three of my current staff members and one woman who left my team a few months ago. All are bright, capable, cheerful and determined, and all are from ethnic minorites. In one case, it's pretty well beyond doubt that this woman would be in a higher grade now if she were white; the other three just have a vague feeling of dissatisfaction with the way their careers are going. I felt pretty helpless; I could point to the way that women were sparsely represented in senior grades when I first joined (16 years ago) -- and it takes time to work up through the ranks; nobody really believes that an organisation is committed to equal opportunities until its senior management looks reasonably diverse. But the truth is that we have armies of staff in our Department; those at the most junior grades tend to reflect the makeup of the communities their districts serve. But when you get to my level, the only non-white divisional manager in the directorate I'm in (out of 12 or so), is the new head of the Ethnic Minority task force.

And while it takes time to work through the ranks, I don't see much sign that we're promoting our best young ethnic minority staff to the middle management grades; most of these promotions are in the gift of people whose careers are effectively stalled, and who are overwhelmingly white and male. Lo and behold, they don't tend to promote young black and Asian women.

I'm not at all sure what I can do, beyond setting an example myself and making sure that all of my promotable staff are putting together bulletproof evidence to support their applications for promotion.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

The guard probably thought it was Arabic, and might have thought the same if it were Hebrew.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

However, a photograph of someone veiled is not actually ID. Maybe they should do something else, like fingerprints, for people who do not want to show their faces, and certainly what happened to her cousin was unacceptable, but a photograph of someone veiled could be a photograph of anyone, and anyone could use a piece of supposed ID with that photograph on.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Darn. I've misled you. The hijab, which I've also called a veil, covers the hair only, not the face. I agree that a photo of someone where only their eyes show isn't very useful for identification purposes. However, Munazza and Sumaiya wear scarves which hide their hair, but show their faces, including forehead and chin. Some of the scarves are quite elaborate, most are beautiful.

I wonder if I misunderstood the news report I'd heard. I'd forgotten about things like the chadur and the burka, which cover the features. However, I do know that the passport people forbid wearing a hat or other head-gear for the photo id.

The thing that shocked me most was the security guard's refusal to allow Sumaiya's cousin to remove her veil in private. Insisting on a public place was, well, shocking. It's like insisting that I take off my blouse and bra right there on the concourse. (I'm immodest enough and have a twisted enough sense of humor that I'd do it quite cheerfully, and in such a way as to make the security guard blush tomato-red. However, I'm unusual in that regard.) It's not just insensitive, it's a violation of her freedom of religion and freedom of expression and arghh---I don't think I can count the ways. It's just plain wrong.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I wonder if I misunderstood the news report I'd heard.

I think you have; all the reports I heard (in the driver's license matter) were about face veils.

However, the airport scenario is appalling.