Returning to a theme I had yesterday...

I think the first time I even knew what a burqa was it must had been about 1999, maybe 2000. I want to say it was at a conference in DC, but I knew someone at Feminist Majority around the same time, so it might had been then. Either way, pre-terrorist attacks...I was horrified to find out that women were being forced to wear these head-to-toe garments that were making it a hazard to walk & cross the street. Back then, the Feminist Majority had a TON of burqa squares and they were attached with safety pins to cards that told the story of women in Afghanistan.

Of course, I signed up. I got a shit-load sent to me and I started to sell the lil blue squares of death.

When the terrorist attacks happened and the administration declared the Taliban our enemies (only months after we were going to give them millions of dollars because they hated poppy growing too!), I nodded along thinking, "Tell me something I don't know." I cried when we bombed Afghanistan. No matter how smart a bomb, innocents die. So don't shit on me about the crying.

It was after the terrorist attacks that I learned of RAWA and began to really think about burquas, western feminism, and white privilege*. Then it wasn't until I worked with a man whose daughter went to a conference on the hijab that I really starting to think about coverings and feminism.

Long story, short...it took a long, long time and a lot of "well du'h" and "Um, Roni?" moments before I came to the conclusion that using the burqa as a symbol of oppression, was an act of oppression itself. It immediately brings to mind the image of a Muslim, non-white woman and that western feminists will save her. Well I know now that they don't need us to save them, they are rebelling on their own. They do need us to have their backs thou.

So, Amy...1) Don't ever call yourself too dumb to be a feminist. I've heard you and you're one smart cookie and a pretty damn good feminist to boot. 2) It takes a long time to really peel off the layers of privilege that one has in their lives to really look at another culture and see it thru their eyes. I won't paint any atrocities clean with the culture brush, ok? Living in Chicago, I see a lot of Muslim women. I see them in simple head coverings with their modern clothing. I see women in full cover - on hot & humid days - and me in a tank top & shorts. I feel uncomfortable for showing so much skin!

The whole Boobie-gate turned Burqa-gate lesson is this:

Don't use another woman's oppression to point out your own oppression.

Talk about your oppression, point out why this shit is happening, why you don't deserve it. But don't bring in our brown, black, or other colored sisters. As mentioned in some of the comments (hell no, I didn't read them all!), Jessica could had been depicted in say ultra conservative/Little House on the Prairie clothing. Hell, a power suit would had done the trick!

In conclusion...I admit to peddling the little blue squares of death and while it's a bit embarrassing, I don't regret it. I learned a lot about the Taliban before Condi even ignored her first briefing on them.

* I say white privilege even thou I am Latina. But I acknowledge that being raised in a very assimilated house, I hold many views/ideas that would fall under white privilege. I see things in the world with that lens. And that masks the racism that often happens right in front of my nose - sometimes only coming to my senses when a non-Latina friend points it out.

Labels: feminism, latina