Voices
or if I’m single and refuse to allow me to pay for the fare, became
cold and dry. I would simply give
the address, and the only dialog
thereafter would be at the time of
payment. It was puzzling.
I started to reevaluate my character. Had I become unfriendly? Arrogant? But other people
had become even nicer to me. I
couldn’t figure it out — until, on
my walk to work, I started passing
by hijabis who wouldn’t acknowledge my existence. Here is the unspoken code between hijabis: One
stares until the other notices, and
then both exchange salams. But it
was now as if I were just another
passerby, with no significance to
the wrap around my head.
The wrap around my head.
Then it hit me: My knit hat and
winter scarf covered my hijab entirely, and all that was visible was
my eyes behind my wannabe-hipster glasses, and my skinny jeans
tucked into my boots. They didn’t
even know I was Muslim.
I found this realization absolutely hilarious, and entertaining.
I started paying more attention to
the differences in the ways people
treated me. It was fun feeling like
everyone around me believed I belonged in their culture by default,
LEENA
SULEIMAN
HUFFINGTON
02.23.14
and not to some grudgingly accepted piece of the diversity pie. It was
a good feeling. I secretly started
looking forward to venturing out
into the cold to further explore
what it means to be “normal.”
I became even more confident
walking in my city. My city. All
the stares were not racialized anymore. I was addressed as “lady”
and “little lady,” something I had
never heard before. Men would
I didn’t understand what
was happening at first. People
started talking to me more.
Women would speak to me like
I’d known them forever. Men
would look at me like I was
actually approachable.”
hold doors for me. Women would
crack jokes with me. I became respectable, lovable, and accepted.
But did that mean that with my
hijab I am not as respectable? Not
as lovable? Not to be accepted?
I immediately began to despise
the inequality, and it dawned
on me that I was now acting like
someone who had been bullied
for years and had finally been accepted by the mean girls. In fact,