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"Islamic Like Me" by Danielle Crittenden
December 12, 2007 - 3:53am
Danielle Crittenden, who feminists may remember as the right-wing woman married to David Frum who wrote the famous backlash book "What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us" decided to wear a niqab for a week to see what it's like. Please make sure you have a support system and maybe some alcohol on hand before reading this.
She has four blog entries:
Islamic Like Me: Taking on the Veil
Islamic Like Me: Does This Burka Make Me Look Fat?
Islamic Like Me: Why Don't You Just Take It Off?
Islamic Like Me: "Do You Have Sky Miles?"
Danielle describes very little response to her getting on the subway with a big knapsack, booking a one-way flight to New York City (it was a test) expecting all sorts of discrimination and not getting any. Well, I guess it's all made it up isn't it?
For a wonderfully written antidote, please check out Fatemeh Fakhraie's article on, where else, Racialicious.com here. "The Veil Does not a Prison Make"
Fatemeh's response to the Danielle's quote above:
[ 12 December 2007: Message edited by: bigcitygal ]
Good grief.
I've always considered the Huffington post liberal rather than progressive.
Yeah, that's what I was getting at in an oblique manner. The political spectrum in the United States is a very narrow slice of the right side of the spectrum. Liberals are on the "left" there. Canada's political spectrum a bit further left and somewhat wider though that is changing quickly as our assimilation "moves forward". I don't like to see Canadians adopting their terminology but it's part of that same process.
So, anyone read the links and have any comments?
whoops! I didn't realize this was "anti-racism". I'm outta here! [img]wink.gif" border="0[/img]
I'm sorry. [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img] Mea culpa! I started the thread drift. I did read one of the Critter articles and then realized it was on Huffington Post, thus my outrage.
One was enough for me. It was a stupid experiment to begin with. As a white woman who sees Muslims as the enemy, she probably wouldn't even notice any racism directed towards her anyhow, either because she would, due to her own prejudices, think they were justified, or due to her lack of experience and therefore lack of seeing the same thing happen to her over and over and over again and having years to analyze it, not think certain incidents through. Stuff would escape her because she'd be so used to acting the way people around her were acting. Also, I don't know about anyone else, but if I were to suddenly start wearing full veils, I would be so unused to it and feel so self-conscious that I would probably be more focused on trying to fit in and "act Muslim" than anything. That would probably be a pretty huge distraction from analyzing the world around you.
Finally - she has no idea what it's like to BE a Muslim woman. She probably has all sorts of preconceived notions of how they act and what they say and how they speak and all that. So I very highly doubt she could ever have exactly the same experience as Muslim women have, simply because she likely has no niqabi (or hijabi) women as friends and therefore has no idea how to "act the part" beyond whatever racist generalizations she's heard in the circles she and her hubby travel in.
(Am I forgiven now? [img]smile.gif" border="0[/img] )
[ 12 December 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]
"Black Like Me" and "Nickle and Dimed" are but two of the many examples of writers of privilege who "try on" the life of an oppressed person. It's a very common technique, the Toronto Star usually runs an article at least once per year on a writer who has gone undercover as a homeless person.
As for whether it's racist or not because "Islam is not a race", who cares. It's white rich people with space to write their ideas oppressing "non-white" people. It's racist because it's white-supremacist (i.e. "now we understand what it's like").
And to comment about how polite customs people were after they saw her Canadian Passport with her smiling white face on it! I wonder what would have happened if she didn't speak English and had a UAE passport? Cripes. What utter shit.
What a depressing day.
No, the truth displays the bigotry and xenophobia.
"as-salaam-u alaykum", which I have experienced when traveling: others greeting me in arabic, as I would initiate as custom (and courtesy) require. Of course I answer appropriately and welcome a conversation with an "aki", especially since I am white, although Israel is as close as I've come to Mecca.
Surely she writes well, although her socialogic methods would seem unethical to a scholastic reviewer.
...and has she learned her religion, or does she maintain her (apparent) heresy?
Did I imagine this post from leftcoast addressed to Michelle a month ago:
Keeps coming back like some of the meals I cook...
P.S. Whoops, I was wrong. I misread the screen (it's early!) so I actually did get to him first. Ha ha, oldgoat. Nyah.
[ 20 January 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]
***
FYI: I can't believe people on this thread have criticized black like me and nickel and dimed. You can criticize imperfection all you want, all that matters in the end is that they were very successful in communicating ideas which helped shift attitudes. Armchair investigative journalists who have no idea how hard it is. IJ done well is possibly the most important forms on journalism. Personally, Black Like Me is probably one of the books which has most influenced my in my life. One of the TV reports which most influenced me was a British man who joined the fashion industry, and chronicled how the male managers sought to sexually utilize their 15 year old models. Just because some IJ such as Crittenden's is lower quality doesn't mean all IJ is bad.
***
The blog by Danielle Crittenden. It starts off badly when it's announced she only did it for one week. I think it would need to last a lot longer than that. She started with one attitude and sought ways to confirm it. She was unscientific in her one trip to the airport and she probably knows it. There is not one idiot out there who thinks Muslims are harassed 100% of the time and whites are never harassed. Racial profiling would obviously be implemented in a statistical manner. Did she try and have middle eastern accent and uncomfortable mannerisms? If she spoke like the guards they would subconsciously be more comfortable with her.
Of course that's one of the reasons I could never do such investigative journalism - I'm a shitty actor :-)
What a wonderful country! Or city. Or maybe just airport.
I am not so sure that her experiences would be the same if she tried them in rural Texas, or even Indianapolis. Washington has many Muslims, some connected to the diplomatic corps. So they are somewhat used to them there.
I'm happy that it touched you and as you say changed your life.
But its is important that we collectively be consciouses about what we are doing and reading.
If we cant discuss things critically, in order to make things better then we are not really interested in stepping outside of our comfort zone.
"Black like me" would have been radically different if it was written by a Black man or woman. There are so many subtle things that are hard to comprehend, and that remain hidden to those who are not part of a culture.
Think of it this way, nobody in thier right mind, woudl think that there was any real dept, to the musings of an African or Arabic writer, who pretended to be white for a week or even a month. There would most likely be critics of how naive, this foreign writer is, to assume that they can fully appreciate mainstream white-Canadian in such a short period.
Heck I've lived here for over 17yrs, and people still tell me and others that have been here for 30yrs, that we don't trully undrestnd cuz we are not part of the culture. There is still something new about about the so-called mainstream culture, that is surprising and new.
"Black like me" tried to get it, but fundamentally did not really get it. I would say it did go further than some others, but still missed some key points.
It is about time that the mainstream White-media learn that we can speak for ourselves, and i think the so-called progressive white-left, needs to learn to not take everything that they learn from the "cultural actors" as the gospel truth. Reading some more writers from the racialised groups, especially those that seem to rub the collective left, the wrong way, will go a long way to furthering that gap.
Any biographical book by any black person would presumably tell what kinds of discrimination he or she faces daily.
"Black like me" is a book about a white person's experiences.
The white person pretending to be black discovers a universe of oppression which he had not expected.
That is why it was a powerful book, and opened lots of white minds.
[ 21 January 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]
Yes and now that the minds have been open, there needs to be a reading about the Black peoples experiences. Not just a white persons experience as a black person.
I'm saying it was a good start, I'm also saying that was decades ago, we need to go deeper, and as they say on the streets "keep it real"
A group of men, pretending to be women, will only go so far. Since we have ample opportunities to interact with women, i would respectfully suggest that we find out what their issues are, from them.
Same as I would respectfully suggest, that if we want to understnad what is going on today in the various racialised comunites, we should respectfully listen, and be Leary of giving too much credence to the voices of the so-called White persons experiences as a *insert flavor of the month* person.
We need to learn to stop defending the Eurocentric & paternalistic tendencies.
Its 2008, anyone that wants to hear the diverse voices of the various racialised and marginalsed groups , can go to the sources.
Or we can just pretend like its 1930 or 1960 or 1800, and only listen to the exotic stories of the people who dared to go live like the so-called natives.
I am seriously tired of having my reality dismissed until acknowledged by a white person. If white folk don't want to read about aboriginal or POC realities until it affects them, then they are simply engaging in their white privilege that enables them to forget which doesn't affect them, until a favoured white friend has some experience of it.
Since white reality is the dominant force which engages discourse, all discussion about 'white like me' or 'indian like me' or any other play acting used to engage white sympathy is simply exploitation and yet another sop to white guilt.
Perhaps you have a methodology for ending racism which does not require white people to "figure it out."
Black Like Me was a book by a white person, directed at white people, by and large, which helped them to "figure it out".
That's no lie, just reality.