First as Tragedy, Then as Fashion?: Wearing Bindis and Hijabs in the First World

#sareenot sorry; i’m going to wear what i want…and my sisters will too.

The bindi — also referred to as the “dot” — is symbolic of the higher consciousness that is often associated with the third eye and the pineal gland. That is why we brown women wear it. And because it is pretty.

In the 1980s brown women wearing bindis in the United States became targets of violence. A group of white men known as the ‘dotbusters’ attacked South Asians in the New Jersey area through the early 1990s. Coincidentally, Gwen Stefani/No Doubt’s music videos popularized bindis (and henna) around the same time the dotbusters violence came to an end. And overnight the bindi, or the “dot,” became another easily appropriative and fashionable thing for women to stick on their forehead.

Does the hijab have the same destiny?

Well it has certainly integrated into high fashion in some parts of the world:

But for the “developed” world the hijab seems to be an invitation to break out into barbaric acts of violence. Maybe Taylor Swift can wear a hijab in her next music video and then proceed to ‘save’ Muslim women from hate crimes throughout the developed world?! But until then it seems as though we are going to continue to sit back and witness the violence escalate.

On October 15, 2015 a pregnant muslim woman was verbally attacked on a bus in London because she was wearing a hijab.

I do not know what to say when I see strategies of divide and conquer suceed. But I will say this: hating muslims and Islamaphobia are #stuffwhitepeoplelike. Just ask Triceten Bickford, a nineteen year old student from Indiana University. While attacking a Muslim woman in Bloomington on October 17, 2015 Bickford began screaming “white power” and “kill them all.” Bickford then proceeded to grab the woman’s neck and slammed her head into the table.

Bickford was not put in a chokehold for this hate crime, nor was he shot 12 times. Instead, he got away with a bail set below $2000.

Bickford is not alone. He is one of many white men in the developed world to grab at a Muslim woman’s hijab. Maybe these men who have become accustomed to objectifying women feel a loss of control when they can’t see the beauty that is destined to be smiling beneath the veil. Or is it the case that these men are trying to ‘save’ the women they attack from some perceived oppressive state of being that must come with wearing a hijab, burka, or niqab?

Either way, telling a woman she is oppressed because she is wearing a niqab in London, Paris, or the United States says more about the accuser than the accused. Because, you know, FREEDOM!

Does freedom, equality, and liberation have to look like daisy dukes and a crop top? Maybe these human rights have to be bought at Banana Republic and American Apparel.

Well the media would certainly like for you to think that Muslim women are interested in playing the moral card when it comes to what other people wear.

Take for example the headlines regarding the ‘Muslim girl gang’ that attacked a white woman in France: “French women furious after ‘Muslim girl-gang’ attacks ‘immoral’ sunbather for wearing a bikini in a public park”.

As if the Muslim women couldn’t just have beef with the French woman for some other generic reason. Like maybe they were fighting over a boy!

The Muslim communities in these particular spaces — United States, London, and France — are not demanding anything of anyone. So the question is, why is a woman covered in either a hijab or niqab a threat to the developed world? What if it is not some deep issue rooted in the Quran or the Bible? What if it is something superficial, aesthetic, and driven by profit?

Perhaps Hermès should follow suit with the logic of development and neoliberalism by starting a #muslimlivesmatter campaign so they could sell their $400 and $800 scarves in the name of human rights. It would be a great non-profit project! But France’s Marine Le Pen might get in the way of that plan…

Le Pen’s hate speech was followed by two attacks on a pregnant Muslim women in France. The first attack in 2013 took place in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil. Two men beat a pregnant woman in attempt to remove her headscarf. The 21-year-old woman suffered from a miscarriage after the altercation. Earlier this year, shortly after the Charlie Hedbo incident, a nine-month pregnant woman was attacked in Toulouse, France. Kedidja’s attackers grabbed at her veil and threatened her at knife-point. Thankfully, her baby was unharmed.

I am not sure what we can do to stop the violence against Muslim women in the developed world. But I have a feeling some good ole’ western appropriation could potentially complicate the issue in a way that might help us figure out the real problem!

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