Yasmine Mohammed ياسمين محمد  🦋

Ok, despite my advice to myself I watched it. There were a few unsettling comments but yes, most personally unsettling were his comments re women in niqab. I’m glad he said some are forced or just want to have a unique identity and some are extremists-that’s true. /1

Saying niqab is are the filthiest etc was most definitely not ok. First of all, insert any demographic there, and that’s just a terrible thing to say. If someone said ‘Men who wear turbans are the filthiest’ he wouldn’t like it. I wore a niqab. I didn’t like it. 2

And lastly, of course, those women are dealing w enough shit in their lives already without him telling potentially telling hundreds of thousands of ppl that they’re filthy. It’s not only hurtful, it’s dangerous as some ppl will take that as reason to disparage them further 3

One more: The inside out abaya was a movement in Saudi for women to resist the mandatory abaya...conflating it w sex workers in Iraq wasn’t helpful. It’s such a localized thing. He didn’t need to broadcast it. Instead broadcast about the women that wear it inside out in defiance

I know you said some, and I know you said Baghdad, that was in my tweet. My point being-I’d rather have seen you support these women in their emancipation vs disparaging them for being sex workers, filthy etc. Ppl view niqabis as hostile already- when most are miserable victims.

When I see a niqabi in my neighborhood, yes, I cringe. It’s a natural reaction to seeing a faceless figure. But, for me, the next response is sadness followed by anger. I’m sad and angry that her soul is rotting under there and that she feels compelled to wear it.