American hijabis often have a lot to think about when they step outside their doors. Will we be denied a job because of hijab? Will we be asked to take off our hijabs at work or school? Will our hijabs make us a target for racists and xenophobes? Will we be pulled out of line at the airport because of our hijabs? However, one place we don’t expect hijab to cause us issue is in court. In courtrooms throughout the U.S., Muslim women wear hijab and Muslim men wear kufis if they’re inclined to do so. My mother, who is a social worker, wears hijab when accompanying clients to court.
Lisa Valentine. Image via AP.
So it must have been completely shocking for Lisa Valentine to be denied entry into a Georgia courtroom because of her headscarf. I’m sure it was one of the most racist incidents in her entire life. Despite the fact that Valentine’s civil rights were violated and this incident was inspired by racism, the media’s coverage of Lisa Valentine’s ordeal has been mixed at best.
One constant issue that I have in the reporting of Valentine’s ordeal is the reporting of her using a swear word. Every article and news clip on this story has mentioned it. “When she turned to leave and uttered an expletive, Hall said a bailiff handcuffed her and took her before the judge.” “Frustrated at being prevented from entering the court, the woman reportedly uttered an expletive and sought to leave the area.“
Why is this fact so important to mention in every news story about Lisa Valentine? Wouldn’t a lot of people use an expletive if they were denied access to court? It’s almost as if the mention of Valentine’s use of a swear word is being reported as a cause for her arrest instead of a law that was abused by the bailiff and the judge. I wonder if the mention of Valentine using an expletive is to make her seem at fault or to simply make hijabis look bad. Either way, I found the constant mention of this fact to be really annoying and unnecessary. She cursed. So what? No matter what Valentine said, there’s no reason why she should have been arrested and sentenced to ten days in court.
Additionally, the coverage of Valentine’s ordeal hasn’t focused much on the racial dimensions of the incident. Valentine’s civil rights were violated because she is a Muslim. Even though she was barred from the court because of her “headwear”, her headwear was religious in nature. There’s little mention of the fact that Valentine’s headwear wasn’t ordinary headwear at all but part of her religious attire. In most of the stories I’ve read on Valentine, this distinction isn’t made except by Valentine herself.
Also, I have seen no discussion of how xenophobia and Islamophobia probably influenced what happened. I doubt that a nun would be asked to take off her habit in court because Catholics are not seen as foreign. However, Islam and symbols associated with it (such as hijab) are. Without looking at the issues at these issues, the stories on Valentine seem incomplete.
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Tags: civil rights, hijab, Islamophobia, Lisa Valentine, racism
Faith, I feel like you bring up a bunch of great points. I definitely felt the “expletive” detail was overly used. Like the media wants to say, “Well, she SWORE, so it’s OKAY that her civil rights were taken away. She doesn’t DESERVE them if she’s going to use BAD LANGUAGE.” Pfff!
My understanding of the story was that she was turned away. She was not arrested until she swore at the bailiff (an officer of the court) and I guess that offended him. I’ve seen bailiffs offended for a lot less . . . it’s their court – they kick out mother’s whose children are acting up, they kick out people who haven’t turned off their cell phones, they seem to like to maintain order. My impression was she was not arrested for her hijab, but for her swearing.
She didn’t stay arrested very long, either, as many people became involved quickly, and she was set free. Maybe they (the court) got a little educated through this.
I don’t wear a hijab myself but my husbands family does plus I spend alot of time in Egypt. To me is normal, however here in the states I live in a small town and I have to see the look of the woman when they come across someone wearing a hijab they see them like they are from other planet. I am so upset over this. WHY? I call it just plain ignorance.
While I don’t wear hijab and I guess I’m not really a “good Muslim,” I have so much empathy for her. I will always support my fellow hijabi sisters, and let me quote Voltaire in a different way: “I will fight to my DEATH for their right to wear hijab!!!”
may Allah help her defeat those racist assholes.
Fatemeh you took the words out of mouth. That’s exactly what people have been suggesting! And I’m sitting there shaking my head, thinking, are these people [expletive] serious? LOL. I’ve also seen comments from Muslims who were saying the same thing.
I’m growing increasingly tired of both Muslims and non-Muslims expecting a hijabi has to be 100% perfect, no slip-ups, no misbehavior, on point no matter the situation. Do people realize how much pressure that puts us under? I am a human being. I make mistakes. Sometimes a nasty word may fly out of my mouth. Sometimes people piss me off and I react in a bad way. I am not perfect. But for anyone to suggest that we deserve whatever we get because we reacted in a bad way is ridiculous.
Ohhh, I have a blog idea now. Thanks Faith!
I have seen stories that say that these particular officers are undergoing diversity/sensitivity training. BUT…in the link load last week, many stories said that Valentine wasn’t the only one who’d been turned away before; many other women who wear headscarves made the same complaints, so I’m not inclined to look at this as a “maintaining” order thing.
ditto to everything that was just said. and yes, jamerican, us hijabis are expected to be perfect…even superheros who are not sensitive to abuse or ridicule.
i think the mentioning of the expletive was a means to justifying her arrest…to make her seem as imperfect and belligerent. i also wonder how much (my assumption of her) blackness plays in this. when she refused to take off her scarf did they believe she was not muslim because she was african american? i don’t know. i’ve been in similar situations where i am immediately ‘read’ as muslims and in other situations where this is not so much the case. i’d be interested in knowing more about this.
i was just reading the article about the new training for the bailiffs and it says “At the jail down the street, Valentine had to change into a jumpsuit. Her mug shot was taken — without her head scarf.” …. this seems extremely traumatizing.
there were repeated incidents with the same judge which makes me think there is something wrong with the judge…
““At the jail down the street, Valentine had to change into a jumpsuit. Her mug shot was taken — without her head scarf.” …. this seems extremely traumatizing.”"
OMG, this would be extremely traumatic for me. What some non-Muslims and some non-hijabis don’t understand is how naked it might feel for someone who wears the hijab while out in public to just take it off- especially in front of men. Hijab is like my 2nd skin. I told my co-worker, psychologically, it’s the equivalent of being strip searched…or like walking around naked in front of everyone. If it weren’t then why are some people so desperate to see what I look like without it?
I don’t know about this bailiff but I regularly visit the court for job. I was doing so almost every day at one point so I know the routine as far as security screenings go. This one overzealous, pervert told me I needed to take it off. He had a smirk on his face and anticipation in his eyes. It was clear that he was trying to use his position to intimidate me. But he met the wrong one. I firmly told him no, I would not take it off. And that was that.
Great post. I was just debating with someone about this issue and it’s just ridiculous how people expect others to keep their cool when they’re being discriminated against. Of course she’s going to curse the judge off after the fact that her rights are being denied.
The profanity excuse is just a way to cover up the fact that she was discriminated against for her religious beliefs. Their goal is to make you emphasis so much on *her* behavior that you’ll forget about the scarf issue.
i’ve been replying to other posts that they believe that swearing and cursing is part of our religion. There were times when the earlier muslims curse but not the way we curse and I’m not saying it’s ok to curse. Mannnnn, this is ridiculous….
Gee, she called some lickspittle government bureaucrat an “asshole”. I’m shocked, absolutely shocked I tell you. I’ve never done that before. Honest, I really haven’t.
Of course I wasn’t sentenced to jail for it, either.
[...] The following article was written by Faith, a contributing writer for Muslimah Media Watch (MMW). You can read the original post by clicking here. [...]
This just peeved me off because it’s seems like they’re starting to harass hijabis here too now. Both my husband and I have been through customs alot (we currently live in Saudi Arabia and travel between there and the US every summer). It’s frustrating having to put up with rude officials who think that just because they’re :”the law” you can’t mess with them. And since they know we’re Muslim it seems like they become even more rude and condescending.
And what reason could they possibly have for barring this sister from court based on her scarf??? I can’t think of any and can just assume it was paranoia that caused the officials to behave this way toward her (she must be hiding a bomb under her head!) This reminds me of the time I was made to go through extra security precautions before boarding a Delta Airlines flight because even though I was clearly seen as a single mother traveling with two kids (with a baby strapped to my stomach) they had to make sure I and my baby weren’t hiding a bomb between us! Talk about being paranoid lol!