Suzette Dorrielan, LCC Alumni 2017
I hope they aren’t [insert personal racial or religious identity here].”
(Dorrielan, 2017)
Reading Dorrielan’s piece raised a lot of feelings I, and most people who aren’t white, have experienced when hearing such devastating news. She perfectly highlights the duality of processing this new information which collectively shakes a community while also worrying about the attacker, the main reason being the due to the ramifications it could have to you.
It is the building up of having to prepare/ protect, feeling the need to defend yourself, your identity, prove you are different. Dorrielan makes a huge point in explain the contribution of institutional racism and white supremacy, how white attackers are seen as individuals, humanised by the struggles they have faced. This same leniency does not extend to other groups and identities.
Within this area, it is again hard to ignore the intersectionality of identities and how characteristics such as gender, race and class may exacerbate the experiences of groups, post-terror attacks. “The Clothes of My Faith by Afia Ahmed in the book, “It’s Not About the Burqa”, explains:
In the wake of negative media representations that have made the veil synonymous with terrorism, linking Muslim women to perpetrators of heinous terror attacks and resulting in ‘gendered Islamophobia”
(Khan, 2019)
Ahmed highlights the element of Muslim women being visible identifier of the religion due to the headscarf and veils they choose to wear has led to them being disproportionately targeted by Islamophobia.
A 2013 report released by the Metropolitan Police service analysing hate crimes against the Muslim communities further explains how visual symbols of religion increase the chances of the individual experincing a hate crime.
The Islamophobic incidents reported…generally occur as victims go about their daily lives, for example, in the street, in or near shops and restaurants or waiting for or on public transport…. In fact, the ‘everyday’ nature of such incidents makes them more difficult for communities to avoid and their cumulative nature takes a large toll not just on individuals but on the communities as a whole. There was evidence from the focus groups with Muslim communities that the nature of the incidents had in many cases led to them normalising this as part of their everyday experience and not recognising the incidents as something that could be reported to the police thus leading to a large amount of under-reporting of such incidents to the police…
As with other forms of hate crime, visibility also plays a role in perpetrators identifying their targets. The visibility of Muslim women, together with the public debate around the ‘veil’, appears to have legitimised the targeting of Muslim women in public places to a greater extent than is apparent for other hate crimes that are reported to the MPS… The focus group members highlighted that many incidents, particularly of verbal abuse, were evidently the result of an adverse reaction to what the victim was wearing, or some other visual symbol of Muslim identity.”
(Hate Crimes against London’s incidents experienced by the Muslim Communities. An analysis of incidents recorded by the Metropolitan Police Service 2005-2012, 2013)
Within my teaching practice, I will be mindful of how much world events within this country and others i.e the impact of the war in Russia and Ukraine had on students, those worries about their families and friends back home, can have within an educational settings. I would like to be more considerate in that some may be worried about multiple things like their their safety and wellbeing while grieving about a devastating event. Students may not always perform to their 100% and that is okay and should be acceptable – it is unreasonable to expect them to leave their lives and worries behind closed doors and come as a clean slate.
Bibliography:
Dorrielan, S., 2017. A white terrorist. PEEKABOO WE SEE YOU: WHITENESS, [online] p.52. Available at: <https://issuu.com/shadesofnoir/docs/peekaboo_we_see_you_whiteness>.
Khan, M., 2019. It’s not about the Burqa. London, p.66.
2013. Hate Crimes against London’s incidents experienced by the Muslim Communities. An analysis of incidents recorded by the Metropolitan Police Service 2005-2012. [ebook] Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate Metropolitan Police Service. Available at: <https://www.report-it.org.uk/files/hate_crime_against_london_highres_print_final.pdf>.