".... Whipping up hatred against symbols of Palestinian identity has dangerous consequences. Last November three Palestinian college students in Burlington, Vermont were shot; it’s thought that they may have been targeted because they were wearing keffiyehs. Around the same time, a British-Indian man living in Brooklyn was attacked in a playground while with his 18-month-old, because he was wearing a keffiyeh. A woman called him a terrorist, threw her phone and a hot cup of coffee at him and said she hoped that “someone burns your child in an oven”.
Cowardly though it may be, the anti-Arab atmosphere in the US has made me afraid of wearing my own keffiyeh out of the house. Particularly, as I recently had a very unpleasant interaction when wearing my watermelon sweater (the same one Ben Affleck’s daughter was criticised for wearing). Still, being worried about getting harassed on the street is nothing compared with what people in Gaza and the West Bank are dealing with. Please don’t let hate-mongers try to distract you: it’s not keffiyehs or protesting university students that you should be outraged by, it’s children being starved to death."
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| Protesters at University of Michigan in the US, this month. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images |
My Palestinian keffiyeh is a symbol of my identity. I should not be afraid to wear it in public
[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]
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