MIL lives in an almost all white, all Christian area. We live in a much more diverse area with a sizeable Muslim contingent. The sight of a woman in a dupatta/ hijab/ niqab is sufficiently common for me to not really notice any more.
The last twice that she has visited, MIL has taken her to the park. Both times, she has returned full of the fact that there were Muslims there in hijab/niqab. Not in an aggressive way, more the manner of someone relating how they went to the zoo and saw some exotic creatures. Kind of, hey wow, guess what I saw! It just totally grates on me but I can't really say why. I just want to say to her, "So, you saw some local mums at the park and they belong to a different cultural group? And? You do realise that some of them may be teachers, just like a hijab wearer of my acquaintance, or doctors or nurses or anything, really, just like people from our cultural group or any group? Must you speak about them as if they are aliens?". But I don't, to keep the peace.
I just can't put my figure on why it grates. She is not being aggressively racist. I think it's the whole way it comes across, like the Queen watching local dancers somewhere in Africa and smiling graciously. I am probably being very unreasonable but I can't quite say why I dislike it.
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To ask you to help me work out why this grates?
66 replies
DrSeuss · 23/05/2015 17:43
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