Comments | lavendersparkle: A subtle niggling antisemitism

lavendersparkle

A subtle niggling antisemitism

Apr 08, 2010 12:54

I have a keen interest in political stories about the wearing of hijabs. Primarily this is because, to all intents and purposes I wear a hijab when out. I cover my hair for religious reasons and whilst I don't cover my neck all of the time and some of my hair usually pokes out, some Muslim women cover their hair to the same extent I do. When there' ( Read more... )

politics, judaism

Comments 9

naath April 8 2010, 13:30:58 UTC

football kit...

It seems to be really hard to find good pictures. WTF. Apparently the Israeli strip has, at least at some points in the past, had the Star of David as part of the logo. Googling a handful of the other obvious candidates for advertising religion on football gear (Saudi, India, some European countries with cross flags) suggests that most people don't put their religious imagery on football kit even if it is on the national flag. So, from my seriously amateur google-foo... Israel may actually have been the only country to do this. Which, um, might actually justify using it as an example. Maybe.

(The comment has been removed)

naath April 8 2010, 21:43:55 UTC

Yes, yes they are.

However I am apparently a dunce when it comes to looking up pictures of football kits (I had it in my head that we had the three lions).

Which makes the selection of Israel much more suspicious.

feanelwa April 9 2010, 19:49:59 UTC

I think that from the standard British "I put Church of England on forms but don't do anything wacky like go to church" point of view, those don't generally register as crosses anymore. A lot of Christian religious imagery isn't seen as such by people who see it all the time but don't actually think about religion much.

traumerin April 8 2010, 18:07:55 UTC

Although I'm neither Orthodox nor married, I have experimented with hair covering a bit - both a) trying to figure out where the boundaries of my personal attitude toward modesty where and b) sociological interest. With so much debate around women's hair attire, I was curious to experience more of the issue firsthand.

Not surprisingly, when I cover my hair people in general assume I'm Muslim - I don't know too many frum women in the area who use obvious headcoverings. Most opt for hats and the Hasidic women have sheitels. The other interesting thing is that people automatically assume I am "foreign," even to the point of initially attributing an accent to me (and I was born and raised in "accent free" west coast American!) I tend to be somewhat ethnically ambiguous as it is, with people often thinking I am from eastern Europe, but with the hair covering people ask or assume that I am from Albania/Azerbaijan/Turkey/Iran...

lavendersparkle April 13 2010, 10:06:25 UTC

A few times people have thought that I'm Muslim, but it depends on the context and the way I tie my scarf. A couple of times people have thought that I'm not English, but they've tended to be foreign people I meet at conferences and I guess it's fair enough to be thrown by a piece of dress you associate with a different country if European accents and racial characteristics all look the same to you. I'd be rubbish at identifying accurately where in Asia someone came from.

ext_231279 April 13 2010, 04:34:04 UTC

I write to ask: are you the person who addressed me as a "murfmuncher"? Did you mean furmuncher? I wasn't quite sure if that was straight up homophobia? A joke gone awry? Perhaps you are just recycling that person's use of the word "ass-hattery," and "v" isn't you. Anyway, thanks for the link to my blog, but I hope you weren't the person who made that homophobic swipe and called me a douchebag. From A Left Wing's forum is respectful - whatever good points "V" may have had to offer were undermined by their, uhm, presentation.

lavendersparkle April 13 2010, 09:22:16 UTC

I haven't commented on your blog. I didn't read the comments on your blog when I read the post. I thought that 'ass-hattery' was quite a common term. So many terms for 'thing I think is not very good' are misogynistic/homophobic/racist/ablist slurs that I tend to use it because it's relatively innocuous. If it helps you in your search for the mysterious "V" I think I may have picked the phrase up from feminist, which is also where I saw I link to your post. If blogspot allows it, I suggest you enable IP logging. It will at least tell you where in the world anonymous comments are coming from and can help you to tell if various anonymous comments are the same person. I switched on IP logging after receiving several offensive comments as the topics I cover here are can be a bit controversial. (I don't think trolls tend to stretch to commenting from different IPs.) On Livejournal you can block comments from a particular IP. I'm not familiar with blogspot so I don't know if they have the same facility.

I'm sorry I couldn't have been of more help.

lavendersparkle April 13 2010, 09:55:48 UTC

I've just gone back and looked at the comments on your post and I don't understand how you could think that I was 'V ( ... )

ext_231279 April 13 2010, 15:31:54 UTC

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I honestly am - you should see the material I've gotten. Am sure you get your share. Asshattery is not at all common in the US. Should be! Feel free to delete my comment if you like. While I represent a very different point of view from you, I enjoyed reading this post ( ... )