Today the Arab American News begrudgingly reports, “We hate to do this but…investigators say that the Muslim girl lied about getting attacked by Trump supporters on a NYC subway. She was out drinking with friends and made up the story to ‘distract her angry father.’ She ran away from home a few days later but was found–and charged for falsifying a police report.”

HECK, I think, this is that moment… that moment when someone hides behind plausible, culturally legitimized anti-Muslim bigotry to shield themselves from the obscured/denied epidemic of patriarchal control and misogynistic abuse endemic to Muslim communities…

What manifest tension in the lives of us from Muslim backgrounds such an incident embodies. For the sobering, pervasive phenomenon of anti-Muslim bigotry is not only acknowledged, but legitimized and heralded above all other concerns where we are from, while other human rights abuses and bigotries continue to be silenced. And where do those stuck in the middle find themselves? With no support and acknowledgement from either side, it seems.

Her name is Yasmin Seweid. She told a plausible lie to cover a sin that ought not be sin in a free and liberal world–partying with friends–but that is the gravest of sin in her own community.

And of course, though she told this lie for fear of what her father would do to her if he knew the truth (and how many lies have we all told to escape the wrath of the honor-crazed men in our families?), her community has nothing but hate and blame for her for doing something so foolhardy to discredit a minority population already at risk– with no thought or consideration to the minority within the minority at much more consistent and severe risk, because the numbers of women controlled and abused cannot compare to those threatened on subways for their hijab, because the lives and bodies of Muslim women mean shit all and only the integrity of the outward-facing Muslims and their image matters.

And so silenced pandemics of control and abuse continue to flourish in Muslim America, Bravo.

And sure enough, “Don’t read the comments” holds true here as ever, for the comments are full of this young woman’s community members full of censure and blame, advocating she be imprisoned, denigrating personal conduct absolutely irrelevant to her lie, in general blaming her for the violent actions of others towards Muslims. All, apparently, on the shoulders of a teenager who made a surely foolhardy and very likely unethical choice in how she chose to deal with the predicament too many women from conservative patriarchies face– yet her constraints, rather than being a salve, seem only to further condemn her among her Muslim community:

One comment reads “

Another commenter writes, “That’s not the full story. She was not out drinking with friends. She was having sexual relations with her boyfriend, and her parents disapproved. She had to make up the story of abuse to gain the sympathy of her parents. Due to her promiscuous behaviour, her parents shaved her hair as punishment. I guess Hijabis are in reality Hoejabis.”

Never mind her right as an adult to self-determination, never mind whether she wanted to wear hijab or not, never mind her bodily autonomy, her fear, her concern for her safety NEVER mind–never mind the violation to her body so casually just described–slutshaming, denigrating her for her personal associations, advocating incarceration and violence towards a woman in this position is the default assumption it seems, and surely her transgrasseion merits holding her responsible for the potential violence and bigotry deliberately committed by others.

And yet another: “If anything happens to my mother or my elderly women neighbors becausw [sic] of a hate crime idea given by any of this disgraceful girls wearing the hijab, locally and out of state, makr [sic] my words i swear to God I will find each one of you and i will seriously smack you across the face.”

How fucked up is this? Instead of conmmensurate accountability for injustice against someone falsely accused, the blame launched against Yasmin today holds her personally accountable for the unrelated actions of others– not the wolves to blame, the actual predators and those who breed them, but the person who cried wolf in a moment of selfishness or fear or lapse of integrity–while at the same time denying the constraints underlying her actions (notice ‘spoiled brat’ and ‘making it up’?) and demonizing her for citing them to begin with–surely her immodest conduct is the disgrace here, and her story of a controlling family is a fabricated lie. This is how she is treated for daring to dissent to her community’s norms. This seems to be the greater sin, far greater than the lie, where these people are concerned.

If only I had the eloquence, the words, to emphasize how the above comments are nothing anomalous, but the mainstream we hear, we heard growing up, bandied in our communities and mosques and social settings. ‘Hojabi’. Slut-shaming. Blatant denial and disingenuous rationalization of manifest sexism and inequality. Violence and cruelty hidden and obscured and dressed in the comfortable trappings of respectable conservatism.

I don’t know what her full story is, heck, and I surely would not have behaved in the same way, but heck do I have sympathy for Yasmin Seweid today.