On Being Muslim and “Dark-Skinned” After Boston

Yassine Zaime and Salah Barhoun are both innocent, but worried that this New York Post cover could affect the rest of their lives

By Ali Zafar

#Muslims.

Last Monday’s trending hashtag intensified my suffocating sense of dread, the one that’s ebbed and flowed since Sept. 11, 2001.

Muslims.

That dirty word stripped Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of his white privilege: he had been identified in news reports as a Chechen, terrorist and radical, but never American.

Because he’s Muslim. Like me.

I’d logged off from the 24-hour cycle of the world’s misfortunes that afternoon, deciding to take a breather before my workday started. I always expect something big to be breaking when I show up for my evening newsroom shift, but the news of the Boston Marathon bombings was still a shock. My stomach churned as I looked at graphic images on the newswire: the blood-splattered streets, the volunteers racing to help a man in a wheelchair with a missing leg.

And my heart dropped when I logged onto Twitter and saw #Muslims trending alongside #PrayforBoston. Was it possible that a person who calls himself a Muslim was behind those horrific images? What if his first name was Mohammad? Like mine? What if he had dark hair? Dark skin? Like me?

Anxiety, embarrassment and a shade of fear began bubbling inside me like a violent thunderstorm. Watching the news made it worse.

Just Say No: Q&A with a Muslim

By Bhairavi Thanki

Aisha Khan (a pseudonym) is a 24-year-old hijab-wearing Muslim woman. Aisha is young and ambitious, so I asked her whether she felt Toronto’s alcohol-friendly culture was a career impediment.

Bhairavi: Tell me about the drinking culture around you, from high school going into university.

Aisha: I grew up in a really ethnically and culturally diverse area at Jane and St. Clair. The only kids that really drank in high school were basically the rich white kids. It was never really an issue till later on in university. In the beginning I wouldn’t drink and I would say that it was for religious reasons. But that was kind of the monotone answer that I was almost expected and conditioned to give.

I did experiment with drinking in university. It did have something to do with fitting in that I had to try it. How do you spurn something without trying it first, right? It just didn’t appeal to me when I did do it.

BT: Was drinking an issue in university?

AK: I wouldn’t say it was a huge problem in university or in high school. It started becoming more of an issue at my first job, when I worked for a communications firm. There were only 15 of us. It was tight knit and the office had a big drinking culture. I had become more observant in my faith too, so I had more of a personal reason to refrain from it.

Whether it was taking a client out to a bar, or getting together after work for drinks, I felt like the odd person out. The firm wasn’t ethnically diverse, so I just felt like the odd person out period, let alone as someone who practiced a faith. At that time I had my own insecurities around praying in the work force, or telling people I was fasting, or how I dressed and all that stuff. In retrospect I wasn’t strong enough to say “it’s not that I just don’t drink, it’s that I don’t even want to be in a bar.” I just felt really polarized. That’s the only time I felt polarized because of drinking.

BT: Did you have a problem with friends drinking around you while you were hanging out with them?

AK: When people get tipsy is when I get uncomfortable. Not really uncomfortable, but I ask myself “should I really be here?” When there were gatherings at my first job, I would feel out of place to the point where I left events early. It felt weird to me to be the only sober person in a room full of people who were inebriated.

I didn’t want to make people who did drink feel like there was something morally wrong with them. Even now I am careful about how I describe things to people, because I don’t want it to seem like I am holier than thou. For example, when scholars in the Muslim community talk about “modest dressing,” I don’t like using that terminology when describing myself. “Modest” means different things to different people.

Racism, Past: Toronto’s Bygone By-Laws

By Chantal Braganza

This piece began with a simple premise and kind-of crude headline: A History of Racist Bylaws in Toronto. It presumed the existence of such bylaws, that there were enough of them to constitute a history (possibly a timeline—how readable!) and that they were as easy to find as a sushi shop on Bloor.

Surprise: it’s really not that simple. Happily (with one major exception) Toronto doesn’t have a history of enacting obviously prejudiced municipal rules. What we do have is a habit of going through municipal proceedings without considering all the different types of people who live here, who might not have certain Anglo-Saxon values or whose community-specific practices might be considered “undesirable” (whatever that means).

So forget the timeline. Here’s a look at what happens when the law gets in the way of a community who wants to do things differently.

Laundry Drama

The Wah Chong Laundry, Vancouver, 1884. Courtesy of City of Vancouver Archives and Civilization.ca

The oldest example of these bylaws is the most straight-up racist.

House of Lords: Ten Religious Buildings in Toronto

By Denise Balkissoon

Here we have some appropriated photos of 10 religious buildings in Toronto that I have been to. Except this first one, I just think it looks cool.

I’ve never actually been to a Hindu temple in Toronto, although my father was born Hindu. If I had to pick one, it would be the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Etobicoke. Look at it!

Before the Toronto And Region Islamic Congregation mosque went up at Jane St. and the 401 in 1991, the prayers used to be in schools, rec centres, and my uncle’s basement.

This is St. Paul’s Basilica, the oldest Catholic church in Toronto. It’s a stand-in for a Catholic church my father can’t remember the name of, where we went to a really, really, really long wedding. Afterward everyone shook hands and said “Peace Be Unto You.” I didn’t know this was going to happen and also I am clueless so I said “Pleased to Meet You.”

Contents Under Pressure: A Queer Muslim Unsilenced

From the series "Illumination," by Yalda Pashai

By Rahim Thawer

Being both Muslim and queer always seemed like mutually exclusive identities to me. The ideological clash meant I simply could not be both. This wasn’t a satisfying way of looking at the world – I didn’t think I should have to repent for being a certain way. I began asking some big questions in high school and then really started to assert my own identity after moving away to university – somehow the academic space away from my family just allowed for it. It was a scary time of grappling with mixed messages and internalized fear and stigma.