- Courtesy of the artist
- No, it’s cool, it’s not like your ancestors killed them all or anything, Jen Mussari
In my closet there’s a shirt with a giant outline of the Hindu deity Ganesha on the front. Whenever I see the shirt, I think of cultural appropriation and view the shirt skeptically—I wonder if, when I wore it, other people around me looked at it the same way.
Hamid identifies herself as a British Pakistani and wears a keffiyeh to support Syria, Palestine, and suppressed Islamic countries. Her views on cultural appropriation are strong, and she makes some fair points. “When cultures who are being appropriated are accepted and treated equally to Western society, then sure, it’s fine. But if a Western person is accepted and applauded as ‘quirky’ and ‘cool’ for wearing a keffiyeh and a Middle Eastern is labelled a terrorist or ‘towel head’ and dismissed as such, then no, that’s absolutely not okay,” said Hamid via e-mail.
She responded by first pointing out that no one is in a position to explain offense that is caused by someone else, and there is no real right answer. She then proposed a question to me: “Is it stealing, disrespect and damage, or is it harmless, if a little goofy, perhaps even misplaced envy?”
Cultural traditions will always maintain their importance, though, and that’s reason enough to untie the keffiyeh you bought from Urban Outfitters before it was pulled from the shelves. I asked Gerald Hankerson, outreach coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) his opinion on the keffiyeh being worn simply as a fashion accessory, “It’s very interesting, so many things come into our pop culture without any full appreciation or full acknowledgement of what the originators intended,” he said. He only hoped that anyone who wore it didn’t harbor any Islamophobia: “What I’m realizing is that if you don’t truly understand the religion, culture, and conflicts that are associated with the actual keffiyeh it makes it where it really represents a lack of education and understanding.” He went on to explain that the scarf has been altered with different colors, patterns, and textures so much that it doesn’t always reflect the traditional garb. In context, the scarf can represent someone that is in tune with the plight of Palestine, “particularly Syria currently, and that in and of itself makes it very admirable, but it’s not a requirement,” Hankerson said. He hasn’t personally been bothered by individuals wearing it as a fashion statement.
