Ali Eteraz—Islamophobic Muslim?

No, he’s not. But Ali Eteraz expects some of his co-religionists will accuse him of being a self-loathing Muslim because he doesn’t want to make a big deal about volunteers for Barack Obama telling two Muslim women they couldn’t appear in photos with the presidential candidate trying so hard to convince the world he is not a Muslim. (A litmus that should not be applied. Period.) Here is Eteraz’s argument:

Muslims (and Democrats) — like yours truly — who don’t get all frothing at the mouth about this, who don’t sit around and say “That Obama needs to do something about Islamophobia!!!”, who call this a non-story, are going to be accused of being anti-Muslim just for the simple fact that we treat anti-hijab bigotry as any other kind of bigotry — condemnable, deserving of an apology, but not the end of the world. This is still America; the best place in the world for a Muslim to exercise her faith, way better than Muslim countries).

In fact, I suspect very seriously that most of the pro-hijab crowd are going to end up politicizing hijab even more than it already is. I tell you what ladies: that’s not good for hijab.