How White Supremacy and Islamophobia Under
a Republican President Created a Muslim Marathoner Girl
By Nadrat Siddique
One
recent MLK Day, I experienced deja vu
in the park where it all started. I was at Burke Lake Park in VA, engaging in
what I thought was an appropriate activity in honor of the great civil rights
martyr: an 8K race billed as the “Keep Moving Forward” 8K Trail Run. I had
hoped for a race in DC or Baltimore, organized by a Black rights or civil
rights organization, with which to mark the occasion. Since I couldn’t find
one, I opted for this. Proceeds from the event benefitted United Community Ministries,
not at the top of my list of organizations to support. But then beggars can’t
be chosers.
I
attended high school entirely during the Reagan years, and proudly wore the hijab for the entirety of my middle school
and most of my high school. In 1979, I experienced a life changing event: a
visit to Iran following the Islamic Revolution there. I was 11-years old at the
time, and accompanied my father, Dr. Kaukab Siddique—a freelance journalist and
maverick whose work, albeit lacking formal recognition, would come to influence
the Islamic movement in the U.S. for decades to come—to the Islamic Republic.
Together we witnessed the power of the people to topple Shah Reza Pahlavi, a dictator
armed to the teeth by the U.S. government, his monarchy and that of his father
supported by the U.S. for decades. The Shah operated by imprisoning his political
opponents, who were often brutally tortured by SAVAK, the secret police closely
aligned with and trained by the CIA. Eventually the Iranians had enough, and
took to the streets in a bloodless revolution, literally stopping the Shah’s
tanks and troops with their bodies.
As
a young Muslim girl growing up in a non-Muslim country where I was consistently
treated as an outsider, I was particularly struck by the confidence, near
swagger even, of the young Iranian college women. Dressed in unconstraining black
headscarves and tunics, which they wore over elegant flowing pants loose enough
to facilitate a round-house kick, the female college students walked with
confidence and carried automatic rifles, holding their own. I was in teenage
awe, and when I returned to the States, I deliberately adjusted my rather
generic style of head-scarf to a style which more closely resembled that of the
Iranian students.
At
the time, we lived in the homogenously White DC suburb of Annandale. Each
morning, my sister, who is two years my senior, jumped out of bed around 5:30
AM, ran to shower, then put on her silk blouse, designer jeans, and makeup. She
styled her hair perfectly, checked herself in the mirror, and made her way to
school very early, so she could be there before most of her peers. She was on
the photo journalism club, a member of the student government, and every other
school club imaginable. Sleek and slender with a model’s body, she was a runner
who, much to my envy, ran at least five miles a day. With her dark hair, long
lashes, and exotic beauty, my sister mesmerized nearly every guy in school.
While
my sister was already on her way to our school, each morning, I reluctantly dragged
myself out of bed. I put on my dark-colored hijab
and loose-fitting shirt, and made my way to the same school. On a good day, I
would make it there just as the school bell rang. More often I would be there a
few minutes late, or not at all.
No
one forced my sister to dress as she did. And no one forced me to wear the hijab.
My
sister and I attended the nearly homogeneously White, upper middle class
Annandale High School (AHS). She was an upper classman, and I had just started
there. There were no other evidently Muslim students. There was an Iranian boy
named Reza, whom I suspected was Muslim. But he looked and acted White, interacting
without qualm with his White peers and teachers, but redirecting his gaze
immediately if we made eye contact. So, I did not pursue conversation with him.
In any case, my communication skills as an adolescent were nil, and I would
hardly have known what to say to him if we had conversed.
The
persecution started soon after I began school at AHS. I do not recall how it
started. Granted, not only I wore Iranian style hijab, but I brazenly displayed
a poster of Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, whom I greatly admired for his stance
against what I viewed as an imperialist superpower, in my school locker. I viewed
both the wearing of the hijab and the
display of the poster as First Amendment protected-actions. Hence I did not think it should make me the
target of violations of my civil rights.
Yet,
every day, fellow students, often White males who were much bigger and older
than me, would hurl ephithets of “Blue nun,” “ayatollah,” or “raghead” at me. “Get
that rag off your head,” they would jeer, savagely yanking my hijab or slapping me on the back of the
head. Very often these sorts of
interactions occurred in the school stairwell or hallway soon after I arrived
at school. Unfortunately, they were but a prelude for what was to come during
the course of the school day.
Without
realizing it, I developed strategies for dealing with the bullying. At times, I
would arrive in class as early as possible and take a seat in the part of the
classroom where I thought the bullies were least likely to sit. At other times,
I would get to the class as late as I could without missing the attendance roll
call, to minimize the time between student arrival and teacher arrival, and
therefore the “bullying window.”
In
some classes, the persecution was worse than in others. The classes with the
most “freedom,” i.e., allowance for the students to physically move about, were
the ones I dreaded the most. Off these, Earth Science was perhaps the worst.
The bespectacled, bearded, hippie-looking Caucasian teacher was particularly
inattentive. The students could wander about the classroom, under the pretext
of looking at the aquariums, terraniums, and other displays set up by the school’s
Science Department. And that gave them an opening to yank at my hijab.
A
pair twins, Denise and Robin Wright, were among my classmates in Earth Science.
Both were very beautiful per the Eurocentric ideal, and very physically fit.
Denise had highlights in her hair. Robin’s hair was so black, it was almost
blue, and her lips were always perfectly made up in red lip color. Robin gave
me a proverbial pat on the head, telling me I had beautiful hair, and why did I
have to wear “that thing on my head.” She thought it horrible that my father
made me wear it. She would tell him—on my behalf—what he could do with it, if
she had the chance.
It
was my very first semester of high school, and my first crack at a real science
class. Needless to say, I fell flat on my face, earning an “E,” and was ordered
to retake the class in summer school. With such a start, I marveled in later
years that I was able to undertake and effectively complete a degree in a hard
science—biochemistry—at a competitive American university.
Physical
education (PE) class was by far the worst. On the first day of PE, the school
screened us for multiple scoliosis (MS). All of us girls lined up in long lines
that spanned the length of the gym for the screening, waiting to be seen by the
nurse practitioner and her assistant. I had no understanding of diagnostic
screenings, or why they were done. I had poor posture, accompanied by a very
negative body image. By the time I got to the front of the line, I had
convinced myself that the spinal curvature of my slouch was an indicator of MS.
(It wasn’t).
Not
having a clue how to nourish myself, I indulged in the heavily meat- and
sugar-laden diet of my family home with abandon. As a consequence, I had the
typical rotund desi build, and was
very uncomfortable with the idea of having to undress in front of other girls. On
top of that, there was the Islamic prohibition against disrobing, including in
front of those of the same gender. I was shocked that the other girls seemed to
think nothing of it, bantering and carrying on in the nude, as they changed and
showered together in the locker room. Loathing the concept, I feigned illness
or injury, and got exemptions from PE class whenever I could. At other times I
would simply hook the class. Even when I was physically present, I would stay
in the girls’ locker room during PE class while the other students ran around
the fields or played handball, volleyball, softball, flag football, and other
sports. Amazingly, I made it through that first year of PE, earning a “P” (for
“Pass”). But, the following year, I missed so many sessions of the dreaded class
that I received a failing grade, and had to re-take it during summer school.
Eventually,
the girls’ locker room became my cave. I would frequently seek refuge there even
when it wasn’t time for PE class. I hated lunch almost as much as I hated PE. In the cafeteria, bereft of the political
correctness provided by adult monitors, some of the wildest behaviors occurred.
Kids would indulge in salacious talk as a matter of course. The bolder or
stronger ones would concoct cruel pranks to play on smaller, weaker, or more
susceptible students. They would bully, hit, sexually harass, or subject such
students to epithets.
To
escape the horrors of the cafeteria, I would come to the locker room and sit
very quietly. I never cried in response to a set of circumstances which I
realize in retrospect would have left many girls sobbing, screaming, or
reporting the perpetrators. And although I came from a highly educated family—my
father held a PhD and my mother a Master’s degree, and and at least six aunts
and uncles held, or were in the process of completing medical, engineering, or RN
degrees—no one suggested to me that what I was experiencing was a gross violation
of my First Amendment rights. Nor did it occur to me, a child of 14, that I
could have taken AHS to court for these violations.
In
the locker room, I would sit and eat the high-fat/ high cholesterol lunch prepared
by my mother. If anyone entered the locker room —they rarely did during the
lunch period—I would freeze like a terrified animal, in the hopes of remaining
unnoticed. Only later did the oddity of eating lunch in the semi-dark of the
locker room, and its implications for my incipient eating disorder hit me.
History
class gave me a glimpse of alternatives to hiding or persecution. There too, at
the beginning of the class period, as the students were taking their seats and
before the teacher got there, there was persecution and taunts about the hijab. In the class were two tall skinny
White boys, one with sandy brown hair (named Tim), and another with dark brown
hair (named Kevin). In blue jeans, boots, and with chiseled good looks, they
were the epitome of cool, and had the respect of the class. And—for some
inexplicable reason —they defended me regularly. In response to the bullying,
one or the other of them would tell the youthful tormentors, “Come on, man. Leave
her alone. That’s not cool.”
Only
later did I find out that these two were flunkies, which was why they were so much
older and more informed than the rest of the students.
The
class was taught by a stylish young woman with auburn hair, named Sallie. She
found out about the persecution, and admonished the perpetrators that it was my
right to wear the head cover. Very
quickly, the perpetrators blended into the woodwork.
A
few weeks later, we were all standing in the hallway during a fire drill.
Taunts and whispers about the hijab
had started when Sallie walked by. I was happy to see her, and thought she
might defend me as in the past. My heart sank when she told me, “I’m sure you
have beautiful hair. You don’t have to hide it all the time, you know.” Sadly,
she said it in front of some of the tormentors.
The
bus ride to and from school was where some of the worst abuse occurred. Since
there was only one adult present, and about 30 kids, all unmonitored, they
could do what they wanted to me. One of them would slap me in the back of the
head. Then, when I turned to identify the perpetrator, they would cover for
each other, pretending they had no idea what I was talking about. Or they would
apply one sharp backward yank on my hijab,
which I had tied tightly underneath my chin. The tight knot alone prevented the
removal of the holy garb. But—the daily ordeal convinced me that I was
surrounded by enemies.
Sometimes
the persecution continued even after I got off the bus. I would walk
purposefully, holding my head high, in the direction of my house. Sometimes a
bully or two would follow me for a short distance, muttering things about the
head scarf. Perhaps fearful of being observed by adults now that they were out
in the open, they did not pursue me for any great distance.
One
day, the bullies—I wasn’t sure how many, because I refused to look, or do
anything that revealed fear—followed me further than usual into the town house complex.
One of them came bounding up, and tried to kick out my knees from behind me. Fortunately,
I was walking with a sturdy, balanced gait, and although my knees partially buckled
at the impact, I did not fall down. Another kid who rode my bus, fearful I was
about to be beat up, yelled, “Run Nadrat! Run home!”
I
did not look back. And—I did not run. Innal
hokmo illah lillah.
Eventually,
the attempts to forcibly remove the holy cloth became too much for me. I would
deliberately miss the bus, and then my mother would have to drop me at school.
I felt badly, that I was adding to the burden for an overworked, frequently
exhausted mother. And—from the single conversation I’d had with her on the
topic, I knew she did not support my wearing the hijab. This made asking her
for a ride even more unsavory.
On
the sole occasion when I raised the topic, the conversation went as follows:
Nadrat: “Ami. They pull my scarf.”
Mother: “Pull it back a bit, then they
won’t do it” (meaning I ought not wear the hijab in such severe fashion, far
down on my forehead, and perhaps allow a bit of hair to show as she did with
her Pakistani-style hijab).
Deeply
chagrined at what I felt was justification for the bullies pulling my hijab (ie
the style in which I was wearing the holy garb, was eliciting the attempts to
forcibly remove it), I never mentioned it to her again. I also did not bring it
up with my father, expecting that my mother would advise him of the situation
if she thought it important enough. (She didn’t.)
My
mother would drive my little brother to his elementary school, drop me at my
high school, and finally make her way to her part-time job. One day, I decided
I would walk. Henceforth, I neither burdened my mother with requests for rides,
nor endured the purgatory of the school bus.
The
only problem was getting out of bed. Leaving the house in the early morning
hours, when the sky is still dark, and—if it’s winter—it’s cold outside, is anathema
to any 14-year old child. But rushing to a place where one will inevitably be
persecuted makes it even less attractive. Hence I would stay in bed as long as
possible, until my mother came to my room and told me “Stop hibernating like a
stupid, fat bear.” This only added to the perception of my mother as wholly lacking
in empathy for me. And—it cemented the very negative body image I already had.
Since I typically woke up late, I had to hurry to make it to school before the
first bell rang. The idea was to sneak in before that happened, so as to
attract as little attention (and thus elicit less persecution) as possible. So
I had to walk fast.
At
first, a slow walk was all I could muster. I lumbered along through the woods on
the short cut to school. I was a bit out of breath, my ill-fitting jeans were
tight on me, chafing against my thighs, and I was sweating. As the weeks went
on, I walked slightly faster and felt better. Initially, I walked only to school, taking the bus on the return.
Eventually, I started walking home as well. I would hurry along, hoping to beat
the school bus home, thereby avoiding any encounter with the persecutors.
Although I did not realize it at the time, this caused me to walk ever faster.
My fitness was improving gradually. And some mornings, I would wake up very
late, not wanting to go to school at all. When I finally left the house for
school, it was at a trot. I trotted through the woods in my hijab, tight jeans,
and long shirt, book bag on my back, wishing I was going anywhere but to
school.
By
the time I entered the 11th grade at AHS, I had further refined my
technique. I would leave the house in the morning as if going to school.
Instead of school, I headed for a patch of bushes on the periphery of the
housing development. The bushes were substantial enough to shield me from view,
but sparse enough to let sunlight through. Somehow I found great comfort in
them. I would lie there, sometimes dozing off, until such time as I imagined
both parents had left the area. Then, I would get up, dust myself off, and head
to a nearby trail I had discovered. By this time, my family had relocated within
Annandale. We now lived in a townhouse off Braddock Road. Nearby was Burke Lake
Park. Fortuitously for me, the trail I had found led to it. I would walk at a
good clip, arriving at the lake by noon. The lake was spectacular, and I grew
to be in awe of it, letting my imagination run wild. I would dream of paddling
the huge, glistening lake by canoe, or throwing out a fishing line and pulling
out a very large, shiny fish. I felt great comfort in spending the day by
myself in the wilderness. It did not occur to me that anything could have
happened to me, a young girl of 15, alone in the park for hours each day. I
felt a Force protecting me there, and I was certainly much safer there than at school,
where there was only hatred and bullies.
Not
far from Burke Lake was Wakefield Park, a recreation center which included a
swimming pool and tennis courts. Sometimes I would spend part of my day there,
watching kids in their swim classes. Then I would make the hour-long trek home.
My sense of timing remained sorely lacking, so sometimes I left the park too
late, necessitating a jog to beat bus, bullies, or my parents’ arrival home. Amazingly,
the running was getting easier, and I was moving more quickly and with
confidence.
Occasionally
I would forsake the park for the city. At age 15, I had a political consciousness
far beyond my years. I attributed this to the fact that my father, to whom I’ve
always been close, was a journalist, writer, and political activist. He was a
long-time opponent of the Bhutto dictatorship. In point of fact, Bhutto had
threatened to jail him if he dared return to Pakistan. Instead my father had
chosen self-exile.
One
of his first jobs in the United States was with the Muslim Students Association
(MSA), the largest and most reactionary Muslim organization in the U.S. at the
time (it later became known as the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA).
My father was editor of MSA’s news magazine, called Islamic Horizons. In violation of editorial policy, he dared to
criticize the Saudi dictatorship, as well as other repressive Arab regimes. The
MSA, whose major underwriter at the time was Saudi Arabia, rapidly fired him. But—they
could not silence him.
Needless
to say, much of the talk in our household was of a political nature. As a
consequence, I too, became very political, and my activities in the city
reflected that. But first—with Annandale being so remote and inaccessible—I had
to catch a bus, followed by a train, followed by another bus to get to the
action.
By
age 16, I had joined the youth wing of the Socialist Workers Party and regularly
travelled to the city by myself, using public transportation. The oddity of an
ostensibly sheltered Asian Muslim teenage girl, traipsing around some of the most
downtrodden areas of Washington, DC, never occurred to me at the time. As with
my visits to Burke Lake Park, I felt much safer in the DC Hood than in the
White Supremacist trap of AHS.
Lying
about my age to the socialists, I hooked school to attend their meetings, as
well as those of various anti-war and solidarity organizations. I liked the SWP’s rhetoric, against U.S.
backing of dictators in places like Iran and Nicaragua, and their support of
liberation movements like the FMLN, FSLN, and the New Jewel Movement. They were
very accepting of me, hijab and all,
and appreciated my youthful enthusiasm for their various campaigns. Under their
tutelage, I read the Marxist theories propounded by V.I. Lenin, studied the
techniques of labor organizer Farrell Dobs, and marveled at the sacrifices of
the socialist leader (later political candidate), Eugene Debs. I also worked on
the campaign to stop the deportation of a Mexican labor leader named Hector
Marroquin.
One
day, I was campaigning with the socialists at a Black high school in the heart
of DC. Our tactic was to stand outside as classes were letting out, and offer
students copies of the party’s newspaper, called “The Militant.” But for a
short while, we were inside the school building, waiting for classes to let out.
The bell rang, and students proceeded from their penultimate class to their
final one. I was shocked to see that some of the students were young Black
Muslim girls in hijab. Even more
shocking was the fact that no one was
harassing or belittling them. In fact, their (entirely Black) peers seemed to
be treating them like equals, and as if everything was normal!
In
Spring of 1985, I hooked school near daily to work as a student volunteer in
the national office of the April Actions Committee. The office was run by activist
Michelle Tingling-Clemens, who later became renowned in the DC activist
committee for her principled stance for DC statehood, among other issues. It
was also at the April Actions office that I met Luci Murphy, a local jazz
legend and activist who would become a role model and mentor for me. The office
coordinated a diverse coalition of groups, which cut across racial, ethnic,
social, and gender lines, bringing them together for an April march for “Jobs,
Peace and Freedom.” The experience enlarged my horizons, gave me confidence in
dealing with the public, and helped formulate some of my current world vision.
Time
flew by, and before I knew it, I had missed two-thirds of the classes I should
have taken that school year. Fortunately for me, the parents never asked how my
school day went, or what I had learned at school that day, so I continued to
flourish in the safety of Burke Lake Park, or at the April Actions Committee.
Then
one day, there was a knock on the door, and it was the truant officer. Only
then did my parents realize something was amiss. Needless to say, I had failed
the 11th grade, and would be taking it again.
Our
family moved to Perry Hall, a Baltimore suburb, in conjunction with my father’s
job. There, I had a fresh start. After five years of wearing hijab completely unsupported and in a
hostile environment, and yet refusing to remove it, I felt I had won that
battle. Temporarily, I set it aside in favor of a kaffiyah. And—I wore a black tee-shirt saying “Question Authority”
to class. Amazingly the kaffiyah did not elicit quite such
hatred as an actual hijab. (The
“Question Authority” tee, on the other hand, did raise the ire of some
teachers.)
In
keeping with the tee’s message, I daily questioned what I regarded as “the
establishment version of history” in my humanities classes. In April 1986, the
U.S. bombed Libya in violation of international law. The strike killed Colonel Qaddafi’s
daughter. The next day, I clandestinely placed fliers decrying the bombing in the
students’ lockers. The administration announced over the PA system that the
fliers in no way represented the views of the school, were in fact
anti-semitic, and that anyone with information on the culprit ought come forth.
Despite
these minor clashes with the PHHS administration, I had a more positive view of
school there. And, although the persecution had ceased, and there was no
pressing need, I continued to use running as a mode of transportation, at least
one way (usually on the return, from school to home).
Perry
Hall High, for some reason, placed me a PE class with entirely obese students
and smokers. The class was tested for their mile times on the high school
track. Other than a very fit girl who happened to be a smoker, I was the only
one able to meet the minimum requirement (in fact I was significantly faster than
the requirement).
As
a result of doing well on the one-mile test for PE class, I developed an
affinity for the Perry Hall track. I would frequently run on it after school
even when I didn’t have to. And- I would nearly always run home after school, books
and other belongings in a backpack on my back. It was a liberating feeling.
That
fall, while my parents were away, I participated in my first race, a fun run at
White Marsh Mall. I was not very fast, and looked nothing if not dumpy in the
few photos I found of that race much later. But that did not stop me. Shortly
after that, I did the very hilly Zoo Zoom 5-Miler (at the Baltimore Zoo). I had
just begun to run, and would not stop until I had done dozens of 5Ks, 10Ks, and
10-milers. I did my first half marathon (13.1 miles) in 1992, five years after
completing high school.
In
2007, as I wrapped up a long, drawn out biochemistry degree, I toyed with the
idea of running a marathon. Throughout high school, when I had an exceedingly
low self-concept, regarding myself as fat, dumpy, and unattractive, I’d admired
Grete Waitz, Ingrid Christianson, Bill Rogers and Frank Shorter—all world class
marathoners, and all very white. There were no Pakistani women marathoners for
role models. Pakistani women simply weren’t lean and fast, And they weren’t
crazy enough to run such ridiculously long distances. Neither—by all
appearances—did African women, or any other women of color. So, in this arena
at least, there were no shoulders to stand on.
After
two years of convincing myself that running 26.2 miles was within the realm of
possibility for me, I ran my first marathon in 2009 in Harrisburg, PA. I did
not hydrate or replenish electrolytes properly in that first marathon, and so
“hit the wall” at mile 21. That forced me to stop running, and, feeling a tinge
of disappointed at getting so close, but yet missing the mark, I walked the
remaining 5 miles of the race. But, as I result I was challenged to do another
marathon. And then another. That year, after Harrisburg, I ran the Rehoboth and
Charlotte marathons.
The
following year (2010), I did the Washington, DC; Frederick; and Omaha marathons.
Omaha was my first time running the 26.2 miles in under 4 hours, but that has
rather become a standard for me.
Last
spring, I ran the Boston Marathon in the name of Pakistani woman neuroscientist
whom the U.S. unfortunately holds political prisoner on trumped up charges, Dr.
Aafia Siddiqui. That was my proudest moment ever, not because I was running
Boston—I’ve qualified for that many times prior, but elected not to run it.
Rather, I was so pleased to run in her name, that of an outstanding, innocent
Pakistani Muslim woman of great achievement. She deserves to have a marathon
named after her. And—she deserves be released, immediately and unconditionally.
This
past fall, I ran the Marine Corps Marathon, my 34th time doing the
26.2 mile distance.
On
Martin Luther King Day, as I visited Burke Lake Park, an adult athlete about to
run the MLK 8K, the memories from adolescent days spent there came flooding
back. As a young girl, I had experienced isolation, loneliness, and the need to
flee persecution. But, I had been certain of, and determined to defend to the
hilt, my identity as a Muslim and my right to wear the hijab. At that time, I had only a superficial awareness of the
civil rights movement. Even White High Schools like the ones I attended
mandated that students watch a movie on Dr. King on MLK Day. The students did
so reluctantly, many of them rolling their eyes with evident resentment or
contempt for the film’s subject. So I was aware, at least, of the popular
version of Dr. King. But—I had never heard of Freddie Hampton, George Jackson,
Jonathan Jackson, Assata Shakur, H. Rapp Brown, Huey Newton, Elaine Brown, and
others who had made immense sacrifices for true freedom for all people. At the
time, I had known only that my right to wear the hijab, something ordained by the Creator, was being denied. But as
I soon found out, Black people in this country were experiencing far more
serious violations: They could be shot by police, merely for walking or bicycling
down the street; strip-searched in public view by police; beat to death for not
wearing a seat belt. All these were daily violations experienced by Blacks in a
country which claimed to extoll Dr. King.
Once
slow and lumbering in that very same park, I took first place in the 8K that
Martin Luther King Day. And I did so again the following year. As I thanked the
Creator for the gift of running, I realized that a furnace of persecution could
be a means to open my eyes to natural alliances.
© 2018 Nadrat Siddique
