Two stories today shed light on the mainstreaming of Islamic fundamentalism in American society.
One is a story about the Miss World America Organization stripping Kathy Zhu of her crown as Miss Michigan, supposedly for writing “offensive, insensitive and inappropriate’’ social media posts. Hmm, maybe. Or maybe she was targeted because she had rejected the second-class citizenship that Islamic fundamentalism expects all women to don like a hijab. As author Andrea Peyser at the New York Post says, Zhu was “conservative-shamed” for not toeing the liberal leftist loon line.
The second story is about Ilhan Omar, the Muslim member of Congress from Minnesota, who was praised by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank as “quintessentially American” because she speaks her mind freely and says outrageous things on a daily basis. In Milbank’s story, Omar condemned fundamentalist Islamic groups like Hamas and fundamentalist Islamic practices such as female genital mutilation as ““so abhorrent, so offensive, so evil, so vile.”
Yet if Kathy Zhu had made the same remarks, she would have been condemned as a racist bigot.
This is just one more symptom of the left-wing lunacy that celebrates diversity with one hand while promoting oppression with the other. This isn’t about religion or beauty pageants. It is about how women are treated, and why. Omar can get away with calling the practices of medieval Islamic fundamentalism as “offensive” and “vile,” but only because she is wearing a . hijab. Kathy Zhu meanwhile is a fair target because she objected to being forced to wear a hijab, which she rightly considers a symbol of medieval oppression.
According to Peyser:
Zhu was punished for social media posts she’d issued in 2017 and ’18.
Last year, she drew attention while a student at Central Florida University for criticizing a Muslim Student Association event in which women were invited to try on hijabs, head coverings worn in public by some Muslim women.
“So you’re telling me that it’s now just a fashion accessory and not a religious thing?” Zhu tweeted at the time about the hijab challenge. “Or are you just trying to get women used to being oppressed under Islam?”
The current University of Michigan senior is hardly alone in her distaste for garb that many people view as freighted with sexism. I wouldn’t have willingly tried one on, either.
“What’s ‘insensitive’ is that women in the middle east are getting STONED TO DEATH for refusing to obey their [husbands’] orders to wear hijabs,’’ she wrote in an (apparently dismissed) email to pageant officials. “A muslim woman tried to FORCIBLY put a hijab on my head without my permission . . . are the people in MWA implying that they advocate for the punishment of women who refuse to wear a hijab?’’
For pageant honchos, however, Zhu’s refusal to don the headgear and associated comments were unforgivably toxic.
It is hard to know what to make of this level of social sickness. It is much easier to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist. Or celebrate oppression in the name of diversity as Milbank does. He writes glowingly of Omar putting moderate Muslims in their place for their effort to enlist Omar as an ally:
The head of a group called Muslims for Progressive Values rose to say that “it would be really powerful if the two Muslim congresswomen” — Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. — spoke out against the practice of female genital mutilation.
Omar silenced the room by calling the question “appalling.” Noting that she already “put out statements upon statements” on the topic, she said she’s “quite disgusted, to be honest, that as Muslim legislators we are constantly being asked to waste our time speaking to issues that other people are not asked to speak to.”
She mockingly asked whether she needs “to be on repeat every five minutes. So, today, I forgot to condemn al-Qaeda, so here’s the al-Qaeda one. Today, I forgot to condemn FGM [female genital mutilation], so here it goes. Today, I forgot to condemn Hamas, so here it goes.” She said the questions imply that, because she’s Muslim, she might support things “so abhorrent, so offensive, so evil, so vile.”
Her all-American outrage vented, Omar concluded: “I would like, not just for you, but for everyone to know that if you want us to speak as politicians, American politicians, then you treat us as such.”
Really? Omar wants to be treated as just another politician? Then let’s realize that if a politician makes statements praising al-Qaida or refusing to condemn terrorism the way she has done, then they are condemned, not held up as models of decency.
Yet many American women support Omar because she is seen as a strong role model. I don’t get it. If women are strong in support of the oppressive society of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” doesn’t that mean they are against women?
There is nothing “quintessentially American” about treating those around you with disdain the way that Omar does on a regular basis. She’s also repeatedly used anti-semitic language and dismissed the threat of Islamic terrorism. I’ll take Kathy Zhu every time — a woman who thinks for herself and refuses to be treated like a second-class citizen instead of wearing the hijab like a badge of honor.
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