Orthodox Islamic Garb Common Amongst Afro-Americans in the City of Brotherly Love (Philadelphia)

Submitted by Rex Bouvier (United States), Feb 23, 2013 at 15:15

It is quite common to see Afro-Americans dressed in ultra-orthodox garb in the city of Philadelphia, both men and women. The women are covered from head to toe with a synthetic, inexpensive, very loose-fitting, black material except for a very narrow slit to reveal a sliver of their eyes. More often than not, this clothing is worn by inner-city women, who tend to range from significantly overweight to morbidly obese. The niqab and burqa facilitate and enable an embarrassed woman of poverty, who is too poor to afford adequate health care to treat her medical problems, to walk the streets of Philadelphia without feeling like a fat pig for all men and women to see. Many of these Afro-American women imprisoned in a life of abject poverty are not religious in any traditional sense of the word, "religious."

In fact, I personally witnessed two inner city Afro-Americans (a man and a woman) conducting an exercise of second and third base in the corner of an elevator, for all of the other passengers to witness, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. That's a perfect environment in which to defy authority and decency, if any. After all, patients do it all of the time out of disgust for the very inferior state of our health care system and those professionals attached to it. Perhaps these two individuals were patients in the Founders Pavillion. Who knows? Nevertheless, this incidence demonstrates the illegitimacy of wearing such clothing in a western society. Covering one's hair, legs to the ankles, arms to the wrists, and up to the neck is one thing -- and wearing some sort of shmata on one's head, of course. Sun glasses are fine, if coated with anti-reflective coating to enable others to see one's eyes. After all, some people need to wear tinted lens for legitimate reasons. Many use religious garb to cover things, whether weight or dubious intentions.

All religious garb acts as a shield of sorts. One cannot just condemn those wearing Islamic ultra-orthodox clothing. How about those, who wear the very traditional ultra-orthodox, male garb to hide criminal activity like the white sex trade, which is so very prevalent in both the U.S. and Israel. In Israel, it is not unusual to meet an allegedly ultra-orthodox man, dressed from head to toe in very conservative, traditional, orthodox clothing, only to find out that one is confronted by a pyschopath and/or sociopath involved in criminal activities. Just ask the Israeli police in Jerusalem. When dealing with humans, anything is possible.

In a western society, all forms of religious covering should be considered contraindicative to public safety and the rule of law.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".