One of the things that I appreciate most about living in a multicultural city is having had the chance to actually see the humanity in people that are different from me. I don't mean to imply that I was a racist ass before; one doesn't need to be hateful to be prejudiced. Actually, I find unrevised ethnocentrism much more prevalent than flat-out racism, and I suspect it is that "milder" version of prejudice what keeps unequal, unjust structures in place rather than open hostility and hatred.
I grew up in a part of Spain, Asturias, where everybody is pretty much the same. The most striking difference in identity may be place of origin, as in Gijón vs. Oviedo, or urban vs. rural. Of course, there's class. There's always class. But in terms of other cultures, I never came accross any individuals who were "different." Well, I did have a gypsy girl in my elementary class that suffered a great deal of prejudice, but Africans, North Africans, Asians, Arabs, Jews, even Scandinavians or "blonde, blue-eyed Americans," were abstract entities to me that stayed in the realm of novels, movies, and textbooks. I didn't feel hatred for other groups but I didn't see them as fully human either, as being similar to me in the most concrete form.
When I first arrived in New York, what fascinated me wasn't the wide avenues, the impossibly tall buildings, the neck-breaking speed of the city, the multitude of yellow spots in the shape of taxi cabs. It was the diversity of people populating the streets. All different, not just in racial and ethnic terms, but in their individuality. However, this original fascination still had the whiff of dehumanization. I still felt apprehensive about "otherness," hardly seeing the "other" as fundamentally the "same" while "different." Years of interaction with people different from me, including personal and professional close relationships, helped me shed this apprehension and, most importantly, helped me remain open to each individual's humanity and invidividuality.
There's a basic premise in this approach: no assumptions. One cannot assume to know anything about somebody else's inner life, including feelings, identifications, values, beliefs, opinions, based on what "group" they seem to belong to. Here's a radical idea: How about wondering, staying with the "unknown"? When we see a woman wearing a handkerchief on her head, as Elías notes here, is is possible to stay curious as to what this religious symbol means to this particular woman? It is only too easy to assuage our anxiety about difference by locking meaning immediately and defining her according to preconceived notions that are familiar to us, fixed meanings that avoid "grey areas" of unknowing.
I would not want to deny the reality of oppression present in all cultures to different degrees, including Muslim social structures in regard to women, as this case may hint at. But there's another reality I don't want to deny either: I have no idea about what meaning this particular woman attaches to covering her head. It is paternalistic -and inherently condescending- to deprive her of individuality and make assumptions that obliterate her voice. To do so is to put yourself in an elevated plane in relation to her, to presume to know something that she does not yet or is not willing to face. To truly respect somebody is to give them the chance to create their own meaning, to fully exist in their own terms without our "assistance," our "permission," or our certainty that our meaning-making is the only standard by which to exist.
Allowing another person their individuality and humanity isn't "political correctness," it's basic respect that we would also want others to have towards us. Having had the experienced of being fetishized, mistreated, silenced, idealized by other people's definitions of "who I must be" because of being a Spaniard, a Latina, a woman, a foreigner, an "expat," I can attest to how disrespectful and infuriating it is to be denied my own individuality, my unique voice. I wouldn't want to that to others. No matter how uncomfortable or anxiety-producing their choices may be to me, still I cannot claim to know better.
