The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Monday, February 6, 2017 — 3A

of coming together during a 
difficult time and fostering 
a safe space for the speakers. 
Al-Bonijim 
discussed 
the 

controversy surrounding the 
hijab in wake of the election 
and said she hopes the event 
will eradicate some of the 
misconceptions of the hijab.

“We came up with the name 

‘halfway hijabi’ because we feel 
being Muslim in America often 
feels like we have a sly identity,” 
she 
said. 
“With 
increasing 

xenophobia and Islamophobia, 
hijabi women have become the 
battleground for Islam-based 
politics because we are easily 
identified as Muslim. We are 
here to claim our voices and our 
space in the discussion of the 
hijab.”

Speakers of a variety of 

backgrounds, 
nationalities 

and 
identities 
shared 
their 

relationship with the hijab. 
Haidar said she wanted the 
audience to understand that 
what a hijab may mean to one 
woman may mean something 
completely different to another.

“There is no one image of 

a hijab that anyone can fully 
represent,” she said.

Muslim women have been 

at the center of post-election 
tension. 
In 
December, 
the 

Ann Arbor Police Department 
issued a report of a female 
student forced to remove her 
hijab, provoking large student 
protests — though AAPD later 
determined the incident did 
not occur. A similar crime alert 
labeled as “ethnic intimidation” 
a few days later — in addition to 
a spike in hate crimes around 
the country — fed a series of 
protests and vigils after the 
election.

LSA junior Noor Sulieman, 

a 
Syrian-American 
hijabi 

Muslim, began the night with 
her journey with the hijab 
as one of personal rebellion 
against society.

“Nothing in me, not my 

religion, 
my 
hijab 
or 
my 

heritage makes me any less 
American,” 
Sulieman 
said. 

“I would only argue it makes 
me more American. The type 
of American that works hard 
every day to push this country 
toward the path of social justice 
and equality for all.”

LSA 
freshman 
Maria 

Tout, 
a 
Lebanese-American 

immigrant, spent her childhood 
in Ypsilanti. On a visit to 
Lebanon at age 10, Tout admired 
the hijabi women around her 
and made the personal choice 
to wear the hijab, a decision she 

has stood by ever since.

“I didn’t have to,” she said. 

“Nobody wanted me to. It was 
only me.”

Being the only hijabi in many 

of her classes at the University 
can be difficult, Tout admitted, 
especially 
when 
her 
peers 

expect her to have a reaction to 
politics.

“Everyone would be like, ‘It’s 

Maria, let’s ask her how she 
feels,’ ” she said. “I didn’t want 
to talk to anybody. The caring 
and support seemed unreal.”

Ross 
sophomore 
Mariam 

Doudi, 
a 
first-generation 

Sudanese-American 
from 

Dearborn, said growing up 
as a Black-Arab Muslim, she 
struggled to fit in with either 
Black or Arab communities.

“My 
whole 
life 
I 
have 

been defined by my physical 
attributes, contributing to a 
lifetime of insecurity in terms 
of not belonging,” Doudi said. 
“On top of all my struggles that 
I have as a Black Arab, comes 
the fact that I am a hijabi. I am 
fighting two battles.”

Doudi said President Donald 

Trump’s recent immigration 
ban on seven Muslim-majority 
countries 
made 
her 
feel 

personally attacked.

“I was shocked to see that 

Sudan was on the list because 
we are not a country where 

terrorists come from,” Doudi 
said. “We are one of the most 
generous and hospitable people 
that I have ever met.”

Midway 
through 
the 

event, two performers led a 
rendition of Leonard Cohen’s 
“Hallelujah,” 
eliciting 
a 

standing 
ovation 
from 
the 

audience. The second portion of 
the night featured an open mike 
session.

Alum 
Sarah 
Khan’s 

monologue centered around 
a disclosure of her depression 
and anxiety in what she said 
was the first time she spoke in 
public about her struggle with 
mental health. Khan said she 
used to fear discussing mental 
health in her community.

“Having depression means 

sometimes hating my religion 
because my religion hasn’t 
fixed me and sometimes hating 
my religion because I can’t 
hide it,” Khan said. “I can’t 
hide my scarf, something that 
feels like a second skin to me. 
I have been harassed so many 
times for it.”

Khan said being a member 

of 
the 
Muslim 
community 

while having depression can be 
burdensome.

“Here I am, a brown Muslim 

woman trying to figure out how 
to survive in a world not built 
for my existence and trying 

to fix myself piece by piece,” 
Khan said. “I am so burdened 
with 
the 
responsibility 
of 

speaking for Muslims that I 
can barely focus on my own 
spirituality.”

In 
Canton 
high-schooler 

Khadega Mohammed’s spoken-
word piece titled “Once Upon 
a Time,” Mohammed told of 
a time in the United States, 
before Sept. 11, when Muslims 
were not seen as terrorists, 
she did not have to endure 
random screening checks at 
airports, did not fear attacks 
upon entering her mosque and 
her mother did not fear for her 
safety every day.

“Your 9/11 is our 24/7,” she 

said. “America would not be 
America without me, without 
Muslims, Blacks and Hispanics 
and minorities. Once upon a 
time, we were not a threat to 
your Americanism. Once upon 
a time people chose love over 
hate.”

Being 
a 
Black 
Muslim 

woman is tiring, Mohammed 
emphasized, in her second 
piece titled “Breathe.”

“I wish my skin color didn’t 

define whether I’m a Trayvon 
or a Zimmerman,” she said. 
“I wish the scarf on my head 
didn’t stereotype if I’m a 
devout Christian or a Taliban.”

LSA juniors Angela Hong 

and Komel Khan attended the 
event to gain awareness about 
the meaning of hijab, and to 
hear the stories of University 
students striving for social 
change through their activism.

Hong 
said 
she 
was 

appreciative that the event 
coordinators 
were 
able 
to 

find speakers of all different 
identities.

“I felt like all of us could 

identify at least some part of 
ourselves in the speakers,” 
Hong said. “It’s really difficult 
to become open and to talk 
about life experiences in front 
of a large crowd, but I felt like 
everyone presented it in a way 
that was very relatable.”

For Khan, the monologues 

were 
empowering 
and 

uplifting, reminding her that 
she has the power to speak out 
and make a difference.

“I saw a lot of love from 

the speakers and from the 
audience,” she said. “I saw a 
lot of sadness. It helped me 
realize that although there are 
differences in faith or lack of 
love, we all, regardless of our 
identities experience the same 
emotions, the same feelings of 
love and sadness. From tonight, 
I just want to remember that I 
can be vocal about my different 
identities and to know that there 
is support from the University.”

MONOLOGUES
From Page 1A

past 10 days, according to AAPD 
Detective Lieutenant Matthew 
Lige. Friday night’s incident was 
followed by a robbery on Saturday 
night and two armed robberies on 
Jan. 25.

Lige said the consistent pattern 

of the crimes should be worrisome 
to students.

“They 
have 
all 
occurred 

downtown near campus,” Lige said. 
“They all involve a U of M student. 
They all involve a student walking 
by himself or herself and in each 
case, a firearm has been produced 
with robbery being the motive.”

He also said all the robberies 

have taken place on side streets and 
areas of the city that are not well lit.

LSA 
junior 
Caroline 
Hurd 

said she lives in the area where 

the recent robberies have taken 
place. She plays club hockey at the 
University and often gets home late 
at night from practice. In light of 
the recent crimes, Hurd said she is 
now scared on her way home after 
practice.

“I’m pretty alarmed about it,” 

Hurd said. “I previously felt pretty 
safe living in a neighborhood that is 
so close to campus. I personally live 
right near East Quad, but with the 
recent armed robberies, I feel pretty 
unsafe being outside at night.”

In response to the series of 

robberies, Lige said AAPD is 
cooperating in full with DPSS on 
the cases. He also said the two 
forces are doing everything they 
can to track down the criminals and 
put this case to bed.

“This is obviously a priority 

investigation not only for the city 
police but also the University 
police,” Lige said. “We’ve been 
working 
with 
their 
detective 

bureau and their officers since we 
got the first two reports and now 
we’re even working with greater 
coordination than we had been 
because now we’ve got a total of 
four.”

The victim said he regretted 

not calling a cab and walking by 
himself.

“People should try and stay in 

groups or Uber home because this 
is an alarming trend,” he said.

Lige echoed the victim and said 

no physical possessions you own 
are worth risking your life over.

“If any student or member of 

the community is accosted in a 
way that we are seeing with these 
four, your backpack, your cell 
phone, your laptop is not worth 
you facing injury in any form or 
shape,” Lige said. “Those items 
can be recovered, they can be 
replaced, but obviously your well-
being and your physical health 
cannot be.”

CRIMES
From Page 1A

work,” he said. “I’m asking 
you, I’m telling you, we need to 
get labor back in that boat.”

These 
speeches 
were 

followed by the forums for 
the candidates of treasurer 
and 
secretary, 
respectively. 

The second half of the day 
contained three forums: Vice 
chair for civic engagement and 
voter participation, vice chair, 
and chair.

Donna Brazile, the interim 

chair of the DNC, oversaw 
the Future Forum, and spoke 
about her faith in the party 
and its strength. Brazile set 
the tone for the forum, as 
many speakers would echo 
the theme of party unity and 

“rising up.”

“I believe in this party and 

I believe in its future,” Brazile 
said. “The comeback of the 
DNC is inevitable. We are 
going to come back, and come 
back now, we are going to win 
the seats back in 2018.”

Joining her, Dingell closed 

the first section of the morning 
session 
by 
delivering 
a 

concentrated statement about 
the necessity to unite the part 
under one common message.

“We need to unite under 

one goal and message,” Dingell 
said. “If we don’t, this country 
is becoming a country of 
billionaires and a country that 
people want to escape from, 
not come to.”

The forum formally began 

when 
Stephen 
Henderson 

took the stage to moderate 
the discussion between the 

two candidates for treasurer. 
Henderson, 
a 
University 

of Michigan alum and the 
Detroit Free Press editorial 
page editor, moderated the 
forum between all competing 
candidates.

Throughout their responses 

to questions on how they 
intend to rebuild the party, 
many candidates placed an 
emphasis on rallying behind 
the younger generation of the 
party.

One of the nine candidates 

for vice chair, Liz Jaff, who 
identified 
as 
a 
millennial, 

stated she believes that her 
generation is ready to be 
mobilized, but referred to 
needing a stronger sense of 
party-wide unity.

DNC
From Page 1A

universities and with University 
departments and researchers is 
essential to this preservation work.

“The 
collaborative 
effort 

is really the thing that makes 
this go, whether it’s between 
people collaborating within the 
U of M, Noa and myself to our 
biology librarians to our SNRE 
librarians, that’s the piece that 
really makes this happen,” Schell 
said.

Kasman said the inspiration for 

these ongoing events came from 
a similar event at the University 
of Toronto in December and was 
modeled after an event hosted by 
the University of Pennsylvania 
earlier this month. She also said 
the coordination of this project 
helped preserve the data, and 
does so in a way that will make it 
practical for future use.

“The anticipation of what you 

want the final project to look 
like and how you want things 
to be useful and retrievable for 

people is there, and I think that 
that’s really important,” she said. 
“Just having people coordinated 
over that effort across all of 
these 
different 
universities, 

and 
geographically 
being 

able to have some sort of core 
coordination over that makes it 
so that whatever it is that we’re 
producing is going to have the 
greater potential of being useful.”

Kristine 
Auwers, 
a 

Information master’s student, 
helped 
familiarize 
volunteers 

with the archiving process at 
the event. She said she felt the 
archiving efforts provided a place 
to make direct, visible change.

“There are a lot of ways to be 

involved with activism, but doing 
a direct action that is something 
that is immediately useful is a 
unique opportunity,” she said.

Auwers also noted how these 

efforts, while related to the 
current political climate, was not 
a partisan effort.

“You could see a support for an 

action for this that’s bipartisan,” 
she said. “We have people who are 
concerned about climate change 
and accurate data reporting on 

both sides of the aisle.”

Kasman said in addition to 

making a material difference by 
preserving data, she hopes the 
efforts raise awareness of the 
importance of archiving.

“I also really like the idea of 

people being more aware of the 
Internet archiving that they 
can do,” she said. “Obviously 
this coordinated effort, it’s 
really important and I think it’s 
great that we have people who 
are participating. But I think 
it’s also empowering for them 
to see, ‘I can archive these 
websites on my own as well, I 
can use tools like the internet 
archive to save websites that 
I think are important to be 
saved.’”

Schell said though he is not 

sure of the particulars, he aims 
to have more events like this in 
the future at the University.

“We want to work with the 

community of people who were 
there, not just the people who 
have expertise that we need 
getting data or researching this 
kind of data sets, but the people 
who just want to help,” he said.

ARCHIVE
From Page 1A

USA’s status in science will 
continue to plummet.”

At the end of January, 

Trump released an executive 
order that halts citizens of 
Muslim-majority 
countries 

such as Syria and Somalia from 
traveling or immigrating to 
the United States for a period 
of three months. The order 
sparked criticism and protest 
across the countries, as many 
viewed it to be discriminatory 
toward Muslims and fatal 
toward those fleeing violence 
in their home countries.

Judge 
James 
Robart 
of 

Seattle temporarily blocked 
the order this weekend, ruling 
that all green card and visa 
holders should still be allowed 
to enter the country during 
this period.

It is uncertain how this 

development 
will 
affect 

Razavi’s ability to enter the 
country.

The University community 

was 
concerned 
about 
the 

effects the travel ban might 
have on higher education as 

a whole. Several petitions 
have 
circulated 
around 

the 
University, 
asking 
for 

administration 
support 
of 

refugees who were affected by 
the order.

University President Mark 

Schlissel released a statement 
last weekend affirming the 
University’s commitment to 
its 
international 
students, 

staff and faculty.

“The university complies 

with 
federal 
requirements 

associated 
with 
managing 

its international programs,” 
Schlissel 
wrote 
in 
his 

statement. 
“Otherwise, 
the 

university 
does 
not 
share 

sensitive 
information 
like 

immigration status.”

Smith’s 
post 
has 
been 

shared more than 120 times, 
and other members of the 
University community showed 
their 
support 
for 
Razavi 

and distaste for the ban in 
comments on the post.

In a follow-up comment 

on her post yesterday, Smith 
updated followers on how 
the Math department would 
proceed with the situation.

“We 
hope 
Razavi 
will 

give his Sumner Myers talk 
in Switzerland and we will 
livestream it on a big screen 
to our colloquium,” Smith 
wrote. 

BAN
From Page 1A

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

The university 
does not share 

sensitive 

information like 

immigration 

status

