Muslim Woman Kicked Out Of Indiana Family Dollar Store For Wearing A Hijab [Video]
An American Muslim woman recorded herself being kicked out of a store in Indiana for wearing traditional attire, according to WLS-TV.
Sarah Safi, 32, a resident of Gary, Indiana, had gone to the Family Dollar store to buy some charcoal for a barbecue she planned to host Monday night. As is a common custom with many Muslim women — of covering their full body when out in public — Sarah had donned herself in the traditional Muslim attire comprising of a burqa and a hijab. And although this is the way that Sarah has always dressed and has never run into trouble once because of it, this time, she was in for a shock.
‘It’s a high crime area’: Woman wearing traditional #Muslim clothing kicked out of store https://t.co/TG8TG7eyGN pic.twitter.com/Mam0gssp74
— RT America (@RT_America) August 3, 2016
According to Sarah’s version of the events, as soon as she stepped into the Family Dollar store, she was immediately asked to leave it.
“I might have made it 10 steps into the store and I hear the lady behind the counter say, ‘Ma’am, you need to take that off your face or you need to leave my store.'”
Having never faced similar intolerance previously in America, Sarah concedes the prevailing mood against Muslims — amplified by the rhetoric used by leaders like Donald Trump — could be the reason for such explicit discrimination.
When Sarah was asked to leave the store, she decided to take out her cellphone and document the event. This is where the exchange in the video begins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=J84LL5Wop2c
Sarah, who was born and raised in Texas, told the woman clerk of the Family Dollar store that she was wearing the hijab because of religious reasons, but the clerk was having none of it.
“I understand, but you have to understand, too, this is a high crime area and we get robbed a lot. You need to remove that from your face or remove yourself from the store,” says the clerk, who also identified as the manager, in the video.
“I told her this country is a country of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and I have a right to wear whatever I want,” Safi said, but the clerk was insistent that she leave the store or she would have to deal with the police.
With her children waiting outside in the car, Sarah thought the best course of action would be to leave the store without arguing back. But humiliated as she was, she confessed that she had an urge to fight back.
“Do I wait for the police to come and let my children see this, or do I go head and just go and let Allah handle it how he sees fit?” the Muslim woman said she asked herself before leaving.
Sarah says that she would like to talk to the woman clerk once again to explain why the ordeal “saddened” her. According to Sarah, she and the manager of the Family Store would find many things in common.
“I would like to sit with her and speak to her about what I believe in, because maybe if she heard and really listened to what I believe it I would open her heart.”
Ahmed Rehab with the Council on American-Islamic Relations said that what happened with Sarah has been happening to Muslims around the country for some time now, reports Syracuse. Moderate Muslims at home are having to bear the brunt of the reaction to the terrorist actions of religious fanatics overseas.
“It’s not just a blatant violation of the civil rights laws of this country, but it’s also a violation of the basic laws of decency and morality that you don’t treat customers this way just because they have a different cultural background or a different religion.”
As the Inquisitr reported recently, a Muslim man named Mohamed Ahmed Radwan was kicked out off of an American Airlines flight after a flight attendant pointed him out to other passengers.
[Image via Shutterstock]
