Thursday, July 9, 2009

Instead of Random Acts of Kindness, I Get Violence

I am beginning to feel as if I have a sign on me that says "Attack Me, it's ok" because I have been physically attacked 4 times in the last 4 months. Is there a schedule or something that I don't know about?

The last one happened this past Sunday about one hour just before sunset (Maghreb). I went to my friend's house to pick them up. We were going to go to see Yusuf Estes at a masjid about 30 minutes from there. When we pulled out of the apartment parking, and approached the road, we had to wait for traffic to let us go. I kept looking to the left for traffic since I needed to turn left and had to cross the rightbound traffic. There was a African American couple walking towards the driveway and during the time we were waiting, they got closer and closer.

After they got to a close distance the man began yelling profanities at me. He told me that "I needed to go back to my country, and I was "in their way". (I didn't pull out in front of them, they were far away when I pulled up. All they had to do was walk behind me anyway.) I tried to just ignore the man, but I decided to pull into the median between the opposing traffic to wait to turn left from there just to get away from this ugly personality.

We had the windows to the car down to release the hot air trapped in the car because it was so hot outside. While patiently waiting in the median, I was shocked to see that the man took it upon himself to walk across the street to the passenger side of my car and was still yelling his profanities. My friend told the man to "Just go on your way and leave us alone", then in response he hit the door of the car in his rage and telling us that "we don't tell him what to do!" After hitting the car again, my friend openened the door to make him stop and the man tried to start a physical fight. I yelled for my friend to get back in the car as I was trying to roll up the windows.

After my friend got back in the car, I looked around only to see that other cars had stopped to watch the fiasco, but no one ever called police. What if someone got hurt? It really saddens me about how ignorant and pathetic people can be. This man was telling me and my friend to both go back to "our countries"......but we are both AMERICANS! I was born and raised American and converted to Islam 3 years ago. Just because I wear a scarf (hijab) does not automatically mean that I am from somewhere else. It is just as if I were to tell this (black African American) to "go back to his country". It is just stupid!

Anyway, alhamdulilah, no one was hurt and my car wasn't either, just a scratch. May Allah give him his rewards.

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