#if everyone started wearing kippot to show they totally cared about dead jews I think I’d go crazy

[dykesynthezoid]

To my knowledge I don’t think anyone’s ever necessarily said non-Muslims or people who aren’t Arab can’t wear keffiyeh/hattah but I’ll admit I do start to feel weird sometimes when pro-Palestinian activists here in the west start wearing it like a costume. The turning the Palestinian flag into an accessory thing, too, is… idk. I get people wanting to show their support for a movement they feel passionate about.

Maybe there’s just something about seeing it on a college campus in a very large liberal city specifically that makes me start thinking about how many Muslims in the diaspora still don’t have the option to wear cultural symbols like that just for their own safety. There’s something about seeing a non-Muslim, non-Arab college student wearing a keffiyeh that was clearly mass produced with rushed messy stitching that makes me feel a little unsettled.

Cultural symbols are powerful things and I don’t think that power should be discounted, but bc they’re symbols they’re also all too easily divorced from any one specific message or meaning. Someone w zero connection to Palestine wearing Palestinian flag earrings is like; what does that actually tell me about their politics? I never know what to think of that. And I’m wary of how western activists can treat causes like sports teams. (And meanwhile lord knows I would not have an easy time if I walked outside right now wearing a kippah or magen david.)