Muslim Women Moved From Obama TV Shot

Audience members behind the podium cheer prior to the appearance of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former Vice President Al Gore at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Monday, June 16, 2008. A young Muslim woman Hebba Aref said Wednesday, June 18, 2008, that she and another Muslim woman were excluded by Obama campaign workers from participation in their groups' invitation to sit behind the podium, because, Aref said, they were wearing traditional Muslim head scarves. AP Photo/Paul Sancya

This story was written by Ben Smith.




When Obama won the North Carolina primary amid questions about his ability to connect with white voters, for instance, he stood in front of a group of middle-aged white women waving small American flags. On the Republican side, a Hispanic New Hampshire Democrat, Roberto Fuentes, told Politico that he was recently asked, and declined, to contribute to the "diversity" of the crowd behind Sen. John McCain at a Nashua event.

But for Obama, the old-fashioned image-making contrasts with his promise to transcend identity politics and to embrace all elements of America. The incidents in Michigan, which has one of the largest Arab and Muslim populations in the country, also raise an aspect of his campaign that sometimes rubs Muslims the wrong way: The candidate has vigorously denied a false, viral rumor that he himself is Muslim. But the denials seem to some at times to imply that there is something wrong with the faith, though Obama occasionally adds that he means no disrespect to Islam.

"I was coming to support him, and I felt like I was discriminated against by the very person who was supposed to be bringing this change, who I could really relate to," said Hebba Aref, a 25-year-old lawyer who lives in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. "The message that I thought was delivered to us was that they do not want him associated with Muslims or Muslim supporters."

In Detroit on Monday, the two different Obama volunteers - in separate incidents - made it clear that headscarves wouldn't be in the picture. The volunteers gave different explanations for excluding the hijabs, one bluntly political and the other less clear.

In Aref's case, there was no ambiguity.




Both Koussan and Miller said they specifically recalled the volunteer citing the "political climate" in telling them they couldn't sit behind Obama.

"I was like, 'You've got to be kidding me. Are you serious?'" Koussan recalled.

Shimaa Abdelfadeel's story was different. She'd waited on line outside the Joe Louis Arena for three hours in the sun and was walking through the giant hall when a voluteer approached two of her non-Muslim friends, a few steps ahead of her, and asked if they'd like to sit in "special seating" behind the stage, said one friend, Brittany Marino, who, like Abdelfadeel, is a recent University of Michigan graduate who works for the university.




In most work and school settings, religious dress - such as Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh turbans, Muslim hijabs - is permitted where secular clothing like baseball caps is not.

"The scarf is not just something she can take off - it's part of her identity," said Marino.


Abdelfadeel, like Aref, felt "disappointed, angry and let-down," she later wrote.

She was "let-down that the Obama campaign continously perpetuates this attitude towards Muslims and Arabs - as if being merely associated [with] one is a sin."

The two women's friends who witnessed the incidents were disappointed too. Aref's friend Miller said he was "shocked" by the contrast between Obama's message and their experience.

"He was the one candidate who you would expect to stand up for something like that - and behind the scenes you have something completely contrary to what he was running on," said Koussan, Aref's other friend.

Aref and her friends complained to the campaign, and after those complaints and an inquiry from Politico, Obama's director of advance, Emmett S. Beliveau, called her to apologize.

An Obama aide also noted that the campaign has no policy against the candidate's appearing with women in headscarves: The next morning at Wayne State University, Obama posed for a picture with a student wearing a hijab.

Photographs from a Seattle rally earlier this year also clearly show a couple in Muslim clothes behind the candidate.

The administrator of the "Muslims4Obama" group on Obama's website, which is not a formal part of the campaign, also said she had "not heard anything regarding Muslim supporters being steered away from sitting behind Sen. Obama at the event," and noted that he had Muslim supporters present at events in Minnesota, including one at which he stood with a Muslim member of Congress, Keith Ellison.

Aref said she was glad Obama had apologized, but she was not entirely satisfied.

"I think this is a much bigger deal than maybe they're perceiving it as," she said, noting that Obama had placed a personal call to a television reporter he'd dismissively called "Sweetie."

"An apology from him personally would be better," she said, then reconsidered. "If they are true to their word, I think it would suffice to have an invitation to their next rally and have seats behind him and show up on TV."

By Ben Smith
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