Observation Journal 5

"What are you supposed to be?" "Muslim women, can't you tell?"

On Halloween I took my two little brothers trick or treating. We left the house and walked down the road aways. We say many different outfits including fun ones like a toaster and other outfits such as little girls dressed like genies. I also saw two girls in long dresses, about 10 years old walking with each other, both had mothers following behind them. I watched the two girls bump into a friend from school. "What are you guys supposed to be?" he asked. "Oh, we're Muslim women. Can't you tell?" One of the girls said as she pointed to her forehead and then did a spin around to show off her outfit. Now I have since been told to get over it, as it was "no big deal," but I am just blown away by this.

These two girls were dressed in long dresses one pink and one blue. They both had respectively pink and blue sparkling head covers. These were very over the top and exaggerated. Also the girls wore large sparkling gems on their foreheads. They ran around the streets like all the other children, but I couldn't help but think why they decided to be Muslim for Halloween, or why their mother's approved. It's like being Jewish for Halloween, it is just so rude. And for the record, I've never seen anyone dressed up like a Jew for Halloween. I feel like those girls (and in turn) their mothers are mocking Muslim women by 'dressing up like one.'

Oh, and the gems.... how ignorant!!! The gems that those girls put of their foreheads were supposed to be like the third eye that many Hindu women have, which is actually supposed to be a small red dot. Way to get your religions straight, Mom.

I guess my biggest problem with this isn't the girls' choice for a Halloween costume, rather their mothers for allowing it. Of coarse I didn't say anything to them, but I did rant about it for quite sometime to my family. How could someone have the audacity to dress up like these women?? What a joke these people are making of the religion. I wish people would just get it.