NOT A TERRORIST
One year ago: Muhajjibah = 1, Robber = 0
For those of you who have not been so fortunate as to hear about this shirt or know its creator, Mike Mallah, let me introduce you!
Mike is one of the most humble, polite, and caring people I’ve met. He has faced the kind of challenges that would break most people. But Mashallah, not only has he dealt with them all with grace and gratitude, he has used them to project himself into, Inshallah, a successful medical career. I’m lucky to know him.
Mike is a Palestinian who got sick of stereotypes and decided to do something about it. He realized that the root of most stereotyping is ignorance, so he started the Not A Wear company. At www.NotAWear.com, he sells this phenomenal tshirt - simple, black, with a message in red and white:
You should by this shirt, and you should wear it. The portion of the proceeds goes to Seeds of Peace and United Palestine Apparel.
Today, I was wearing my Not a Terrorist shirt in a very serious manner - black pants, black long sleeved shirt underneath, topped with a red hijab to highlight the colors (Sarah L. called it “blood red). It just looked like I was making a statement.
Today, I got a “look” - you know what look I mean - the “whoa…uh…okay….” kind of deer-in-headlights look when you’re wearing an emphatic t-shirt. I instinctively held my Evidence book so that it covered the message…..and then called myself a cop-out for doing that.
For some reason, the “looks” bother me more than they used to when I wore emphatic shirts in high school or college. (I had one from MuslimBasketball.com that was just a black tshirt with MUSLIM in big white letters across the chest. I loved that shirt. My mom, probably for my own good, hid it for a little while after 9-11 so I wouldn’t wear it to my high school). Maybe it’s because today I feel very strongly about presenting a professional appearance while in law school because it adds credibility to my external professional image, which might be a little hampered in some circles because of my hijab. I think twice about wearing this shirt every time, wondering what my professors will think. It could also be because today is the Law Review Symposium and there are legal professionals in suits walking around everywhere.
But, I want to get over that. I spend too much time sometimes thinking about what other people think of my professional appearance (though, you have to fairly grant me that in my profession, that is quite important in most circumstances). I find this shirt increasingly powerful as we move towards the election, and I’m going to wear it on Nov. 4th.