{"id":765,"date":"2016-05-09T00:35:18","date_gmt":"2016-05-08T21:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/?p=765"},"modified":"2017-11-14T21:48:11","modified_gmt":"2017-11-14T18:48:11","slug":"ibtihaj-muhammad-embraces-a-bigger-olympic-platform-as-a-muslim-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/ibtihaj-muhammad-embraces-a-bigger-olympic-platform-as-a-muslim-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Ibtihaj Muhammad embraces a bigger Olympic platform as a Muslim woman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ibtihaj muhammad hijab olympic<\/p><\/div>\n

NJ- NEW YORK Ibtihaj Muhammad was told that she\u2019d be giving Michelle Obama a fencing lesson with a giant foam sword when she arrived in Times Square on Wednesday afternoon, the kind of news that might have flustered an athlete unaccustomed to a spotlight so bright.
\nBut Muhammad had not only met Michelle Obama\u2019s other half on more than one occasion, but even had the President introduce her during a speech before telling the cheering audience, \u201cI told her to bring home the gold! Not to put any pressure on you.\u201d
\nSo yeah, moments like this are fast becoming the new reality for Muhammad, a Maplewood native not unlike the dozens of other American athletes who gathered here for the U.S. Olympic Committee\u2019s 100 Days to Rio kickoff event, except for one thing.
\nShe was wearing a hijab.
\nIn 100 days, the country will become engrossed in the travails of Michael Phelps and the latest smiling gymnast as the Olympics essentially become a three-week-long NBC miniseries. Fencing, never viewed as primetime material, likely will find itself buried on the TV schedule.
\nBut you could make a strong argument that there won\u2019t be a more important American athlete in Rio de Janeiro than Muhammad. The pinnacle of her athletic career just happens to coincide with a frightening persecution of Americans who share her beliefs, and she fully embraces that she\u2019ll have a global platform to deliver her message.
\nWhich is this: \u201cAmerica is all that I know. I feel American down to my bones,\u201d she told a small group of reporters. \u201cFor anyone to challenge that idea that I\u2019m not American or that I don\u2019t belong, it\u2019s frustrating. I want people to see a Muslim woman in hijab represent the United States this summer.\u201d
\nShe would rather have people focus on her journey in fencing, which itself is fascinating. Muhammad tried volleyball, track, softball and other sports growing up in Essex County, but the constant alterations she had to make to her uniform grew tiresome.
\nThen her mother caught a glimpse of the fencers \u2014 covered, of course, from head to toe in protecting gear \u2014 training in the Columbia High cafeteria when her daughter was 13 and encouraged her to give it a try.
\n\u201cI didn\u2019t find fencing,\u201d she said. \u201cFencing found me.\u201d
\nBut she understands that, for many, her sport will be irrelevant. Muhammad has become an outspoken voice for Muslim women, be it sharing her views on presidential politics \u2014 she blasted Donald Trump in a recent Time magazine profile \u2014 or sharing personal experiences on Twitter.
\nWhen the check-in desk at the South by Southwest festival in Austin asked to remove her hijab to take a photograph for her identification badge, her refusal (and subsequent social media post) created national news. When a stranger called her \u201csuspicious\u201d and asked if she was going to \u201cblow something up\u201d as she was walking on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, she tweeted a photo of the man and then added this message: \u201cWe\u2019re living in a time where people feel comfortable spewing their hate and harassing the innocent on our streets. We need change\u201d.
\n\u201cThe reason I\u2019m so public about the experiences I\u2019ve had, especially in these last few months, is that I want the public to know this is commonplace and it shouldn\u2019t be,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have to change our conversation. We have to be more accepting of our neighbors and try to combat the bigotry that we\u2019re experiencing now. More than anything, I want things to change.\u201d
\nCan one Olympian make that change? Maybe not, but the image of her competing in a stars-and-stripes hijab at the most patriotic of all events is certainly a powerful image, and hopefully one that will inspire young Muslim women to, as she says, \u201cenvision themselves in this space.\u201d
\nThey will see Muhammad not just on a piste in Rio, but on the set of the Today Show or The Ellen DeGeneres Show, or in the pages of Time magazine with the headline \u201cA New Face for Team USA.\u201d So many Olympians use their long-awaited moment in the quadrennial spotlight to pitch products, but she\u2019s using it to get a message out to the world.
\nIt\u2019s a pretty powerful one, too. Let\u2019s end with it.
\n\u201cI think it\u2019s unfortunate that we\u2019re in this moment, especially during the presidential election where people feel so comfortable voicing their dislike or discontent for people of a particular background or particular religion,\u201d Muhammad said.
\n\u201cWe as Americans have to fight that because it goes against the very values that we stand for. I feel like I\u2019m this position and I have to use it and I have to use it well. I want to reach as many people as I can, not just with my skills in my sport but with my voice.<\/p>\n

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