A Muslim woman wearing a bright orange headscarf (hajib) and carrying a copy of the Qur'an documented her experiences at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Nevada.
Kaddie Abdul was apparently motivated by a recent headline-making incident when Rose Hamid was kicked out[1] of a Trump rally in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Hamid was wearing a white headscarf and a blue T-shirt emblazoned with the words, "Salam, I come in peace." She also wore a yellow star — reminiscent of the badges that Nazis required Jews to wear during the Holocaust — labeled with the word "Muslim" at the time of her silent protest.
Hamid reportedly stood up[2] when Trump touched upon a recurring theme in his election 2016 presidential campaign rhetoric, suggesting that Syrian refugees en route to the United States pursuant to Obama administration policy had been infiltrated by ISIS terrorists.
Possibly expecting the worst, what ended up happening to Abdul "was actually quite different," The Blaze observed[3].
Trump, the GOP presidential front-runner, has called for a temporary shutdown of Muslim immigration into the U.S. The New York business mogul and ex-Celebrity Apprentice star reaffirmed his position during the GOP debate broadcast by the Fox Business Network on Thursday night.
Abdul, an IT data engineer who works in Silicon Valley, drove four hours through a blizzard and fog to the packed Trump event in Reno as a show of support for Hamid after what she described as the 56-year-old flight attendant's "horrifying experience" in South Carolina.
Getting beyond mere soundbites in the media, Abdul documented what occurred in an essay[4] for the Guardian in which she concluded that Trump supporters shouldn't be superficially dismissed as "racist caricatures."
"…And nothing bad happened to me at the rally: there were some hard stares and dirty looks, but no outright rude behavior. I spoke to several lovely people and had the type of informative and substantive discourse that one should expect at a political event. It was good to see that the bullies and thugs who have been fixtures at several other Trump rallies had taken the day off; maybe they were just too shocked to say anything directly to me…
"[Trump's] supporters are people, not caricatures. They feel marginalized economically, politically, and socially; they see a world different from the one they think should exist. Many non-Trump supporters are also concerned about the current economic and political state of our planet and its implications for a [stable] future for our children…"
Dear Ms. Abdul, thank you for your thoughtful action & report. I went to a #Trump rally in my #hijab. | Kaddie Abdul https://t.co/FuBfQg9Edb[5][6][7]
— Janet Tyson (@jstyson) January 13, 2016[8]
Read the entire Guardian story authored by Kaddie Abdul about the Donald Trump political rally in Reno, Nevada, and draw your own conclusions.
Parenthetically, in an interview on CNN, despite the hostile crowd reaction as she was ejected, Rose Hamid conceded that the Trump supporters sitting immediately around her were very nice people.
The FBI's Hate Crime Statistics[9] for the year 2014 (the most recent available data) indicate that approximately 178 instances of anti-Muslim religious bias occurred that year, while about 635 anti-Jewish bias offenses took place in the same time frame.
Steve Cartwright of Reno and Kaddie Abdul of Ohio at the #Reno @realDonaldTrump rally. Abdul drove from SF to attend pic.twitter.com/GuZENm7z5O[10][11][12]
— Julia L. Ritchey (@juliaritchey) January 10, 2016[13]
"I understood that I was a guest at their rally, and that I had a duty to them to be a good guest; in return, I felt like they were good hosts," Kaddie Abdul concluded, in part.
According to Truth Revolt in analyzing[14] Kaddie Abdul's experience at the Trump rally, "Troublemakers go out of their way to stir up problems and then point the finger afterwards to declare themselves victims of racism. Kaddie Abdul showed a different side of the story…the woman acted respectfully and was in turn treated with respect — far from the narrative the Left would like the country to believe."
[Photo by Matt Rourke/AP]
References
- ^ kicked out (www.inquisitr.com)
- ^ stood up (www.inquisitr.com)
- ^ observed (www.theblaze.com)
- ^ an essay (www.theguardian.com)
- ^ #Trump (twitter.com)
- ^ #hijab (twitter.com)
- ^ https://t.co/FuBfQg9Edb (t.co)
- ^ January 13, 2016 (twitter.com)
- ^ Hate Crime Statistics (www.fbi.gov)
- ^ #Reno (twitter.com)
- ^ @realDonaldTrump (twitter.com)
- ^ pic.twitter.com/GuZENm7z5O (t.co)
- ^ January 10, 2016 (twitter.com)
- ^ in analyzing (www.truthrevolt.org)
