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Quick hit: Seventh-Grade Hijabis Ruined Rainbow Day

Caperton

Rainbow Day was supposed to be a day to show school spirit — a day when each class would wear a color, and they’d all stand in lines to make a rainbow and take a picture of the rainbow, and it was going to be awesome. Not, like, a gay rainbow or anything — rainbows aren’t just for gay pride, they’re also for heavenly covenants and leprechauns and middle-school teachers who owned way too many Lisa Frank school supplies as a kid. The only thing standing in the teacher’s way: four Muslim girls in her class who showed up for Rainbow Day in black hijabs and not the purple clothes they’d been assigned.

How a group of students spoiled my celebration of inclusiveness

I felt sick. Putting them to the side would get them more attention. Sending them indoors would leave them unsupervised. So I let them stay put. I hoped desperately that they would change their minds and smile along with the whole school.

Later, I saw the photo. They had covered their faces.

That night, I cried with surprising vehemence. Was this adolescent rebellion, or had their parents put them up to it? Was it as homophobic as it appeared?

In the end, the rainbow was Photoshopped free of black figures and hung in the hall. The four girls got a stern lecture from the principal. They mumbled excuses about the wind. Calling their parents seemed pointless.

I sat the girls down in my classroom at lunch days later and explained that my idea of a rainbow included them, too. I said I was hurt that they hadn’t come to me with their concerns. Three girls looked down and shifted uncomfortably. Basma smirked. Nonetheless, our talk ended there.

[…]

Every time the girls wore purple clothing afterward (even Basma did), it stung. Upon reflection, I believe the girls’ rejection of Rainbow Day released my long-buried feelings as a friendless 10-year-old. Daydreaming about rainbows had blunted the blows of my bullies. These Muslim girls’ actions had revealed a chink in my rainbow armour.

Happy Rainbow Day! Let us celebrate diversity and inclusiveness by ‘shopping girls out of our class picture for not conforming.

11 thoughts on Quick hit: Seventh-Grade Hijabis Ruined Rainbow Day

  1. The comments at TG&M were.. surprisingly intelligent… I was cringing, expecting rampant Islamophobia etc but most of the comments I saw were.. okay. (However, its still early).

    Has this teacher met seventh graders? A lot of them are assholes (she says, having been one and having recently parented one) and will pull stupid stunts (like dressing in black on rainbow day and covering their faces in pictures) because they’re trying to prove they’re “too cool for school.”

    I think this teacher trying to connect this to homophobia or the fact that the kids are Muslim is reaching. My personal opinion is that they’re probably just kids messing around, because they, being on the verge of adolescence, think that things like trying to make a giant rainbow of people is silly and to be mocked.

    1. Seriously. They’re 12-13, not 6. Dressing the class like a rainbow sounds really damn twee, and I grew up in the “everything has a rainbow and/or unicorn on it” years.

  2. Did a rainbow necessarily mean Pride? I wondered. ……..
    And diversity was what I was after – different backgrounds and ages coming together at school to make a beautiful whole. Surely no parent would think I was trying to sexualize their children.

    New headline suggestion:

    Homophobe who Thinks that Pride Symbols Sexualise Children Haz Sadz at Perceived Islamic Homophobia In Not Standing For Stupid Class Picture

  3. Summary of article:

    MY WHIIIIITE FEEEEEELINGS WHAT ABOUT MY WHIIIITE FEEEEEEELINGS GET THOSE MOSLEM KIDS OUTTA MY SIGHT

  4. I also have to wonder: what in the world are “Eastern Russian Jews”? Jews in Vladivostok? Did she mean Eastern European Jews? Jews in Western Russia under the Czars? And what does she mean, they “use” rainbow flags? All those Jews apparently still fiddling on roofs in the shtetls of “Eastern Russia” It all seems so hopelessly vague and fuzzy. As Shfree says, way more suitable for kindergarten than 7th grade. Now, if she had instead assigned the class to research the history of rainbows as a cultural symbol, that might have been an appropriate project for that age group.

      1. Ah, thanks. Of course, only a tiny number of Jews ever lived there, never representing more than a small percentage of the population (talk about a misnomer!), so her statement still wasn’t really accurate.

  5. I have mixed feelings about this-I agree with one of the comments above which says this seems like a reach, and I agree. However, to elaborate on the last sentence of this article, if we were to put it into reality and say that this function was about celebrating homosexuality and the girls didn’t want to join in, I don’t think it would be neccessary for this teacher to have that reaction. Celebrating homosexuality doesn’t mean that everyone will agree-exactly the opposite-it means that we celebrate homosexuality despite those who disagree. It is impossible to change the minds of everyone, no matter how wrong they may seem-when we learn to get along and discuss our differences with those who disagree instead of “crying with surprised vehemence,” we find greater ways to understand one another. I enjoyed reading this….very thought provoking.

  6. I might have worn black on the grounds that I was offended at being told what to wear. Probably not, because I’d have actually supported gay pride, but whenever I was told to wear green for St. Patrick’s Day or wear a color for a sports team, I went out of my way to wear a different color.

    Also, since when is black not on the color spectrum? Just add the damn kids to the end of your rainbow. Black is a color; it is in fact all the colors, and it deserves to be represented in rainbow imagery too.

    1. Black is a color; it is in fact all the colors

      I believe you’re thinking of white 🙂

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