When I walk out of this house, right, dressed in my niqab
or when I come out of the mosque after praying,
the first thing I have to get on is a train, either a train or a TTC bus.
When it comes to like, the train, I have to stand
and it makes it even more awkward because people are staring and people are fidgeting
because they don't want me to sit beside them,
because of the way I'm dressed, it makes them uncomfortable.
Which I completely, I'm okay with because it's obviously you don't see this every single day,
a niqabi going in there probably.
But the people who are on my route are used to me now so it doesn't matter,
but since this is a new area, a new station that I have to get on every single day,
I have to get used to the fact that I might not be able to sit down even if there's an empty seat
because it makes people around me uncomfortable.
Kinda ironic 'cause,
these are my science textbooks that I'm using
and I just ditched science to do something that I'm really passionate about, which is politics.
And then YouTube as a side thing.
Okay so just set this baby up here,
see my hijab is on right, see if my eyes are clear enough
and ya can get my hand jesters in, get some attitude.
Yeah that's basically how I film my videos.
I consider myself Jill of all trades and a master of none.
I hope people get more woke through my Facebook and YouTube channel which I recently started
and I'm a contributor to different blogs.
There's a lot of reason I do what I do
but I feel like the reason why I wanted to be more outspoken or more out there
was because I'm visibly Muslim right, I wear a niqab,
and the only features I see about the niqab are usually in a war-torn area,
or a woman who was honour killed, or a woman who was beaten by her husband,
or a woman who was forbidden from going and studying what she wanted to.
So for me like, for like the significance of it is that
I see a woman talking, right, speaking her mind
without those connotations of –
you know, she's writing a niqab, she can talk for herself,
or she's wearing a niqab, her husband, her dad,
I'm not married by the way, but
are forcing her to dress this certain way, right,
or she's been brainwashed into thinking that this is her right or this is her choice.
But it is my choice, that's the point of being a feminist, right?
It has to be your choice for it to be fully called like your freedom of expression.
For me, with the intentions of it being that it's my choice,
the significance that I see is that woman shedding those connotations, right.
Shedding all those different stereotypes attached to her.
But, not in an outlandish way.
I'm not doing something super crazy on YouTube, I'm just talking great but even just talking, right,
But even just talking in my niqab makes people think a certain way.
Can we stop associating the Muslim woman
to be reduced to just her hijab and her niqab.
Like she's a woman, she's a human being
she has the personality, she has thoughts...
I've seen a lot of Muslim women come up to me saying that even as a hijabi,
they can relate to me in the sense that they feel more confident.
They want my confidence and like I'm not always as confident I just,
give this a fake presentation that I'm confident.
I'm probably shaking my legs underneath my body just talking or like I can get really nervous
but you'll never realize that just for my voice because my voice doesn't shake as much.
I feel like Muslim in women general are just happy to see a representation
of a Muslim woman beyond the fact that she's doing something else, something crazier,
beyond the fact that she's dressing really fashionably
because I am just a nerd okay I don't have any type of fashion sense I'm just like,
your, I don't know normal person on the street your neighbourhood girl, right,
I have my hoodies I relax, I just chill,
but I'm not the Muslim girl on vlog
or I'm not that Muslim girl with her own office, I'm just a Muslim girl in her room doing her own thing.
I think people can relate to that because they probably want are doing their own things too.
I do so have some anxiety when I see white people because
I don't know what they're thinking anymore because there's so much going on in the media
and there's so much going on in our society that I feel that –
not many people are seeing me with curious eyes anymore and they just see me as a threat
which is really sad and so what I do go see people,
and I know it's bad and I know I'm stereotyping
and then I'm just being just as much prejudiced towards white people
as some white people can be towards a brown immigrant, but I have no power over it.
Even though I catch myself and like no but the hell are you thinking,
not everybody's like this but for some reason my heartbeat does go faster
in those instances when I do pass by people who look like people who hate me.