Halima Aden Quotes

Most Muslim women know it is fear and curiosity that cause people to stare. They know it is ignorance and stereotypes that cause people to suppose that a piece of material covering the hair strips a woman of the ability to speak English, pursue a career, work a remote control.

The more I photographed Muslim women, the more I was able to metaphorically strip away the burqas and hijabs, and start chipping away at the profound misconceptions that existed in other parts of the world about these women and their culture.

To write about the hijab is to step into a minefield. Even among those who share my cultural and faith background, opinions veer from those who despise it as a symbol of backwardness to those for whom religion begins and ends with that piece of cloth.

If you're asking me in a general context whether I'm for or against the burkini, the response is simple: I oppose the burkini.

But here’s the thing: Appropriation occurs when a style leads to racist generalizations or stereotypes where it originated, but is deemed as high fashion, cool, or funny when the privileged take it for themselves. Appropriation occurs when the appropriator is not aware of the deep significance of the culture that they are partaking in.

There's a lack of knowledge about Iran and the Iranian people.

I'm amazed by the misconceptions about Muslim women and the Arab world that I hear, and that really does hurt me.

I write as someone who has no more time for repressive Islam than he does for repressive Christianity or Judaism, but at least look at the face in the hijab - and try to imagine the one beneath the niqab - before you depersonalise its wearer.

I feel like Africans are too often portrayed as people on the National Geographic channel: the image is of an African man in a loincloth chasing a gazelle. It's not intentionally racist; I wouldn't call it racist at all. It's a lack of understanding another culture.

As an artist, I try and be controversial, and I have been a bit offensive at times. I have a view on the burka, and I'm sure a few of the Muslim girls and their families would have a view of me on stage in next to nothing!

The niqab, for some, has become an antiestablishment symbol around which one can rally and relish in the opportunities for confrontation that it provides.

America has this understanding of Africans that plays like National Geographic: a bunch of Negroes with loincloths running around the plain fields of Africa chasing gazelles.

It's not my vision when I cover a woman's face with a chador. I got the idea from a 'National Geographic' photo. I'm just showing their plight in the world.

There's enough of a willingness in the West to do sympathetic movies about Arab roles.

Because the traditional mode of dress for Muslim women is so distinct - the headcovering, which is not there for guys - women carry a greater burden of representation than Muslim men do in non-Muslim societies.

A headscarf cannot be a political symbol…. If all political parties allowed women to wear a headscarf if they wanted, there would be no political symbol …. A woman who covers her head does so because of her beliefs not because of politics.

Much of the prejudice against Islam in the West stems from a lack of understanding of the true nature of Islam as a religion professed by 1.4 billion people in the world. Westerners tend to view other peoples and other cultures only from the perspective of Western benchmarks and philosophy.

You can pass on my respects to the grand mufti, but I will not cover myself up.

I feel like I'm here to bust those misconceptions and stereotypes of Muslim women.

Wearing hijab made you know that I was Muslim.

I'm not a propaganda machine. I tell things how I see them. When I say, for example, that corruption is not the only thing the West should think about when they think about Nigeria, I'm not saying it doesn't exist but that people have the complete wrong focus. There's music, there's art, there's culture.

Not wearing hijab has seriously, seriously hurt my career. Mass media wants to see a woman in a veil. But I think it helps me because it makes it easier for my audience to relate to me. I'm not the scary 'other' they keep seeing on 'Fox News.'

People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them. This is what people have come to expect. Its not viewed as a serious continent. Its a place of strange, bizarre and illogical things, where people dont do what common sense demands.

For a subject worked and reworked so often in novels, motion pictures, and television, American Indians remain probably the least understood and most misunderstood Americans of us all.

No one needs to treat you like a star kid in the industry, but you do get pointed at... people assume you get everything on a silver platter, but that's not true.