TEHRAN, February 18- After an Iranian-American fashion blogger was grilled on live TV about her heritage, she fired back with a biting critique of the US. She told RT what her interview reveals about attitudes towards Muslims in the West.
TEHRAN,Young Journalists Club (YJC) -After an Iranian-American fashion blogger was grilled on live TV about her heritage, she fired back with a biting critique of the US. She told RT what her interview reveals about attitudes towards Muslims in the West.
Hoda Katebi, 23, was originally asked to come onto Chicago’s WGN News live morning show to talk about her book, ‘Tehran Streetstyle.’ But when she was suddenly asked for her views on Iran’s nuclear program, she responded that the US could not be trusted either, due to its history of meddling all across the world, including the Middle East.
One of the co-hosts of the show then suggested her remarks sounded un-American, to which she responded that, aside from foreign intervention, the US must also face up to its treatment of black people and Native Americans, and accused the host of pushing stereotypes.
“It definitely caught me off-guard,” she told RT. “Unfortunately I guess I wasn’t too surprised because Muslims and people of color in this country and across the West are constantly put in positions where we are seen as both the token [minority] but also supposed to talk about everything related to our identity, even if its not exactly related to the work we’re doing at hand.
We’re having to respond to our government’s policies abroad, but then having to blindly, unquestionably pray allegiance to this country who may be involved in violence in our country.”
Katebi said that being told by one of the TV hosts – the award-winning Robin Baumgarten – that she doesn’t “sound like an American,” puts into perspective the kind of discrimination Muslims and other minorities face in many Western countries.
“It goes back to the place that Muslims in America are constantly put in, in that we constantly have to prove we’re American enough to deserve respect, to deserve not being bond or banned,” she explained. “The second we criticize the state for what they’ve actually done we’re deemed un-American.”
Source:RT
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