The cover of rapper French Montana’s 2019 album, “Montana.” |
University of Detroit-Mercy associate professor and UC Berkeley Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project affiliate Khaled Beydoun has joined the chorus of condemnation aimed at Moroccan-American rapper French Montana, whose new album cover features a group of (presumably) Muslim women wearing niqabs and red thigh-high boots. Beydoun claims he objects to Muslim women being portrayed as “faceless show pieces,” instead of “real, autonomous human beings.” Perhaps he should direct his ire at Islamist societies, such as Saudi Arabia’s, that force women to wear the oppressive niqab, which hardly presents an image of an autonomous human being. And it doesn’t get any more “faceless” than wearing a niqab.
It’s not provocative, playful images like the one on French Montana’s album cover that are the problem. It’s Beydoun and other enforcers of Islamist norms, who label any challenge thereof “Islamophobic,” that pose the real threat to Muslim women’s rights.
