My friend also happens to be Muslim and chooses to wear a hijab (a religious headscarf.) There are many Muslim women (both immigrants and Germans) who wear hijabs in Germany, so I didn’t realize the extent of the racism that people like my friend face. However, the more I spend time with her, the more I notice the ways in which she is discriminated against for her religion.
For example, once we were riding the bus together, and an old woman got on the bus. Although there were plenty of seats open, the woman chose to stand. My friend immediately asked her, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit down? I don’t mind standing up.” The woman said she was only riding the bus for one stop, and would prefer to stand. However, a man who was sitting all the way at the front of the bus didn’t hear the conversation. He yelled out, “Hey! Lady with the scarf! Why don’t you get up and give that woman a seat?” He didn’t yell at me, or at any of the other passengers on the bus who were sitting. He only yelled at my friend wearing a headscarf.
There have been many other instances like this. Like when my friend and I were speaking English on the bus, and someone muttered to me in German, “You know, those immigrants should really be learning German” to which my friend replied in German, “Actually, I do speak German.” Even though I’m also not from Germany, and my friend’s German is much better than mine, the woman assumed that I was German and that my friend would not understand her. Another time, we were in the library of the university where she takes classes, and the librarian asked my friend to show her student ID, but didn’t ask me. She believed that my friend did not belong in the library.
