Exposed (part 3)

Arrival
The concert was to start opening the doors to everyone at 6:30pm.  I left home around 6:20pm.  And, I had a few errands to run.  Fill gas.  Check.  Small notebook to jot notes down.  Nope.  Sunglasses?  I didn’t have sunglasses either.  Best place to pick up sunglasses and notebooks?  Jewel Osco.

The notebook wasn’t too big a deal, but I needed to buy sunglasses, and choosing them was no easy feat.  I needed to get a pair big enough to cover some serious real estate on my face and a lot of them looked plain stupid.  As I started looking for sunglasses, my mind wandered to the MTV spoof that was done on the Spider Man movie when he was designing his costume (hmmm, not gay enough).  Finally, my eyes settled on a pair of Oakley ripoffs circa 1996 (the year I graduated high school), and the decision was made (ah yes, just the right amount of gay).

I eventually arrived on the scene at 7pm.  I immediately pulled up my hood, put on my sunglasses, and strolled out of the parking lot.  Everyone else was in short sleeves and jeans, and here I was, totally in a BLACK hoodie turned inside out, black jogging pants, dark black sunglasses on, a black bandana, and black basketball shoes.  This would definitely draw attention.

So I got in line to get in the door, and the person ahead of me was none other than a Riyadh as-Saaliheen student (who shall remain unnamed), chaperoning his sister.  I kept my head down, waited behind his back, and then kept going.  Did he recognize me?  Nuh-uh, so off I continued.

I finally got to the seating area, and there was already one brother on the mic doing his comedy routine (brother Ahmed, our host for the evening).  I thought I’d grab a seat close by, but then realized that this was a sisters section.  I looked out further and all the eye could see were sisters EVERYWHERE.  Sure, there were brothers, but if there was ever a time for a ring in the desert analogy, it was here.  So I went back and asked the volunteers how the area was set up.

As it turned out, the left side (from the perspective of the person facing the stage) was the sisters section, the middle, which was the majority, was for families, and the right side was for brothers.  It seemed, however, that the sisters had even spilled off into the brothers side.

I made my way over to the “brother’s side” and of course, I caught a lot of weird stares from people.  Not surprising, of course, although kind of ironic that the hijabi sisters were giving a guy who covered his head stares.

I sat down, pulled out my notebook, and the notetaking began.

Exposed (part 2)

Incognito Dude
“Oh, look at you, you’re going to the concert to do your big expose on your blooog!”
“Look, I’m going to do something good, insha’Allah, and I’m even going to disguise myself.”

My wife was teasing me, of course, because she knew exactly how I was going to disguise myself, and it all seemed over the top, just to write a blog entry.  I agreed, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get the job done.

“So, you think you’re soooo famous that everyone is going to recognize you?  You think you’re soooooo important, huh?”  my wife continued to diss me.

“Nevermind that, let me show you what I’m going to do,” I began, but she already knew what I had in mind, for the most part, and was not impressed.

The basic problem I faced was literally my face – I had to find a way to hide my beard, and as much of my face as possible, so that I would be unrecognizable.  Was that possible?  I wasn’t sure.

My solution was the following:

1. Wear a hood, and shove the beard into the hood.
2. Cover the forehead with a bandana
3. Sunglasses to cover the eyes

In essence, I would look like a police sketch of the Unabomber before he was caught.  I’d definitely stand out, even amongst Muslims, but I’d rather not be known and stared at funny than known to be at one of these concerts.

And it’s not that I couldn’t explain away my presence at the concert.  It was just take too much time, effort, and discomfort – a whole lot more than I was willing to deal with in that situation.  Better to be the undercover brother.

Not only that, but as someone who strongly advocates against music, people who would not get a chance to speak with me would consider it hypocrisy that I was attending the concert after bashing music so much.  I’m reminded of the story of a really good brother, Farooq, whose rep was tarnished by something like this.

At a bar called “Where Else?” on campus, one of his friends said, let’s just stop in for a moment, there’s someone in there (there are all Muslims we’re talking about) I have to talk to about something, and then we’ll be out fast.  Poor Farooq thought, well, it’s my last 2 weeks here at Purdue, I’m graduating, and we’ll be in and out fast.

As soon as he walked in, all the Muslim drinkers, clubbers, and womanizers recognized him, and the first immediate feeling was shame.  Everyone knew Farooq to be a good guy, and religious, and felt embarassed to be seen by him.  That, however, quickly turned to anger and snide sarcasm (look at this mullah, coming to the club, masjid hypocrites!).  Of course, they never said it to his face, they just smiled meekly and asked him what he was doing there.

Come next Friday, Farooq was giving the khutbah, and of course, the clubbers are all back in the masjid telling everyone, “I went clubbing with that guy last week, he was with me at the bars!”  Leave it to the retarded non-practicing FOBs to take something and blow it out of proportion.

In any event, I didn’t want the same thing happening to me.  I didn’t want people seeing me there and  either thinking I was a hypocrite coming to enjoy the show, or that I condoned this behavior, if they didn’t know my position.

I basically did not want to be associated with the event.  My interest was purely cultural – what’s going on with our Muslim youth?  Is this popmania thing for real, or was it blown out of proportion?  What messages are being sent out by the people organizing these events?  This is what I was interested in.  And the only way to really do that was to get down in the trenches and get my feet dirty.

This seriously sucked.