Palestinian headdress wearing triggered accusations of antisemitism from teachers.

Evidence

Once, when he was a junior, one of his English teachers passed him in the stairwell while his hatta was on his shoulders. She stopped above him, peered down at the scarf, and spit out questions to him. “What does that mean?” she said. “You hate all Jews?” He was stupefied. “Nah. It’s not like that,” he said. “It’s just traditional!” He resented the idea that the hatta—and by association his culture and ethnic origin—could be interpreted as hatred. He resented the fact that the teacher thought he hated anybody just because of that person’s religion. He resented her. He later warned three of his friends—two African Americans and one Latino—that the teacher was a racist. Toward the end of the semester, they came up to him and conferenced on the issue, agreeing with Akram. “When the white girls talk, she doesn’t say anything,” he remembers them saying. “But when we talk, she’s all on top of us.” — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 487

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ article theme — a symbol of ethnic identity read as a political/religious signal, with uniform treatment revealing class/identity bias.
• DEFINE: The hatta (keffiyeh) is introduced here as traditional Arab-Palestinian headwear, and the interaction reveals how its meaning gets overwritten by stereotypes in American classrooms.