Born With Hijab

One Syed Soharwardy, head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (why not drop the Islamic? Just, Supreme Council of Canada. I like that.) says that Safaa Menhem, who was pulled from a soccer game a while back because a headdress like the hijab was not allowed to be worn on the field, should not have been. The decision was racist, he says:

I don't buy it because a person could also pull a shirt and choke a person. This is not a safety issue. It is just a racist and discriminatory decision against Muslims

How could it be racist? Well, if hijab-wearers formed a race, maybe then? But no one is born with a hijab. Or if hijab-wearing was limited to some races? But this isn't true either, because people of all races wear hijabs. Or maybe if hijab-wearing was necessarily correlated with some races? But there is no necessary correlation: There could be any proportion of people of any number of races that could wear the hijab. So we are left with the claim that it is racist because, as a matter of accident, hijab-wearing is not currently correlated with all races indifferently. Pretty bizarre definition, unlike how racism is normally defined, I would say. But we can take it anyway. Here's something else:

Her rights should be respected -- this is her free choice.

So she has this right, but, then, where do the rights of the league to determine uniforms go? Did they not freely choose to define the uniform code as they did? Is the league not allowed to define what is an appropriate uniform for their soccer games? Really, everyone should be allowed to wear what they want, so this girl should be allowed to wear the hijab? But that's actually not what the Islamic groups are saying: Not everyone should be allowed to wear what they want, but rather, only hijab-wearers get this benefit. Out with the old rights, in the with the new, I guess. The new are looking more like they are defined by sharia everyday.

How does this sound: The soccer leagues allow anyone to wear the hijab, if Islamic organisations allow anyone to not wear the hijab. Surely, as per our working definition of racism, requiring someone to wear the hijab is a racist and discriminatory decision against kafirs! For some reason, I don't suspect these groups will go for this fair and equitable agreement, because they don't want fair and equitable.