Parallels are being drawn between the high-profile case of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager who was fatally shot in Florida, and the death of Shaima Alawadi.
Alawadi, an Iraqi-American mother of five, died after a brutal beating in California last week. Next to her body was left the note: “Go back to your country, you terrorist.”
Federal investigators are looking into whether Martin’s death was racially-motivated, while California police are busy trying to ascertain whether Alawadi’s death was a hate crime.
Martin was wearing a hoodie when he was shot, and Alawadi wore a traditional hijab — but both articles of clothing possibly contributed to their deaths, students at the University of North Carolina - Asheville say. They have planned a “hoodies and hijab” rally to “stand up against hatred and racism.”
On Twitter, the phrase Million Hijab March is also beginning to gather steam. It’s a nod to the Million Hoodie March organized last week in support of the family of Trayvon Martin. This tweet was widely shared:
On Facebook, a page entitled One Million Hijabs for Shaima has almost six thousand likes. The page shared a picture of Alawadi with the following note:
One woman responded to the note by saying that while she was a Quaker and usually wore a bonnet, she would wear a shawl until Alawadi’s killer was found.