#islamophobic attacks

On June 21, 2017, Resham Khan was out celebrating her 21st birthday and looking forward to her job interview as a model, when a man came up to her car window while she and her cousin were stopped at a traffic light, and squirted corrosive acid into her face, likely scarring her for life.

And probably scuttling the career of her dreams for life, as well.

...And what I woke up thinking in the middle of the night, and the thought that has kept coming back to me in the days since is this:

In my version of Utopia, Ms. Khan would still be able to get a job as a model, scars and all.

And I keep thinking how ridiculous it is that we expect models to be flawless in every way, anyway.  I mean:

People know that wearing a certain outfit isn't really going to give them a perfect complexion, right? Whether someone has a scarred face or a set of crooked teeth, or a broken nose (or no nose) isn't going to affect how well the clothes fit (or function), after all. People know this?

But I know that "Utopia" literally means "no such place." And corporations will probably always insinuate, through advertising, that whatever they're selling will be the magic talisman that can transform you into our culture's definition of "perfect."

And until either: a) Capitalism collapses for good, or b) our culture broadens its definition of perfection to allow the existence of facial scars, Ms. Khan will likely never be the model she dreamed of being.

I’ve been composing this post in my head for days, now. I was already planning on linking back to this Tumblr post about the Greek god Hephaestus I replied to, and point how it's an example of how people see physical disfigurement as a marker of unworthiness, to the point where they're willing to erase or ignore that aspect of a god (and think that they’re praising him), much less a mortal young woman like Resham Khan.

... Then, last night, it popped up on my dash again, with someone coming to the defense of the OP, saying (paraphrased): "She never said he wasn't disabled; she said he wasn't disfigured!" And my timeline for posting about this went from: "soon" to "now."

Because as long as that remains the general reaction to "ugliness," Ms. Khan will have a place in the Disability Community (if she wishes to claim it), regardless of whether her scars themselves ever cause impairment to daily life.