Aisha -- Look at it from the Lifeguard's POV
Reader comment on item: Muslim Hours at Municpal Swimming Pools in the West
in response to reader comment: Discrimination works both ways

Submitted by Lifeguard (United States), Aug 5, 2009 at 13:01

Aisha -- Clearly by all of the spelling and grammar errors in your note you either wrote your note in a pique of passion and didn't proofread what you typed, or you are new to the USA. If you are new to the USA, I'm sure everyone welcomes you here and hopes uyou will assimilate to the culture as many generations before you have done.

On your choice of bathing attire -- realize that a lifeguard has a very difficult job if it requires actually rescuing a person who begins to have trouble in the ocean or in a pool. The more clothing a person wears, the more likely it is that the clothes will become waterlogged and weigh that person down, and the more likely it will be a difficult rescue. That said, it is not impossible to rescue someone fully clothed -- just a bit harder. But don't disparage all women wearing string bikinis as "immoral" -- that's your own prejudice. What matters it if a person chooses to wear a skimpy bathing suit, a less skimpy one or a one piece bathing suit -- or a burkini? One's preferred swimming attire is no indication of that person's morality or ethics or honesty or integirty.

(And by the way, have you really been to a swimming pool? Your note smells of prejudicial BS, because all female lifeguards and nearly all female athletic swimmers wear modest one-piece bathing suits. So if you are a propagandist for jihad, then there's no telling iof you are truly writing from experience, or if you are a male jihadi propagandist spouting some Sharia-biased crap.)

One other point to your note, however -- pools and beaches have rules. Some beaches forbid nudity or toplessness, and yet local regulators have to contend with protests from those who would want the FREEDOM to NOT wear anything. In a freedom loving culture, who has the right to deprive others of their freedoms? Now the same local authorities have to deal with protests from conservative muslims want their wives and daughters to wear restrictive -- and seemingly unsafe -- bathing attire. But not only are the conservative muslims concerned with asserting a right to swim with head to toe covering, but many of these muslims like you, Aisha -- if that's your true identity, are offended by anything not shrouded from head to toe. And that's encroaching on my freedom and on the freedoms of those who have lived in this culture or have assimilated to it for a long time.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened for relevance, substance, and tone, and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome, but comments are rejected if scurrilous, off-topic, vulgar, ad hominem, or otherwise viewed as inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the Guidelines for Comments. For informational purposes, we identify countries from which comments are sent.