TEXT 

Dear Mayor Estrosi, Mayor Vivoni, Prime Minister

Manuel Valls, Former President Nicolas Sarkozy,

and other French officials who have supported

France’s burkini ban:

    My name is Amara Majeed, and I am a 19-yearold Muslim Sri Lankan American. I am a student at Brown University, studying cognitive neuroscience and public policy.

    When I look at the photo circulating of a woman in Nice being surrounded by armed police officers as she is coerced into removing her clothing, because French officials deemed the burkini to be inappropriate beach attire, I see infringement on a woman’s right to choose what she puts on her body by a group of white males. I see the scapegoating, ostracization, and criminalization of Muslims in the aftermath of the Nice terror attacks. I am a woman who wears the hijab, and I see an affront to the rights and civil liberties of women like me.

    Deputy Mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi: You have stated that you support this ban on “inappropriate clothing” in the wake of the Nice terror attacks. Mayor Vivoni, you have described the burkini ban as a necessary measure to “protect the population.” Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, you have labeled the burkini as a symbol of extremism.

    Let me respond to all of you by saying this: any conflation of the burkini with terrorism is invalid, virulent, and discriminatory. Tell me, in what way does our way of dress pose a threat to France’s national security? In what way does the burkini propagate hateful, violent ideologies? How is it that our way of dress poses a national security threat, yet some wetsuits, which take on strikingly similar designs to the burkini, aren’t? While France’s highest administrative court has now overturned the ban, the damage has already been done — this attack on the Muslim way of dress only serves as fodder to the already existing rising anti-Muslim sentiment and stigmatization of Muslims in France. If this institutionalized Islamophobia and fearmongering is being perpetrated by French officials and authorities, I fear how the general public’s poor treatment of hijab-clad women may be exacerbated in the coming weeks. We’re all well aware that hate crimes and violence targeting Muslim women wearing the hijab is not a new phenomenon in France.

    As one burkini-clad woman who was forced to leave the beach states, “Because people who have nothing to do with my religion have killed, I no longer have the right to go to the beach.” In the eyes of many authority figures, our religious identity in and of itself is incriminating. Our way of dress is incriminating. Our sheer existence is incriminating.

    Many of you have called the hijab an emblem of oppression. In April, France’s Minister for Women’s Rights equated women who choose to wear the hijab with “Negroes who were in favor of slavery.” More recently, France’s prime minister stated that the burkini is a tool of “enslavement,” and former French President Sarkozy insinuated that hijabclad women are imprisoned.

    I am genuinely tired of individuals like you imposing your brand of colonial feminism on us and telling us that we are oppressed, that we have been indoctrinated, that this was not our choice, and that we need to be unshackled. Instead of continuing to pursue these offensive and failing attempts at liberating us, I implore you to liberate yourselves from this white savior complex and recognize that we don’t need your saving. The hijab does not oppress me. For me, the hijab is a symbol of feminism and freedom of expression — so who are you to invalidate my experiences, to invalidate a fundamental, inextricable aspect of my identity, and to label me as enslaved, as imprisoned, as oppressed? By depriving us of our rights to dress the way we want, by making public spaces inaccessible to us, by publicly humiliating us and coercing us to remove some of our clothing while we are trying to enjoy a day at the beach — you are oppressing us.

    My news feed has been saturated with people posting photos of a Muslim woman at a beach being forced to strip, captioned with outrage and vitriol towards this form of discrimination. While your support of our rights is appreciated, I ask that you refrain from doing a disservice to this individual by circulating this photo. It may not seem like you are violating a woman’s privacy and liberties by sharing a picture revealing her arms or shoulders, but it is incumbent upon us to understand that she did not freely choose to show those parts of her body in public. Even if the intent is to excoriate the burkini ban while circulating these photos, I implore you to not be complicit, whether directly or indirectly, in systems of oppression that are stripping women, literally, of their right to choose what they wear.

Yours truly,

Amara Majeed – a muslin woman

(Source: http://www.bustle.com/articles/180721-an-open-letter-to-french-officials-who-support-the-burkini-ban-from-a-muslim-wo-man)

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August 24, 2016 / By Digestive Health Team

Are You Pooping All Wrong?

5 tips to keep your bowels healthy

    When it comes to our bowels — and their movements — we may not give them much thought. Of course, when things are not going well, we notice.

    However, bowel movements don’t just tell us about the health of our digestive system. This may sound strange, but signs of everything from diseases to stress may show up in your bathroom habits. The key is knowing what to look for — and what the signs may mean.

    Here are five tips to encourage healthy bowels:

    1. Don’t ignore rectal bleeding

    The first thing most people worry about when they have minor rectal bleeding is that they have a cancer. Of course, colon cancer is also a concern. But it’s the cause of rectal bleeding only 1 to 2 percent of the time.

     Two problems are usually responsible for blood on the paper, on the stool or in the toilet: hemorrhoids and anal fissures. The good news is that both problems are usually easy to fix.

    2. Be careful not to be overzealous when you wipe

    A lot of people assume they have hemorrhoids. May their bottoms itch and they feel extra skin down there as they wipe. Must be hemorrhoids, right?

    So they treat themselves with medicated wipes or cream. And yet the “hemorrhoids” don’t go away — they itch even more.

    Often, the problem is, ironically, being too clean. What happens is a circular process. Filled with good intentions, you try to keep yourself scrupulously clean by using flushable wipes. But the unexpected result is that this leads to itching and the feeling that you have hemorrhoids.

    3. Don’t treat the bathroom like a library

    Think of your time in the bathroom as a necessity, not an extended escape. If your toilet has stacks of magazines or books on the water tank, consider moving them to another room.

    Why? The more time you spend on the toilet, the more likely you will strain for bowel movements. Also, the seated position puts extra stress on your anal blood vessels. Both of these factors boost your risk of hemorrhoids.

    4. Get enough fiber in your diet

    The goal is to eat 25 to 35 grams of fiber each day. The lack of fiber in the American diet is perhaps the major problem that leads to issues with constipation.

    One of the challenges is that not all natural sources are equal in the amounts of fiber they contain, so you don’t always get a consistent amount of fiber intake every day, depending on what you eat. One day a bowl of oatmeal may do it. Another day a serving of broccoli may not.

    Of course, each person’s needs are different, too, so you have to find what works best for your body.

    5. Avoid dehydration if you have diarrhea

    The biggest danger with a short bout of diarrhea is dehydration, or the loss of water and nutrients from the body’s tissues. You could become dehydrated if you have diarrhea more than three times a day and are not drinking enough fluids. Dehydration can cause serious complications if it is not treated. The best way to guard against dehydration is to drink liquids that contain both salt and sugar.

(Source: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/2016/08/poop/)