Muslim Women Speak Out Against Lady Gaga’s ‘Burqa’ Fetish

Someone has to speak up.

By Jamilah King Aug 22, 2013

Lady Gaga’s leaked song "Burqa" is causing quite a bit of outrage.

"Critics are slamming Lady Gaga for appropriating, exoticizing, and sexualizing a garment that’s meant to maintain modesty," said HuffPost Live host Dena Takruri*. In describing the song earlier this month, Jezebel said the track "sounds like what would happen if you took a series of ‘ethnic’ GarageBand samples and put them in a blender, and then took that blender to a torture dungeon run by Calvin Harris and rattled it around arrhythmically." Some of the lyrics:

I’m not a wandering slave I am a woman of choice
My veil is protection for the gorgeousness of my face

Do you wanna see me naked, lover?
Do you wanna peak underneath the cover?

And:

Enigma popstar is fun
She wear burqa for fashion
It’s not a statement as much as just a move of passion.

You can listen to the track on YouTube.

In a segment that aired on Thursday afternoon, Takruri spoke with Ilana Alazzeh, a Muslim activist based in Washington, DC; Eren Cervantes-Altamirano, a Muslim writer based in Canada; Hind Makki, a Chicago-based blogger at Patheos.com; and Keziah S. Ridgeway, a Philadelphia high school teacher. You can see their conversation in the video above.

*Post has been updated since publication to correct the spelling of Dena Takruri’s name.