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By Root 817 0

(I’m sure this holds across cultures, but my fondness for Yiddish heightens my sensitivities here.) The idea of closeting ethnic identity in the home—Jean’s “Asian-American closet”—resonates with the injunction to “be a Jew in your own tent and a mensch when you go out.” The idea of covering to avoid mainstream criticism is captured in the command to sha shtil—to keep quiet—out of fear of shande far di goyim, experiencing shame before the gentiles. The dual nature of “flaunting” is reflected in chutzpah, which means both “unmitigated gall” and “a willingness to demand what is due.” Like queers who seek to transform a politics of shame into a politics of full flaunting equality, law professor Alan Dershowitz argues that the Jewish byword must change from shande—“fear of embarrassment in front of our hosts”—to chutzpah—“assertive insistence on first-class status among our peers.”

In the United States today, Muslims are the most visible targets of the religious covering demand. Soon after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, I found an article about Muslims in New York City that read like a covering ethnography. The piece reports that Muslim private schools are telling children to conceal “any religious emblems,” and that “some Muslim leaders are discussing plans for women to change the way they dress, perhaps exchanging headscarves for hats and turtleneck pullovers.” It depicts a woman who, “a day after the attack, arrived at a New York City Health Department office demanding bureaucrats change her son’s surname from ‘Mohammed’ to ‘Smith.’ ” The article also observes that “neighborhoods in New York where you were more likely to see Egyptian, Jordanian, or Syrian flags … are now covered in American flags, their Middle Eastern flags discreetly hidden for the time being.” Finally, it notes that “some Middle Easterners have confessed that they would be happy now to be mistaken for either Hispanics or African Americans.” Other sources reveal similar post-9/11 covering strategies among American Muslims, such as not speaking Arabic in public, not attending mosques that preach against Israel, and not giving to Islamic charities for fear of government investigation.

I could multiply examples, describing Native Americans told to cut their hair, Seventh-day Adventists told to break their Sabbath, or Jehovah’s Witnesses told to pledge allegiance to the flag. But it should be intuitive that in our secular culture, all religious minorities will be pressed to tone down expressions of their faith.

My student Tom waited until his second year of law school to tell me he was going blind. Having excelled in two of my classes in his first year, he was working as my research assistant on the covering project. After he read my description of how the visually impaired cover, he told me he adopted many of the strategies himself.

Startled, I asked how well he saw. He replied that it was like sitting behind a dirty sunlit windshield. Across a desk, a person looked like a television interviewee digitally rubbed out for anonymity. He said he felt his impairment most in social interactions, as people would think him unfriendly when he glared at them or failed to gauge their facial responses.

During his third year, Tom applied for clerkships. As I wrote him a lavish reference, I had a vision of him interviewing with federal judges through a bright dusty pane. I e-mailed him asking if he wanted me to include anything in my letter that might otherwise go unaddressed. He couldn’t think of anything besides his addiction to MTV. So I let it go.

Tom got many blue-chip interviews, but no offer. I wondered if his impairment had hurt him. It had not affected our interactions, but I had not been dependent on my initial impression. I could see Tom coming across as reserved or shy. When he reapplied the next year, I posed the question more bluntly—could I mention his sight? He considered it. “I don’t want them to hire me because they feel sorry for me,” he said. “But I’ll leave it to you.” I included the information, and a federal judge immediately