After signs were posted at Spring Branch, Tx., reading “No Muslim parking in the Westview Shopping Center. Your car will be towed,” and this right outside a mosque at the end of Ramadan, it is unclear who posted the signs or what their motive. At the most literal level, the signs seem to anticipate the heightened amount of Muslims visiting the nearby mosque, and was put by West view Shopping Center to discourage illegal parking of mosque-goers at the mall’s property. Nevertheless, many Muslims inevitably found the sign as offensive, and suggested it was fueled not by propriety, but hate.
“I feel sorry for the person who wrote it,” said Ahmed Hassan to KPRC. “This is what comes to mind because obviously he has a lot of hate.” Obvious, perhaps, to him, but it could also simply be tactless.
“I’m very shocked because we do live in a society that’s supposed to be very accepting , and this is what we all preach,” said Yara Aboshady. “That we all have the freedom of religion,” though the sign does not necessarily deny anybody’s freedom of religion.
The business owners at the storefront denied putting up the sign, though one worker blamed the shopping center owner, Steve Kwon, who denied it.
“I did not put up the signs” he said, though he did remove them.
In a society that is so eager to be offended, to find whatever is offensive between clashing cultures, the signs are rather tepid. “It could be no parking for the sake of patrons that come in,” said Aboshady. “It really could be a prejudice and just a mean thing to say.”
The shopping center owner did reference a tow truck to eliminate illegally parked cars, but also removed the signs. Whether anything like “hate” motivated the signs, or simply old fashioned irritability, is uncertain. If the signs simply said “No Mosque Parking,” they would be much less offensive.