Source: The Mercury News
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/columnists/15940994.htm
Melanie Gadener was at home in Fremont three weeks ago when she began receiving calls about the killing of Alia Ansari, the 38-year-old mother of six who was shot in the head as she walked with her little girl through a quiet Fremont neighborhood to pick up her children at Glenmoor Elementary School.
Very quickly, Gadener was struck with the same suspicion as many others in town. They wondered if Ansari was killed simply because of the way she was dressed, in a loose scarf that some Muslim women wear to cover their heads out of modesty.
``I was shocked and saddened, but I was not surprised,'' Gadener told me when we met recently. ``There is growing racism in Fremont, and a lot of this has come out since 9/11.'' Whether or not Ansari's head scarf had anything to do with why she was killed, it's significant that so many people have no trouble believing it was the reason.