"As a young Muslim woman living in England in a time of extreme fear and prejudice my first thought when leaving the house is ‘am I looking as non threatening as I possibly can?’ When I stand at the bus stop I make sure to reach for my bag as slowly as possible without being overt, I smile at strangers, I get up for the elderly in other words (as is human decency) I try to be as innocuous as possible. It’s taken to look like I’m wearing a sign that says ‘don’t stare at me as though I’m a criminal, don’t look like I might hurt you.’ In spite of this, I still get a lot of suspicious looks and furtive glances and some part of me feels guilty for a crime that I haven’t committed and don’t plan to ever commit. The worst I’ve done is steal a small pink elephant when I was 3 and I still feel guilty about that sometimes. The climate of hatred and fear is so rife that I’m beginning to not want to leave my home, I’ve always been somewhat anxious in crowds and that feeling has really intensified since the incident in Woolwich. Women in London can’t go shopping without the fear that their hijabs are going to torn off their heads or racist slurs are going to follow them and once I remember my dad went to the mosque and came back two hours late and I cried my eyes out because I thought that something had happened to him. What I’m trying to say is that when people smile at me, sadly I’m always taken by pleasant surprise and it also kind of makes my day and I guess the message here is to be nice and not judgemental and understand that people who are ‘other’ are aware of every movement going on around them and it frickin sucks to be looked at like you just got out of prison when all you want to do is get some milk and biscuits in peace." - 5000letters | Tumblr
Posted on: Tue, 23 Jul 2013 06:33:52 +0000
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