There is no singular Muslim story, no definitive identity for the entire religion. [...] Here, four women discuss what it's like to be a minority in America in 2017, post-9/11 and post-Trump.
One story mirrors our identity—any of us could be falsely accused! The other tale is about the Other—because it’s unfathomable that one of us would commit murder. We aren’t killers; they are.
There isn’t even a discussion. There aren’t any words. You just start swinging—the building is a fence, your cousins are a fence. The two of you are surrounded. There’s no escape for either of you.
To be forced to speak in the language of the colonist, the language of the oppressor, while also carrying within us the storm of Jamaican patois, we live under a constant hurricane of our doubleness.
I knew that just as the country was reverting, so was I. Every face now seemed a potential enemy and these were feelings I had not felt in almost twenty years.
1972: War was waging in Vietnam and kids were coming home in boxes. Hippes and yippies went clean for Gene McCarthy, but George McGovern won the democratic nomination. Tricky Dick Nixon…