If you use the phrase “I assumed…”, you’ll be viewed as having hastily jumped to a conclusion based on insufficient evidence.

If you use the phrase “My understanding was…”, people will merely think you misunderstood something, and will be far kinder to you (and in instances where what you misunderstood was something they said, they will often apologize, or fault themselves for not being more explicit).

It’s a breezy summer day and the rustling from the leaves outside sound like whispers from my small apartment. I’m sitting in front of my laptop, silently studying the 1.6 billion faces speaking simultaneously in front of me. It’s Monday, the day of the weekly conference call between all Muslims. We have been required to attend this Skype meeting from the the tender age of fetus, but I had never spoken in one of them before. 

That changes today. 

“Hey guys, what if…” I start to say. 

Nobody hears me, but I refuse to be silent. How could I show my face again on Tumblr if I couldn’t even save my mayonnaise friends from death? How could I expect to earn their respect? Anon was right; why hadn’t I done this before? Thousands of lives had paid the price for my ignorance, but not anymore.

“What if you guys….. stopped killing people.“ 

Suddenly, silence. 

1,643,398,023 pairs of eyes are on me. My heart is in my throat as the ISIS leader gives me a blank expression. 

A single tear rolls down my cheek. "Please.” I say with a broken voice. 

He is moved. 

My fingers are almost shaking as I carefully type in the ten digit phone number I have had memorized my entire life. The buttons on my home phone seem to glow a bit more dull, and even the ringing of the phone from the other end seems to be agonized, almost as if the world is telling me to hang up. But I refuse to give up; I can’t let my lily-white friends down. Not again.

The phone rings once. Twice. Three times. Still no answer. Just as I am about to hang up, there is a click.

All I can hear is heavy breathing.

“Hello….” I say quietly, my voice shaking. “Is….. Is this Muslim?”

There was a long silence before I heard a voice answer “ya lol.”

“I was thinking………..” I begin cautiously. “Maybe murder is…………bad.”

“Habibi, I…..I don’t understand. What are you trying to say….?” The voice seems shaken.

“What if…….world peace is good and killing people is…………not good”

He lets out an audible gasp. “Are you saying ISIS is…….bad?”

“Maybe death is…….not good.” I continue. My heart is racing. I remind myself that I am saving thousands of lives, and inhale.

The silence from the other end of the line is almost deafening. He seemed to be thinking, as if he had never considered this idea before in his life. Truly I had opened his heart and his mind. This…. This could end terrorism.

“Muslim….Please.” I whisper.

I hear a tear roll down his cheek, with my Muslim Communication Hearing™, and hold my breath as he finally breathes out his next words.

You wanna know what happens once you kill yourself? Your mother comes home from work and finds her baby dead and she screams and runs over to you and tries to get you to wake up but you won’t and she keeps screaming and shaking you and her tears are dripping onto your face and your dad hears all the screaming and runs into the room and he can’t even speak because the child that he loved and the child that he watched grow up is gone forever and finally your little sister runs into the room to see what all the fuss is about and she sees you dead. The person she looked up to and loved. The person she bragged about to  her friends, the person she wanted to be just like when she grew up, the person that made her feel safe. But she’s never really going to get to grow up and smile and laugh and love because she’ll always be consumed with this feeling of missing you. And now there’s something missing from your family and they can barely look at each other anymore because everything reminds them of you but you’re gone and hurts more than anything. and you think that your mom never cared because she was always busy and yelling at you to finish your homework and clean your room and forgot to say I love you sometimes but really, she loved you more than anything and she doesn’t leave the house anymore, she can’t even get out of bed and she’s getting thinner and thinner because it’s too hard to eat. Your father had to quit his job and he doesn’t sleep anymore, every time he closes his eyes he sees his baby dead, and the image never goes away no matter how much alcohol he drinks. And at school your best friend sees that your seat is empty and she gets this sick feeling in her stomach and that’s when she hears the announcement. You killed yourself. And suddenly she’s screaming and crying in the middle of class and no one even bothers comforting because they’re all  busy sitting there staring at your empty seat with tears dripping down their cheeks and all she wants is for you to hug her and tell her it’s gonna be okay like you always did, but this time, you’re not there to do it, everything is dark now that you’re gone and her grades are slipping, she barely goes to school anymore and she ended up in hospital after taking too many pills because she wanted to see you again. the girls who used to make fun of the way you dressed feel their throats get tight, they don’t talk to each other anymore, they don’t talk to anyone, they’re all in therapy trying so hard not to blame themselves but nothing works. and your teacher who always gave you a hard time stares blankly at the wall, she quits her job a few days later. And then your boyfriend hears the news and he can’t breathe, he still calls you a lot just to hear your voice and he talks to you on facebook but you never message him back, he can’t fall in love again because every girl he meets reminds him of you, he’s never going to get over you, he loved you and he cries himself to sleep every night, hating himself and slicing his skin because he couldn’t save you and he’s never going to hold you in his arms or hear you laugh again. Now everyone who knew you, whether they were a big part of your life or someone you passed in the hallway a few times a week, they carry this aching feeling around inside them because you’re gone, and they miss you, and they don’t know why you left but it must’ve been their fault and they should’ve stopped you and they should’ve told you they loved you more and that feeling is never going to go away. And so you killed yourself

Level 1 - Internalized Racism - racism that you can’t see within yourself. This also means you can hate yourself. For example, you realizing that White people gets attention and you secretly wish you were White for whatever reason.

Level 2 - Interpersonal Racism - It’s internalized racism, but speaking out loud (or worse, acting out). This is also the most common type that people talk about. When celebrities get called out, for example.

Level 3 - Institutionalized Racism - This occurs within institutions and systems of power. For example… Blacks are thought of as criminals, hence when you mixed it with power, they tend to get harsh sentences.

Level 4 - Structural Racism - This occurs among Institutions and society. Examples: The on-going Drug War, real estate redlining and blockbusting, generification. 

When people think “racism”, they only think of either level 1 or 2. When I talk about it, it’s mostly level 4 and 3. When I attack a person’s statement, it’s level 2 because I have NO idea if they are level 1 until I see the BODY of their work.