writing and headcannons

Or, let me rephrase that: an annual day where Muslims in the USA are scared to leave their homes. If you have Muslim friends or neighbors - watch their backs. Check up on them. Without fail, every year, there's always an attack. Every year someone I know or someone I know by extension becomes a victim.

One year I had to go pick up my roommate from the library because she was too scared to leave. Some grown ass men had followed her there throwing rocks and yelling threats.

Another year I got a knife threat slipped into my mailbox.

Another year someone shot up the side of our mosque while we prayed for peace inside.

Check up on your neighbors and call out racist and islamophobic behavior where you see it. This year, with all the unrest and elections coming up, it's bound to be bad and everyone I know is already on edge and taking precautions.

to reiterate:

Check!! In!! On!! Your!! Muslim!! Friends!! And!! Neighbours!!

The majority of Muslims in the USA aren't even immigrants or Pakistani, or Indonesian or anything else - the highest percentage is actually African American.

Why do you care now?? What took you so fucking long to give a shit about us?? What have y’all been doing while we’ve been suffering at the hands of cops and your people? What have y’all been doing while we’ve been getting gunned down in broad daylight? What have y’all been doing while we’ve been fighting, crying, mourning, and dying for our people? WHERE 👏🏾 THE 👏🏾 FUCK  👏🏾 HAVE 👏🏾 Y'ALL 👏🏾 BEEN?!?! 👏🏾

Some of y'all only give a shit about looking “woke” and “progressive” to Black folks and your White counterparts, and it shows. Y'all need to cut that shit the fuck out. You only hurt our cause when you show your ass like this. Allyship is not allyship when it’s performative, and even if you’re an “ally,” you’re still an oppressor. And y'all need to realize that. 

We don’t want another George Floyd. We don’t want another Tony McDade. We don’t want another Ahmaud Arbery. We don’t want another Breonna Taylor. We don’t want another Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Natasha McKenna, Samuel DuBose, Alton Sterling, Aiyana Jones, Laquan McDonald, Jocques Clemmons, Deborah Danner, Terence Crutcher…. We want justice. We want change. We want a future for ourselves and our children. We want to be able to exist without fear, without pain, and without our lives constantly being threatened. And we want y’all to do your part and work to dismantle the system that was created to harm us.

We are so tired of Whites sitting around doing nothing while our people are dying. Sharing posts in support of us and the movement is not enough. Signing a petition or two is not enough. We need y’all to call out your White counterparts for their racism and work on your own racial biases as well. We need y’all to listen to us when we talk about the injustices we face and learn from it. We need y’all to listen to and uplift our voices. And we really need y’all to be actively engaged in destroying everything that works to destroy us. 

I think people confuse “black lives matter” with “black lives are the ONLY lives that matter”. This is where most people not supporting BLM come from. Here’s a good analogy that I heard: “Say there’s a house on fire. Would you douse all the houses in the neighborhood because all houses matter? No. You’d focus on putting out the burning house. Even though all of the houses in the neighborhood matter equally, the house on fire should take priority because it’s being threatened the most.”

What’s worse than not supporting BLM? Not recognizing privilege. If you’re white and don’t understand that your skin is giving you an advantage over many people, you need to wake up ESPECIALLY if you’re living in a western country. This post is not trying to say “if you’re white you can’t support BLM” it’s saying “if you’re white, use your voice that actually gets heard to support the black people getting ignored”.