“Muslims of Reddit, how much did your life change after 9/11?”
“My friends treated my family and I differently. We stopped getting invited to events like birthday parties and such. This was a big deal because in my old neighborhood when you had a birthday the entire neighborhood was invited to celebrate with you. We were all friends. When my brothers and I walked up to a friend’s party we were straight up told to leave. My parents chewed them out on their blatant racism after that.
Also some teenagers from my eldest brother’s school egged our house and spray painted terrorists on our walkway. The dumbasses were caught in a week because our neighbor was a cop. Thank god he was the only neighbor to remain our friend because we felt so alone and scared after that.
Edit 2.0: thank you guys for the support. I really appreciate all of the comments and replies I’ve been getting. Ok so it was racism, a few redditors had corrected me saying it was anti religion so I thought, “well if a bunch of people are pointing out my mistake then shouldn’t I change it?” thanks for the correction. Sorry if I haven’t been able to answer your questions but in short: yes it has gotten better since I’ve moved. I have amazing friends who are very supportive, especially during Ramadan. My parents yelled at them for their racism and threatened to get the cop next door involved, that’s when our friend’s parents sped on back to the party. You guys are awesome and I pray to God that everything you ever hope for comes true.”
❤ I can’t imagine how alone that would make someone feel, how vulnerable.
These answers are very worth experiencing.
Related: This beautiful, comedic, emotional 10-minute short of one man’s response to an Islamophobic message spray painted on his car. Watch it watch it watch it, I feel like it captures something important about how people process that kind of hatred and work to maintain their own dignity.
