STAND AND DELIVER - THE WHITE MAN SAYS SO.

So I got a call asking if I wanted to do some market research, said yes as long as it doesn't involve alcohol (non-halal stuff) and the bright young spark on the other side of the phone launched into a quite abrasive way of asking questions about Islam like 'Did you as a female choose to be Muslim because your religion is so misogynistic etc'. 

Credit to him for actually asking and listening to the answers, and sometimes trying to be polite about it (actually zero times), and 15minutes in I tried to give him an easy out because I had corrected every single piece of garbage 'knowledge' he had spewed and didn't want to make it him feel more awkward or shallow so I asked him how old he is (21) and what he was studying (some combination of economics and law) and I was like oh yeah my cousin is studying law - and then - wait for it - the misogynistic tapeworm automatically assumed the cousin is a guy. His brain would have imploded if he found out that my mother qualified as a doctor twice, with the second one being in her 3rd (4th?) language and simultaneously dealing with 5 children. 

I got all of the horrible questions - beheadings, deliberately dying as a martyr, polygamy (this was a good one - 'we are animal and we're not designed to be with one person for life, we're supposed to SPREAD OUT SEED, but having casual sex partners is okay and different to a woman allowing her husband to add a second wife for whom he's has to provide for equally etc. is wrong') and lots of "I haven't read the Quran but I watched this documentary and it was really good and the I read the Quran (?but you said you haven't??) says women are inferior" and it went on and on and on in this vein. 

And he had actually just called to ask if I'd like like to taste test some lemonade for their research group. Like, WHAT THE ACTUAL FCK??? I couldn't remember a single scholar to recommend watching on youtube because there I was enjoying my mature cheddar and BAM! STAND AND DEFEND YOUR INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY AS WELL AS THOSE OF 1.7 BILLION OTHERS BECAUSE THIS 21YO MALE HAS WATCHED A DOCUMENTARY THAT SHOWED THAT MOST MUSLIMS ARE JUST HUMANS.

And all I had wanted to do was take a lunch break and eat my mature cheddar. 

S.

PS I'm not as angry as this post may suggest, but he interrupted my cheese time. Luckily mum called soon after to tell me she loves me and how I was such a good little girl back in the day. Nothing quite like praise from someone you love to perk you up again :) Also, he's not going to learn if he doesn't ask questions, and only God knows the many and varied silly things I've said and done out of pure ignorance. I'm glad if I can be the person to pull someone over to the light, and I would like documented credit to me if this interaction contributes to his learning or broadening of his mind in some way.

S.

Even lateral movement is still movement.

Sometimes you catch yourself routinely watering a dead plant over and over again, like there is some hope that are is some tiny part of the plant is alive deep down, and this tiny part will come out and eventually bloom. I’ve been doing this lately for a fern given out as wedding favours at the wedding of a dear friend, so this anecdote can stop here and be literal, told as a joke.  

But I have many feelings that keep wanting to come out, so there is more. 

I guess that desperate hope is what I find when I keep trying to manage stress and sadness and fears and obesity. I keep plugging away and going through the motions in the hope that there exists a tiny healthy bright part of me that will make it all worth it. Often when you try really hard, your only consolation is that you tried at all. I desperately want to bet better, but maybe what counts - and what really gives value to my person and my life - is the fact that i’m chipping away at this mountain, even if all i have is a butter knife (which i admit i only use to put the right about of hummus on my wafer crackers).

Peace and love,

S.

You want rewiring done right, you have to do it yourself.

I have more feelings to share and it's one of these things that fill in some small part of your heart/soul and it's not a huge stride but it is a shuffle forward. This piece will one day be fleshed out into the most revolutionary of all political compendiums, but here is the first draft.

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Learning to deal with new/current/old things using a new approach means you're literally rewiring your brain. The older you are, the harder it gets, not just because certain pathways have become very strong, but also because you don't necessarily have the means to hijack an existing network to link new thoughts and habits together to your core and growing new branches towards other dendrites takes ages. But you'll get there.

Learning to stay calm - to suppress and redirect the aspects of your flight/fight/freeze of your stress response - that's really tough and so, so, SO hard. But you can do it, because the next time you ask a older privileged white man about how to find a mentor and he immediately tells you that he understands what you're going through and that he has a a good friend who is Indian, you are able to actually say with polite words that 'yeah that's awesome, thank you for your business card, will totes come to you for career/life advice'. And you will do this without crying, or breaking the pen your holding, or literally slamming your head into a brick wall.

You will do this because this person's ignorance is not your fault or your enemy. Yeah, the three-year-old wants to shout NO, the teenager wants to roll her eyes, the young adult wants scream with the injustice of his misconception,. But you have disconnected the reactionary driver, and you deal with the situation with the default politeness you've been working on, and send a few thoughts down to the big processing centre to file away as 'brownie points for self-restraint'.

You are exposing old networks of anxiety and frustration to a pacifist's approach, teaching those high-strung neurones to reach for this new piece of golden nugget with soft hands and a softer heart.

Peace and love,

S.