This, I believe

It’s better to be ugly on the outside then it is on the inside.

You can fix looks, not who you are.

I believe, a person can change

But once a nasty person, always an evil one.

Once the darkness wrapps its hands around the heart

It stains.

I’ve  felt the nasty radiate from fallen purest

So I stepped back to keep my purness.

I was screamed at

Bruised

Loney

Laughed at

Picked at

Nicked at

Sick to where my bones sored and the dark people that surrounded me quivered my blood, and made my muscles into stones.

I was left in a pretty mess.

Survival was needed.

Remember, I am the white pure angel that needs no fixing.

I look upon the darkest hearts and pity them.

For they will never be free.

They will never know the feeling of being lifted in the arms of a loved one

Or notice how beautiful the sun shines down on the world

All over grassy hills and pink sunsets.

How bright your hand becomes as you lift it from the ground into the sky

Knowing that someone else's lonely hand was holding up to the sky too.

To know what it's like to have the corners of your mouth perk up, and let a heavy sound of laughter budge from your belly.

They don’t know the feeling of warmth filling you up all the way in.

They let darkness and hatred consume them.

The ugliness on the inside, they can never fix

Their hearts are stained like gravy on a white t-shirt.

They are broken like the glass scattered from an abandoned home at the end of the block.

They should learn from me.

To feel forgiveness and spread kindness like bees spread pollen.

I pollinate kindness through softly speaking to.

Throughout my life, when I have studied and learned about the history of this planet, I have heard many stories of mankind’s unsettling capacity for violence, cruelty, xenophobia, hatred, and greed. Too many times, I have read or learned about a historical event where humanity took these sins to their absolute worst levels. The Civil Rights Movement. The Holocaust. The American-Indian Massacres. The Era of American Slavery. All of these events left a nauseatingly long trail of ruined lives and dead innocents in their wake. These types of tragedies have happened far too often in human history. It’s easy for many of us to lose faith in our species, but at the end of the tunnel of tragedy is a light of hope. For even in the darkest eras of human history, humans have proven that while their capacity for evil is great, their capacity for good is even greater. I have learned about many instances where a select few people have risen up above base instinct and xenophobia so as to help others. For example, Martin Luther King was not only a fierce advocate for civil rights, but he did so without resorting to violence. He preached the ideals of fighting with words rather than bullets, and his followers behaved exactly as he pleaded for them to. Even when faced with overwhelming odds and constant threats from his enemies, he never once lashed out in rage.

Throughout my life, I have always believed that despite our flaws, humans have an unbelievably huge capacity for good. Learning about people like Martin Luther King and growing up surrounded by family and friends who accepted me for who I was helped to strengthen my belief that if me and my loved ones could accept and love each other unconditionally, then humanity has that potential as well. If you wish to see more modern examples of humankind’s capacity for good, then you needn’t look very far to find them. All around the United States, and the world at large, you will come across thousands of organizations dedicated to helping others, acting on the ideals of compassion. Philadelphia is the home city of Project HOME, a homelessness rehabilitation program that takes homeless people off the streets and provides them with housing, job opportunities and training, medical care, education, and all of a citizen’s basic necessities while teaching them to fend for themselves. Philadelphia is also home to the Saved Me Animal Shelter, an anti-euthanasia shelter that actually rescues other dogs and cats from pro-euthanasia shelters and keeps them safe and warm until they get adopted. These two selfless organizations help to fully cement Philadelphia’s reputation as the city of “brotherly love,” and I have had the honor of volunteering for both of them in the past. While at the animal shelter, I helped by folding laundry, cleaning windows, playing with the animals, washing the chalkboard, and scooping the litter boxes. At Project HOME, I worked at the medical clinic shredding old documents so as to make room for new patients. Even though my work at the clinic was clerical at most, I was confident that in one way or another, I was making quite an impact on the community and helping many homeless people to avoid getting sick, or worse. During my orientation day the beginning of my two-week volunteer session, I also got to hear from a formerly homeless man who told us how Project HOME helped him to become a productive member of society. Not only was I inspired by his story, but I also learned that when you look beneath all of the stigma and stereotypes, homeless people are really no different from what society considers “normal” people.

Not only have I had the honor of working for Project HOME and Saved Me Animal Shelter, but I have also helped make commitments to science and the understanding of Autism. You see, since Autism is such a mysterious and strange condition (which many people have even arrogantly labeled a mental disorder), people tend to be afraid of what it is and if it will harm people. Others even taunt and tease people with Autism because they believe that their victims are not as intelligent as people without Autism. Some parents actually refuse to give their children vaccinations because they see some non-existent connection between vaccinations and Autism. My volunteering to have X-Ray images taken of my brain and to do computer games for Autism research have helped to improve the scientific community’s knowledge of it and I am confident it will help to allay people’s fears of the harm Autism has the potential to cause. I foresee that in time, people will come to see people with Autism not as mentally defective or insane, but simply as regular people whose minds just work a little differently than others.

As a child, I relied on other people’s opinions. I let them control what I said, what I did, what I wore and what I didn’t wear, my hijab being one of them.

It was my eighth grade year of middle school, also time for me to start wearing my hijab. All my other Sudanese-Muslim friends had starting wearing their hijab, some without a doubt, some with some hesitation. And then there was me, with fear, and reluctance, and a million other emotions my 13 year old self couldn’t conjure into one single word for.

At the start of an adolescent Muslim girl’s life, she must start wearing her headscarf and dressing modestly. One question that is always at the tip of another person's tongue when looking at my hijab is,

“Where you forced?” they would ask with arched brows.

When it was anything but the opposite. My mother and father never forced me to wear the hijab. I always knew growing up that I would wear it, eventually. When I did start wearing it was my choice, and as I explained this to confused face in front of me, they started to be more puzzled that I would put it on voluntarily. My parents, never asked me to wear it, I wore it on my own, it was the love for my religion and support from my family that drove me here. However, it took me awhile to get to this place of confidence and acceptance of my hijab.

Middle school was a tough time for a kid who struggle with an identity crisis, who was trying to make a drastic change in her life, but too afraid of the response from her peers. Islamophobic remarks was common for me during that time. Although I didn’t wear my hijab at the time, people still knew I was muslim by very obvious last name, Mohammed. Thinking back to a time when our 6th grade class was discussing Islam, and someone talked about how their family members were Muslim.

“My aunt and her three daughters are Muslim, they all wear the headscarf thingy.” The boy said, and without any consideration to my vulnerability asked,

“Israh, how come you don’t wear it?”

All of their tormenting eyes turned to me, my hands started to shake a little, so I sat on them to hid it, I wish I could hide the fearful look on my face. I looked down at my grey and dark blue plaid skirt that was part of our uniform. To keep us from making fun of each other if one person’s clothes weren’t as nice as their peers. In those moments I imagined a bold Israh who was quick with her tongue that could make 12 year old boy's silence their mouths forever, but I was a scared girl with shaking hands that she hid underneath her gray and dark blue plaid skirt, getting asked a question she had no idea how to answer.

“I’m too young to wear it.” was all I could manage.

He replied with a dazed and confused look on his face, mouth halfway open in confusion as the room seemed to be getting smaller and smaller.

“Well, my cousin is three years old, and she wears it.”

The entire class stared at me some with quizzical looks, others with a sort of ‘this isn’t my business but I’m gonna make it mine’ look and one kid in the back of the room with a pen doodling on the desk, he was my favorite classmate from then on.

I wasn’t afraid to wear hijab, just how my friends would treat me differently. My most known feature in middle school was my hair. Girls would always undo my braid and redo it for sport. Other girls would always joke as we stood in the lunch line,

“Girl, if you ever cut your hair off please give it to me!”

“Are you even black?”

“I’m sure that’s not your REAL hair.”

“Can I braid it for you?”