*WARNING: This post contains my personal feelings and experiences. While all thoughts are appreciated, please refrain from personal attacks, vague generalizations, and blaming others. We are all entitled to our opinions and experiences, but kindness should govern our interactions with others. 

My oldest son came home from school angry yesterday, and his anger continued throughout the evening. A part of me assumed it was because his siblings had reached a new level of irritation, but another part of my mom brain knew there was something else. 

Late last night, the time all the hard conversations start, he came and told me that another child called him a terrorist at school. My gut reaction was to say, “What? That is absurd”. But he went on to provide context, and it made my mom heart hurt for him. 

My oldest child is proud of his Palestinian heritage. We do very little to celebrate that heritage, but he knows that it is a part of who we are, and one look at him and you can tell he isn’t entirely white. Most of his school friends are directly connected to India, which has encouraged him to embrace his “brownness,” as he calls it. I love this for him. I love that he sees being Palestinian as something to celebrate because I did not always feel the same way. 

His peers know that some of his extended family comes from the Middle East, and someone took the opportunity to use that to tell him he was a terrorist. 

A terrorist?

Are you kidding me?

I told him not to let it bother him, that this child was ill-informed and parroting the rhetoric he’d heard elsewhere, but as I said, my heart hurt for him. 

I was fifteen when September 11th happened. The weeks following 9/11 were full of shame and teasing from my peers because of my Palestinian heritage. I learned to joke about it and bring it up lightheartedly before the ugly teasing started, but being ridiculed because of something you neither chose nor can control is hard. 

When I went to a conservative religious college several years after 9/11, I intended to keep the Palestinian part to myself, but at a university full of blonde and blue-eyed people, I stood out. I felt uncomfortable in my own skin self-conscious, and almost afraid every time someone commented on how I didn’t fit the “Utah” mold. I received creepy questions about my “exotic” background. More than one male acquaintance repeatedly asked where I was “from.” I’m from California, you dummy. No matter how often you ask, I will still be from California. 

In light of the current situation in the Middle East, Palestine, and Palestinians have come up in conversations over and over again, not only for myself but my children. I’ve overheard these conversations in the grocery store, seen people I respect post cruel things online, and been asked more than once if I think we should just bomb “the hell” out of the terrorists. 

Let’s sit with that for a second. I want to turn and say, “I am a Palestinian; you are talking about me”. Because of the luck of the draw, I grew up in the United States with opportunities to learn, grow, and develop my potential, but ultimately, I cannot change who I am.

I want to scream:

Do you see the mothers struggling to keep their children alive? Do you hear the stories about mothers who are too malnourished to breastfeed their babies, frantically searching for formula? These mothers pose no threat to us; they are concerned with daily survival and not long-term plans. 

Do you see the generation of children growing up without opportunities and hope? Do you see the hatred we are sowing in a generation that has already experienced hardship and deprivation? If we create a generation with nothing, we ensure they have nothing to lose by taking extreme actions. 

Why is it okay for one group to wipe out another because of previous injustice? Don’t we profess to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, who told us to love our neighbor as ourselves? Can we peacefully disagree while still respecting other people?

Why isn’t a Palestinian life worth the same as an Israeli or American life? What is it about this group that makes them “other”? 

Why are we letting this happen as a world? Yes, atrocities have been committed on both sides; we cannot argue that either side is innocent, but why and how is more destruction justified? Why does my injury permit me to inflict wounds on another?

I understand this conflict is thousands of years old and more nuanced than I can unravel, but are we not all children of God? Don’t we all yearn for safety, security, and love? And how do we justify taking that from another person or group?

To the child who called my son a terrorist, I am sorry for you. I am sorry you cannot see past the things he cannot change to see the kind person he is. 

Let’s put down our weapons, rhetoric, money, political affiliations, and pride. Let’s learn to disagree productively. Let’s recognize that families are starving to death for no reason. Let’s use creative methods to find meaningful solutions to big problems. Let’s stop using labels and consider we are all part of the human family. We have more in common than differences, which are not always bad.