I think what we’ve always done is dehumanize the experience for these people we are “at war” with. We are always afraid of what we don’t know.
I definitely think that there are days weeks, months, in the recent years where I have felt more afraid and unsafe for myself and for my family than I had in the years right after 9/11 and that is truly shocking and also not at all. And I don’t know that I have an answer for all of it. How to remain hopeful in the face of so much pain and disappointment in our leaders across the world. TM: That’s the line we are all treading every single day. Fast forward to our current political climate, it often feels like we are going backward. TV: The book takes place in a post 9/11 America and showcases how Muslim Americans were impacted daily. I wrote this story when my daughter was 4 months old and I want her to be able to see herself in the world in one day and be able to walk into the store and pick out a doll that looks like her without fear of repercussion. But I’d never just seen a normal Muslim kid on TV that wasn’t being singled out for being Muslim.
I’ve seen terrorist-adjacent versions of myself on TV. I never really faced that question head on until that moment. I would search through Where’s Waldo books and would look for people that look like my me or my mom and I could never find myself anywhere. When it was my turn, I found myself floundering because I didn’t have an answer to the question, and I think that was the first time it had ever really occurred to me that I had never seen myself represented anywhere in media. Everyone went down the line and answered in beautiful and emotional ways. TM: I was speaking on a panel and was asked when I remembered seeing myself represented in media for the first time, and what that experience was like. TV: When was the first time you noticed the distinct lack of diversity within American media representation?
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