Apparently it does matter, otherwise I would not have felt the need to write these pieces…

Everything is test from Allah. But this fact and the patience and dignity one is suppose have while confronting those tests can’t be used as an excuse to not speak out against injustices or against things which are flatly wrong. What you have just expounded is a troubling trend I’ve seen in Muslims whereby they use the notion of patience in the face of adversity as an excuse to acquiesce. The two are not mutually exclusive: one can be patient and yet speak out against wrong doing – or in this case – wrong thinking (or non-thinking).

And for the record, systemic racism or systemic prejudice based upon physical features that one has no control over is NOT even remotely tantamount to being ridiculed for lower your gaze, something one CAN control. This is a logical fallacy which serves very little in this (non)-discussion and actually diminishes the issue in and of itself.

Most of the teachers were not Muslims

It’s not lowered its actually Lord

I finally got to read this series that was on my reading list for…well..months I suppose?! While trying to pull one of my friends out of his depression for the past two months because a girl of a different ethnicity “left him after 3.5 years for a white man” (words uttered by him at his lowest dips of lack of self-confidence), I realize how the problem is so deep-rooted in our communities. As you wrote part I, your grandfather was so right. They just cover it up. Say things in perhaps more “politically correct ways” (whatever that means in the current state of the world) but at the end of the day, we as a community are just so flawed.

I’m sorry that you, people like my friend and many others have to go through these turmoils. I’d have to agree with the convert sister who told you that our dark skins are indeed a filter for us to eventually meet the right people who would not only embrace us for who we are but honor us and cherish us for they will find the beauty in our faces that the blessed Messenger (peace be upon him) found in many of his close companions who…by the way…were not mostly white.

Stay blessed,
Sidra

as-salam alaikum.
thank you for this great article and discussion. how do we build a resilience in ourselves and others that will allow us to focus more on the beautiful path to God, so as to not be affected by the ills in our community? “the community” of today is so spiritually immature – and this is the cause of all the other ills we see in it from extremism to racism to sexism to plain narrowmindedness. i think it could be of solace to some to reduce our personal expectations of the Ummah and of connection with others and make our faith about Allah Alone and being with Him. i don’t really see an alternative – we have to build resilience of this kind in ourselves and other converts so that we are not placing hopes in other muslims, but are strongly walking the Path to God, *with* Him as our Companion…with Rasul Allah peace be upon him as our Guide, and dwelling more in THAT unseen realm than the worldly realm of other human beings and their ways of being Muslim (or failing at fully being that).
personally, whenever i place a higher level of hope in community – or the storied brotherhood that is promised – i lose all my spiritual strength, i get super frustrated, i get angry. I don’t need that, becuase it is a distraction from the Path. If each person works on their path…this will contribute to a spiritual change that will sweep others up with it. Not saying that this article isn’t useful or anything of the sort – but we need to develop greater resilience so these ills that exist and have existed for so long don’t hurt us so badly and dissapoint us so deeply.