Flash forward to fall of 2016—the atrocities of the war in Syria had been splashed across the front pages of many American and European newspapers. More of the world was aware of what was happening, yet the silence in response to the suffering of an entire population felt deafening. Why didn’t more people care? Why didn’t more people want to help? These questions scared me. They made me confront things that I had long ago buried within me—knowledge of prejudice against Arabs and Arab Americans, Islamophobia, and America’s often cool indifference to the suffering of brown people.
