Evil Eye

by Etaf Rum

Why didn’t the world recognize that identity and privilege were accidents of birth? How much more empathy would people have if they understood that their position in life was decided not by goodness or merit or fault or need but by luck and chance, a toss of a coin?

It was because all her life she’d learned to feel safer in obedience than to be free.

Had she decided on this particular path for herself, or had there been an invisible hand alongside her the whole time, steering her toward it?

Words simplified situations and emotions, robbed them of their complexity.

if you want to be technical about it, unless you’re indigenous, then we’re all foreigners. We’re all immigrants.”