On all fronts, it just feels like there's anxiety and fear for safety. At work, we are concerned for the refugees and asylum seekers we help, but we are also concerned for ourselves. You hear stories of Muslim women having their hijabs ripped off. My mum wears a hijab, so when she goes out, even though she's here in London, I'm just constantly concerned because there's no telling what it's like out there.
Being targeted for the colour of my skin is bad enough. I have a lot of feelings at the moment, swinging between anger, frustration and sadness. I would say that the anti-racism rallies are just the beginning of undoing years and years of systemic issues. It's going to take a lot more than one evening of counter-protests to undo the damage of over a decade of our communities being vilified.
This has made me reach out to people I haven't spoken to in months because I know we are all part of a community that is at risk and, at the end of the day, all we have is each other. More than anything, it's the community that make this something you can get through.
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