Yesterday was world hijab day. The first week of February marks “World Interfaith Harmony Week” . In a world where disharmony feels more normal than peace, it is more important than ever to ask ourselves what are we doing to create a more accepting, loving world. . It’s not enough to say we aren’t racist. Or we aren’t Islamophobic. The media will do its best to promote the stories that are anything other than kind. We need to go further. As parents we need books that represent diversity, we need to witness and hold spaces for black and brown faces. We need to raise the voices of Muslims up so that our children and families and friends can see for themselves that the stories that have been sold to them are wrong and deliberately damaging to society’s happiness. . I am extremely privileged. I can dress how I wish to and when. This is one of the biggest reasons I stand up for others because exactly that, I have the choice. Far too many don’t. And it happens on every side, we judge before we know, and it benefits nobody and nearly always harms someone. . Women are told how to dress in nearly every country on earth in some way, routinely subject to violence due to their choice of clothing. And brown skinned men are scapegoated into crimes they would never commit. Everywhere we go, good people are being condemned by ignorance. . Yet what if we all made a point of looking away from the clickbait, and finding the stories where humanity strikes harder than the threat of any religious group or person. What if we saw the stories of hope, survival, dignity, generosity, compassion, community, kindness and love that so many religious people, especially Muslims, offer people every single day. . My faith is stronger than many who wear hijab, and weaker than many who never wear it atall. My heart is the same as it was in any of these photos. I am no less or more at peace, no kinder or less so. I am the same woman. And I think this is the most important thing. I look completely different and yet I’m exactly the same. We are human. All of us. And the sooner we see that and believe it the sooner we will have harmony