Huff Post: by Sophia Khan.
I wept this morning, the tears of a half-Pakistani American whose human brethren around the globe are once more catching fire and burning each other down. Caught between two worlds, I have always found myself speaking on behalf of a group I felt ill-equipped to represent. Whether it was an angry pack of Americans ready to relegate all Muslims to the category of violent extremists in the wake of terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2011, or non-Americans who believed all citizens of the US were fat, ignorant, Islam-hating warmongers, everyone seemed poised to hate. At the centerpiece of these flaring accusations was the most frustrating element of all: misunderstanding.
How anyone can make the assumption that the actions of an individual or even a small group must be representative of the whole is beyond me. And yet, we do it every day.