If it helps (errr….I imagine from the rage coming off the page in your post that it won’t but I’ll push ahead nonetheless), I’m always being told, implicitly or explicitly, that I don’t know anything because I’m a convert, no matter how long I’ve been Muslim. I’ve been Muslim for more than a decade and people still tell me how to pray. And whenever convert friends and I raise our concerns about X practice in the community, we are told we “are just converts who want to change the religion”, because we “are too Westernized”. Non-Muslims not only ask me where I’m from, but when they find out, I often also get the “you TRAITOR” treatment. I also get to listen to “born Muslims” bang on and on (and ON), unapologetically, about Whitey and how inherently racist Whitey is (and stupid, and uncultured), right in front of me.

I’m not trying to tell you you’re wrong about your experiences, or that mine/converts are worse. Your experiences are real and they are sh!thouse, no doubt, and I can only imagine how wearing it is to hear them all the time. More that I’m just letting you know that maybe it’s just people being d!ckheads. Probably the same people being d!ckheads to both of us.

And THIS convert loves you. In your immortal words: don’t hate!