The Beginning

When I was 10 my family moved house from Newham in East London to Surrey, and I spent my first year in a new primary school getting bullied, so anxious in the mornings that I would plead with my parents just before being dropped off; please don't make me go back in there. I would pretend I had a fever, that I felt ill and had to leave early. I did anything I could, because I (obviously) hated being at school.  Why was I bullied? Maybe because I was new, maybe because I wasn't as slim and small as the other girls, maybe because I was from a different background to the others there. And that's exactly how I felt- other. 

That same year, someone shoved pork (that typical non-Muslim edible) through our letterbox, possibly by locals that knew we'd recently moved in and looked on unfavourably to my mum speaking Arabic, assumed we were Muslim, and wanted to let us know where we stand. I was acutely aware of my otherness yet again, even though it took me several years before I could trace these lines back to the kind of incident you would call "racist" today. 

Okay, I know what you're thinking: "deep story bro, but wtf does this have to do with that top and all those big serious words on it?"

Because everything has a beginning, and it's important to share that first. Sensing being treated differently by teachers at school, by my peers, by locals, that means something. Couple that with watching news of the Iraq War in '03 more fervently than any of my friends (unsurprisingly kids weren't really that into politics aged 12+), knowing my mum's sisters were there, to stay, or there trying to get out, meant I also got to see the bigger picture of what 'injustice' meant. The kind of feeling that could burn you because you feel it so powerfully. And strangely, over the years, I've realised my capacity to feel that burning injustice for all manner of things I've (luckily) never experienced myself. Which is what I think some of us are starting to do more: giving a damn about an issue and actually doing something about it, no matter how near or far to you it might be.

The thing is, these words on a (badass) jumper aren't just words on a (badass) jumper; we're all affected whether we're aware of it or not- and if you're not, that could be your privilege showing and you're even more welcome to give a damn. If you really think about it (cue cheesiest rhetorical q), what is the point in these shenanigans (aka our lives) if we're not trying to make things better by caring about and bettering the lives of others (beyond those lucky loved ones of ours)?

                                                                                   Jumper - Design by wokebae aka Hasan