what divides us isn’t real.

Earlier today I was walking to the tube station when somebody shouted at me “get out, go on, go back where you came from!” Things like this can happen when you are brown just after a big terrorist attack. Sometimes it just happens anyway. It doesn’t happen to me that often, but enough to be able to take it, to look at the person shouting at me, make eye contact and smile. No matter what, I always remember that what divides us isn’t real. We are all part of this beautiful world. My heart goes out to those that face far worse than this on a daily basis. And my heart goes out to those who feel so much pain they have to shout at strangers to feel some sense of control. Terrorism, racism, sexism, any kind of ignorance teaches us to deepen our experience of compassion. What divides us isn’t real.

Thank you to my friend Anika Saigal for this artwork. She made it to be “an alternative profile overlay. It’s meant to express union, connectedness, identifying ourselves as above the borders and labels that divide us.” If you want to add this overlay on your profile photo, download the image above, upload your picture here, upload the earth image and overlay it at transparency 80.