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Thursday, May 20, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MICHIGAN IN COLOR

Every so often I hear about Hazaras 

in Afghanistan. I just did last week — 
it was mostly children who died. I 
remember how Khaled Hosseini so 
beautifully and eloquently painted a 
heartbreaking picture of the recent 
history of Afghanistan. and how 
To this, students in classes at my 
predominantly white high school 
analyzed questions such as “why 
did Hassan and Ammar get treated 
so differently?” “What was the basis 
of discrimination and subjection 
for Hassan and his family?” Every 
so often I hear about a blast in 
Pakistan, and every so often I meet 
a family friend whose uncle, cousin, 
or sibling was killed in these blasts. 
Just yesterday, I found out about the 
Gilgit massacre of Shias, initiated 
over a difference in Eid dates. I 
stared blankly at my laptop screen 
wide-eyed, shocked at the abhorrent 
events, and shocked that I just heard 
of it. I think about what makes me 
different to freely practice my Shiism 
here, until I wonder — what is free 

when yes, I openly use a sajdiga for 
my daily prayer, but still have to hear 
the the classic ‘why do you pray on a 
rock’ joke, still have to feign toleration 
at events with the overall community 
when I hear “we’re allowed to marry 
Jews and Muslims, just not Shias.” 
Every so often when I hear the 
news, I turn to the only method of 
denoting solidarity in this day and 
age — Instagram social activism. 
This metric is by no means indicative 
of genuity, but is telling enough in 
the sense that many Muslims will 
post about all social justice issues, 
until it comes to Shias. Ironically, 
these are the same Muslims who 
retweet “when it’s Muslims, the 
world is silent”, as though oppression 
is a competition in the first place. 
For me as a Shia and my best friend 
as an Ahmedi, there’s another layer 
to that silence- when it is us, even 
Muslims will be silent. The sense of 
solidarity that ever so often arises 
among Muslims is always amazing to 
see, but a part of me knows that this 
same unity will never be granted to 
Muslim minorities. 

It’s 6 a.m.: My mom has just woken 

up. I am sitting at the kitchen counter 
with a blanket around my shoulders, 
coffee cup in hand while lectures play 
on double-speed on my laptop. Finally 
convinced to go to sleep, I set my 
alarm in time for my 11 a.m. meeting 
with 
my 
internship 
supervisor, 

exasperated at the reality that this 
is what my life has become: zoom 
calls, sleepless nights, days in sweats, 
family arguments and isolation. 
Sighing, I scroll through my social 
media feeds, a nightly regimen, only 
to find photos of people on vacation, 
hanging out with friends, taking road 
trips… having fun. These photos fill 
me with anxiety — aren’t we still 
battling a global pandemic? Shouldn’t 
we be proceeding with caution? 
However, I also felt tinges of sadness 
and frustration because I am jealous 
— I wish I could have as much fun, but 
the pandemic wasn’t all to blame.

I am nearing my last semester at the 

University of Michigan and I cannot 
confidently say I have made many 
good friends here. I have two to three 
friends whom I speak to regularly, 

meaning at most once a month since 
the pandemic. Nevertheless, my 
struggle to foster friendships and 
have a “normal” college life did not 
only start in March 2020 but has 
been ongoing since the beginning 
of my freshman year. My time at the 
University so far can be best described 
as a tug-of-war: on one end were my 
parents, and I positioned myself at 
the opposite end and extended a rope 
between us. As I was the first member 
of my family to attend college in the 
United States, my parents and I found 
ourselves in territories we’ve never 
been in before: Who gets to make the 
decisions about my outings? When is 
my curfew? Who decides who comes 
into my room and who doesn’t? When 
my parents held and tightly pulled 
on the rope, it meant constraining 
the freedoms I found essential: 
studying in friends’ rooms, staying 
up late and attending events without 
permission. To them, I was neither 
an independent adult nor a needy 
child. I had the responsibilities of a 
college student but not the freedom 
of one, an in-between space that’s 
not one or the other. They tugged the 
rope according to those expectations 
and when I felt that pull, I yanked 
even harder the other way. I often 

lashed out in defiance of my parents, 
tightening my grasp on the rope 
and causing tension to build. But no 
matter how much we pushed and 
pulled, no matter how sore our hands 
became and exhausted we grew, we 
stayed in place and made no progress 
in either direction.

I 
started 
questioning 
ideas 

supposedly 
fundamental 
to 
my 

identity: Why should I adhere to 
these rules? What does it mean if I 
didn’t? How did these rules come 
to be? Is this something all Syrians 
followed? What about all Muslims? 
What does our faith say about this? As 
I came into my own, I felt the weight 
of these choices growing like rocks on 
my shoulder. Often, I shared thoughts 
or opinions that made my parents 
worry, especially when I didn’t share 
their views on some of the issues 
most important to them. Instead, my 
actions and ideas were sometimes 
labeled as wrong and harmful from 
approaches to social justice to even my 
ideal career path. Additionally, due to 
the intersectionality of my identities 
— Syrian, Ismaili Muslim, immigrant 
woman — there was no community on 
campus that I closely identified with. 
I became a foreigner in both Syrian 
and American spaces, not enough 

of either to completely fit in. Most of 
my peers had a very different outlook 
at things: College was a monumental 
moment in our lives where we learn 
to be independent and find ourselves 
and dream about our futures. While I 
did identify with their sentiments and 
the idea of a transition, it was difficult 
for me to adopt that perspective. I 
could not be American enough for my 
peers’ advice and I could not be Syrian 
enough for my parents’ expectations. 
Even other Syrian Americans I 
knew had college experiences on 
the complete opposite side of the 
spectrum.

During the winter semester of 

my junior year, I decided to take a 
semester off because it all became too 
much to deal with while also being 
a student. It was unthinkable to my 
parents that I spend this semester 
anywhere but home, especially Ann 
Arbor — a place that to them, was 
full of bad influences. Staying home 
presented its own challenges. Two 
months into that semester, COVID-
19 hit and arguments erupted almost 
every day regarding questions of 
where I would be living for the hybrid 
academic year. Even as I grew and my 
empathy for my parents grew, it also 
had limits: I still could not fathom 

why they would not let me be on 
campus. Now, instead of being home 
for four months, I have been home for 
a year and five months. This period 
has only advanced my isolation 
and further distanced me and my 
friends. My social life was replaced by 
occasional facetime calls and once-a-
month day trips I would take to Ann 
Arbor for visits.

As I reflect on these past months, I 

realize I may have acted out of a lack 
of empathy — fixating on my own 
negativity rather than considering 
how my family was feeling too. I 
dismissed large compromises and 
efforts that my family had made for 
assimilating into “the American life,” 
like allowing me to go to my first 
sleepover or inviting my friends over 
for a surprise birthday party. I focused 
too much on our disagreement and 
overlooked the tremendous amount 
of love we shared that allowed my 
parents to sacrifice so much for us 
with big smiles on their faces always. 
While I positioned myself and my 
parents on opposite sides of the rope 
in this game of tug-of-war, I realized 
tugging was not a way to freedom, but 
letting go was.

After a dormant three years, English 

singer-songwriter FKA Twigs has 
given me the first song of my playlist 
titled, “Banshee Vibes: I wanna rip my 
heart out and scream, but in a good 
way.” Her hit single “Cellophane,” an 
extremely vulnerable piano ballad 
centers around leading a relationship 
in the public eye and the toll it takes 
on one’s self-esteem and image. With 
a Grammy Award nomination for Best 
Music Video and named the best song 
of 2019 by Pitchfork, “Cellophane” 
unravels the raw human emotions 
that envelop love, loss, and everything 
in between. Twigs’ delicate and 
soothing voice offers a stark contrast 
to the song’s heart wrenching lyrics; 
uncomplicated words dripping with 
complicated feelings, pushing and 
pulling at all of our hearts.

FKA Twigs opens “Cellophane” 

with a series of emotional questions 
seemingly directed at her former 
lover, Twilight star, Robert Pattinson. 
It seizes our heartbroken souls from 
the start, ensuring Twigs is getting 

her point across without drawing it 
out while also engaging the slightly 
psychotic—like me—who listen to sad 
songs, especially at the height of their 
joy. Littered with rhetorical questions, 
accompanied only by the majestic keys 
of a piano playing in D Major paints 
Twigs in an anguished state, begging 
the question “Why was I not enough 
to be worthy of your love?” She goes on 
to repeat the chorus twice more in the 
middle of the song, pinpointing this 
message of worthiness in the face of 
adversity without explicitly stating it. 
Talk about self-esteem issues, sheesh.

Throughout the remainder of the 

song, Twigs uses very powerful, yet 
simple diction. Using repetitive verses 
like, 

“They wanna see us, wanna see us 

alone

They wanna see us, wanna see us 

apart,”

She’s able to highlight the pain and 

vulnerability that accompanies the 
meddling and scrutiny of the world’s 
selfish eyes. During her three year 
relationship with Robert Pattinson, 
she received constant criticism and 
hate from Twilight fans who were 
upset that Pattison was no longer 

dating his white co-star, Kristen 
Stewart. I don’t know about y’all, but 
anything is still a better love story 
than Twilight, especially the beautiful 
Twattinson couple…actually, Pigs is 
probably our best bet.The criticism 
turned into racism, and fans all over 
the globe began targeting Twigs’ 
biracial 
background, 
comparing 

her to a monkey regardless of what 
she did. She also spoke on how this 
constant racist barrage made her 
feel dysmorphic for close to a year 
especially when she saw photos of 
herself.

Her seemingly effortless word 

choice and repetition gives the illusion 
of simplicity whilst her groaning, 
cracking voice bears the weight of 
the world and all its problems. The 
contrast between the delicate piano 
playing, while her vulnerable vocals 
shine through allows us to relate to 
her relationship problems, even if 
not at the same level as that of A-list 
celebrities. Twigs’ word choice, while 
reveling in the phrase “short, but 
sweet,” is extremely impactful and 
never overstays its welcome. 

Living as the Exception

Stuck In The Middle... Alone

Transparency in FKA Twigs’ “Cellophane”

ELIYA IMTIAZ 

MiC Columnist

LEENA SHARBA

MiC Columnist

MARIAM ODEH

MiC Columnist

Read more at michigandaily.com
Read more at michigandaily.com

Read more at michigandaily.com

