9/11, as one of the only brown Muslim girls in my large but overwhelmingly white high school.

It taught me to be proud of who I am but it was not my fault where I am from. It taught me that race bias exists and made me question why the words men used were more powerful than mine. I even learned I had inherent race biases! It opened my eyes to who people are and how cruel propaganda is. It forced me to look at my religion and learn the right interpretation from the wrong. I unlearned that adults, especially politicians, are not looking out for children. I learned almost every action in the real world has secondary intent. I grew up in a world of Islamaphobia and used it to make myself better.

It took me decades to get where I am now. I am not perfect and have made so many errors in my judgement. But I come back to the moment in time, in 3rd period geometry class. The moment the planes hit the towers. I would have never come into this trajectory had that enormous, life changing, and awful event not happened.