It Speaks Loudly and Clearly to Me 

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I want to take the correct stance on important issues.  
I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history. I don’t want to 
hold onto ideas that are no good. It’s difficult when your viewpoints are still 
being shaped. You hear that certain phenomena are oppressive, and you wonder 
whether this is true. You hear about great abundance and wealth; and you hear about 
extreme deprivation. You wonder whether it’s a matter of ending ostensible harm 
and uplifting the disadvantaged; or whether there’s something wrong with the current structure 
in life. “Serving your immediate community in whatever way you can, 
and earning provision for it” seems to work for many people; yet it doesn’t work for many others. 
You don’t know which truth to settle on. You see all of the successes that your own parents have had, 
and yet you’ve felt their discomfort; life’s division of labor.
You wonder whether it’s as simple as taking care of yourself, your community, and 
your loved ones, and getting people out of disadvantaged circumstances; or whether 
there’s something more insidious going on—whether the system really is exploitive and unfair.

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Ethar Hamid is a beginning writer/illustrator from Khartoum, Sudan. She is 28, and currently lives in northern Virginia.