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While I laughed last week at the amusing enquiries into my ethnicity, I have been reminded of the more serious side of the assumptions people make. A dear Puerto Rican friend who has lived in the UK for the past twenty years with her English husband has recently decided to move back to the States [...]

Be careful of assumptions. A friend of mine once complained that a friend of his didn’t want to know him any more. But in truth, the brother in question had died.

The gist of my recent post entitled “Assumptions” was that many of the views we have of others are based on conjecture until we actually obtain a fuller picture based on knowledge. In the meantime, polarisation occurs on the basis of what it is thought people believe or what is thought to be the reason [...]

Last Saturday, The Independent published an article by the commentator Deborah Orr concerning her perception and dislike of the nikab or face veil worn by some Muslim women. Over the week since then, the newspaper has been printing letters to the editor concerning this article, many of them agreeing with the author, but others – [...]

A brother sent me an article in the last few days by a sister about her choice to wear hijab. It was like others I had read before: a defensive response to the perceptions of others. ‘So next time you see me,’ the author concludes, ‘don’t look at me sympathetically. I am not under duress [...]

Have you ever read the polished floor? I read it every day when I see you. There are words on the polished floor, invisble to your eye, but I read them. Beyond a hidden world, there’s something there. I try to look out, but the words on the floor say, ‘No’. I say, ‘It’s not [...]