Shakira Hussein
#MeToo and the Uneven Distribution of Trauma
My experiences of abuse and harassment have never stopped, but I had quarantined all these experiences behind a cordon where they could be managed...
Then #MeToo unleashed them all.
I found it difficult to understand why this should be so, given that the issue of gender violence is never far from my mind. This, after all, was supposed to be the revolution that I’d been waiting for – yet I was left feeling isolated rather than connected, helpless rather than empowered.
Traveling the Foodways with Mrs. H
I continue to prepare the recipes that I learned in Mrs. H’s kitchen not only for myself and my family, but also for those Jewish friends whose observation of kosher is relaxed enough for them to consume food prepared in a Muslim kitchen...This isn’t to say that I’m Jewish because I just love Jewish food, any more than the annoying white hipster next door is Thai just because he loves tom yum and spent his gap year in Koh Samui. But it is to say that the flavours of particular recipes have the Proustian capacity to transport me back to a Jewish household where I felt a sense of belonging and safety in an often hostile, though always entrancing, city.
(Note: this piece is part of Liminal’s digital series on TASTE.)