Growing up in a post 9-11 America, I had often heard micro-aggressions described as death by a thousand cuts.

I experienced my thousand cut as an adult during a meeting with a team where everyone but me was white,

when someone brought up random selection by TSA, a concept I was no stranger to because of my name.

She joked that her husband gets stopped by airport security every time they travel, even though he doesn't have a terrorist sounding name.

It was clear what she meant. Names like mine, the one that always prompted questions about

my background and required help with pronunciation. It felt like an assault.

I looked around at the white faces laughing at their unknowing participation in this act of

micro-aggression, all unfazed by the comment. I waited for someone, anyone,

to acknowledge my conventionally Arabic name

and the insensitivity of what was said.

That didn't happen.

The meeting ended and I sat alone with my pain

feeling too new and unsupported to defend myself in the name my mother had chosen for me.

My whole life had been filled with moments like these.

Moments where I felt torn between standing up for myself and staying silent to avoid making waves.

Her comment reminded me of the time I spent hours in the emergency room waiting to be seen,

only to be approached by a provider whose first question was whether or not I would need an interpreter, and of the patient

who told me that he knew I was one of those when he heard my name and asked if more people

like me would be on his care team. Each of those moments and many like them took something from me,

leaving me with the understanding that I couldn't control the way I would be

perceived when people saw me, but that I did have control over their perception of

me when they read or heard my name.

...