What is our inherent worth as individuals? How can we go beyond stereotypes and labels to recognize the dignity in others? In this groundbreaking issue of KidSpirit, contributors consider the very nature of what it means to human. Through stories of personal discovery and growth, their work reaches for a deeper understanding of how we relate to friends, strangers, and even ourselves.

1. In his response to this issue’s Big Question, "Can Labeling Predetermine Success or Failure?," Nimai Agarwal takes a closer look at one of the words he is afraid might define how others see him: short. His inspection reveals that the label isn’t necessarily positive or negative, but takes on whatever meaning he chooses to give it. “Labels can limit us,” he writes, “but only if we let them.” What words do you allow to define you, and how do they affect your own self-image? Write down 10 adjectives you would use to describe yourself, then 10 adjectives you think others might use to describe you. Are there any contradictions? Do you feel any of your labels might hold you back or help you succeed? Why or why not? Swap lists with a friend. Do any of the words your friend wrote down surprise you or reveal something you didn’t know?

2. Being born and raised on opposite sides of an international conflict didn’t stop Noorjehan Asim and Himadri Agarwal from becoming friends. Read their Feature article, "On Borders and Boundaries," and consider a time in your life you got to know someone different from you. What did you think about that person initially? What did you find you had in common? Was there anything you disagreed about? How has your perception of your new friend or acquaintance changed over time?

3. Dr. Sarah Sayeed’s PerSpectives column, "Affirming Human Dignity," emphasizes that dignity is not just a right, but a responsibility we each have to each other. Based on her experiences as a community organizer, she writes that “while dignity is something we are born with, it is also something we affirm for one another.” How do the words and actions of others remind you of your own dignity? How can you do the same for others? Come up with five things people do or say that make you feel respected and valued. Then, write down five things you can do this week to recognize the dignity of people around you. Discuss your ideas with the group. How do these actions contribute to your community as a whole?

Human Dignity Group Guide

A few years ago, “empathy” became a buzzword, a trend, much like avocados, man buns, or Netflix.

When I was in fifth grade, my school system unveiled a new initiative called R.A.I.S.E. (respect, achievement, inclusion, service, and empathy), a set of guidelines for how everyone in the community was expected to act. I was sitting in my elementary school gym during an all-school assembly when my principal made the announcement about R.A.I.S.E. Having never heard of empathy before, I was given my first definition of the word when he told us that “to have empathy is to put yourself in someone else’s shoes.” He also told us that having empathy was the key to becoming better people.

I was a soft, impressionable fifth grader, and so of course when I heard that empathy was the key to it all, I believed it without question. If we all put ourselves in one another's shoes, then we would be able to understand the actions of those around us, reconcile our differences, and get along swimmingly.

Unfortunately, things are never as simple as they seem, and empathy is no exception. Many people who tout empathy as the badge of Good Samaritan-ship, my fifth-grade administrators included, are as well-intentioned as they are under informed. A simplistic understanding of empathy can never be the be-all and end-all of solutions to our mistreatment of one another, nor the only road to becoming a good person. But a fuller understanding of empathy can deepen interpersonal interactions by building emotional connections between individuals.

While the first definition of empathy I was given certainly encompassed what my teachers and administrators were trying to instill in us in grade five, it is not a precise definition of the word. So let’s establish the definition of empathy that I am going to work with so that we can all remain on the same page. Empathy is the act of understanding someone else’s feelings and experiences. Empathy comes into practice in three ways: either you react to someone’s feelings with feelings of your own, you understand someone’s emotions but don’t experience any yourself, or you see someone’s distress and show compassion. The first type of empathy is called emotional empathy, the second is called cognitive empathy, and the last, a little different from the first two, is empathic concern.

There are situations in which each type of empathy can be appropriate and helpful; however, there are also situations in which the wrong type of empathy can be harmful. I believe that more important than the question of whether we have enough empathy for one another is the question of whether we have the right kind of empathy.

Cognitive empathy on its own calls simply for you to understand someone else’s experience. No part of cognitive empathy involves doing anything to make people feel better, reciprocate their feelings, or even let them know that you understand their pain.

Cognitive empathy is a purely passive experience. It may help someone feel calm, but it may have little or no effect. However, there are times when cognitive empathy can be very useful. A doctor who understands what a patient is going through but is able to remain calm and professional may put the patient more at ease than a doctor who expresses the same anxiety that the patient is feeling.

Therapists are perhaps the best example of the use of cognitive empathy. For those who find seeing a therapist helpful, cognitive empathy can be a great positive. But therapy does not work for all people. Some find seeing a therapist uncomfortable, stressful, or upsetting, and in those moments there is little that the removed, listening ear of cognitive empathy can do to help.

Emotional empathy, unlike cognitive empathy, does involve reciprocating others' feelings. It entails sharing others’ burdens, taking on their experiences and their suffering and internalizing it so that you feel as they do, or as close to it as possible. For people who are in pain, knowing that someone else feels for them may help them heal.

People often feel bonded after a shared emotional experience, so emotional empathy can lead to close and trusting relationships. If a friend or family member confides in you that they are struggling, it is natural to feel anxiety or concern for them. Feeling for others is not automatically a bad thing. Emotional empathy can provide closeness and understanding in interpersonal interactions that may not be present otherwise.

While it is possible to have emotional empathy without overextending yourself, it is also possible for emotional empathy to be detrimental to the person feeling it. Over time, it can become self-destructive for someone to internalize the pain of others. Studies show that people who feel a lot of emotional empathy for those around them are more likely to suffer from depression and find themselves emotionally spent. They use so much of their energy taking in the problems of others that they have none left to deal with their own issues. While it is important to be a good listener and to let the people in our lives know that we are there for them, it is also important to maintain at least some emotional distance from their problems, lest we take them on and make them our own problems, too.

Empathic concern differs from the first two expressions of empathy in that the person giving empathic concern does not internalize what the other person is going through, either through intellectual understanding or emotional reciprocation. Empathic concern happens when a person sees someone in need of support, and shows them sympathy and tenderness. Empathic concern is also called compassionate empathy, as it is essentially the same as compassion.

If a friend walked up to you and said, “I have a stomachache,” you might offer her a hug, tell her that you are sorry, ask if she is alright, or say something along the lines of “At least your appendix isn’t rupturing. I hear that’s even more painful.” These responses are examples of empathic concern, as they show tenderness and sympathy when faced with another person’s difficult situation. You do not have to feel stomach pain yourself or accurately understand the specifics of the other person’s pain in order to feel empathic concern. In this way, empathic concern is the easiest to have. It is the least vulnerable.

Empathic concern comes from seeing someone else’s distress and wanting to help fix it, to make it go away, while other types of empathy involve understanding a person’s distress and possibly feeling it with them. Despite your intentions, empathic concern cannot usually mend a situation on its own. It is about offering comfort or finding a silver lining, and typically blankets a wound instead of healing it. Importantly, it also rarely causes harm to either the person giving or the person receiving the compassion.

It seems as though it should be relatively simple to figure out what type of empathy to use when. But it takes extreme self-awareness to judge how you should react or not react in every interaction you have. And even if you were able to pick the correct brand of empathy for a situation, there would still be other pitfalls that could easily slip past even your heightened self-awareness.

The main issue is that every person has some degree of bias, and that bias shows itself when people express empathy unequally. People feel more empathy for people they perceive to be like them, and less empathy for people they see as different. This leads to rifts in empathy along lines of gender, class, religion, and particularly race.

In one study, researchers presented a test group with images of people experiencing different types of physical pain, such as stubbing their toe or getting shampoo in their eyes. The subjects had to rate how much pain they thought each person was experiencing. The results showed that the test group assumed that black people felt less pain than white people did. Even when the black and the white people in the images were going through the same things, the perceptions of those in the test group dulled the pain that the black people were experiencing, while they better understood the emotions of the white people.

You can see these same results in real life. The US justice system treats black people more harshly than white people, most likely because juries (in many cases composed of a majority of white jurors) have less empathy for black defendants than white defendants. On average, black people are given longer sentences than white people for the same crimes, and black youths are more likely to be tried in adult court than white youths. People, especially white people in America, are often unable to empathize equally across lines of race, whether that prejudice is conscious or not.

This prejudice acknowledged, it is still true that certain types of empathy in certain situations can do amazing things as far as people interacting with and understanding one another.

My best friend is someone that I met last year, and even though I have not known him half as long as I have known most of the other people in my life, we understand each other better than anyone else. When we first started spending time together, we would go on walks, often for hours, and usually to escape the homework piling up at our desks. On these walks we would tell each other stories about things that we had gone through — maybe that day, or a few weeks ago, or when we were five years old. We would switch off, telling and then listening to each other’s stories.

I started to understand how he felt about certain memories without having to ask. I began to anticipate how he would react to certain situations. More and more, I understood why he is who he is. And me, my personality, and my emotions have become just as blatant to him. If we had not been able to understand each other’s experiences and feel them together, and instead had just talked about them, I might not have so good a friend.

Empathy is certainly something to strive for when building connections with others. But it is still a fad that many people have latched onto without fully understanding it. An avocado can do wonders to an otherwise boring sandwich, but too much avocado can lead to over-consumption of fats and nutritional deficiencies. Empathy acts the same way. Too much of it, or the wrong kind of it, has the power to do more harm than good. And so before we feel all high and mighty going around offering up our empathy to anyone having a bad day, it is important to understand the effects we may have on others, as well as ourselves, so that we can be certain we are choosing the right type of empathy, and the right amount of emotional investment or distance for a specific situation.

Simply telling people to be more empathetic in all that they do is a sloppy answer to the complicated question of whether or not we have enough empathy and whether or not we use the empathy we do have appropriately. Each interaction requires its own balance of empathy in order for that interaction to be the most positive and productive it can be for both parties. The better answer would be for us all to achieve an improved understanding of empathy in all its forms, as well as how each type of empathy impacts others and ourselves when put into practice. We must then train ourselves to be in tune enough to choose the correct variety of empathy for a time and place, and to be conscious enough of our own prejudices to treat everyone with the same level of empathy regardless of how many or how few commonalities we see between ourselves and the person we are interacting with.

Perhaps the most difficult task of all is the one I was taught first. In fifth grade, I was charged with putting myself into other people’s shoes, and that challenge becomes even more important when faced with those we see as different than we are. The only way we will overcome personal and societal prejudice is to consider the concept of empathy even more deeply and intentionally. It is a mistake to pretend that reflexive empathy alone will cure problems such as greed, selfishness, or prejudgment. Instead, we must approach empathy, and each other, with a focus on openness and understanding, so that we may more clearly see all of our struggles, as well as our paths to overcoming them.

Bloom, Paul. "Against Empathy. Boston Review. September 10, 2014. https://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-empathy

McEvers, Kelly and Leslie Jamison. "Empathy: How Should We Care About One Another?" Author interview. NPR Morning Edition. April 15, 2014. http://www.npr.org/2014/04/15/303172368/empathy-how-should-we-care-about-one-another

Riggio, Ronald E. "Are You Empathic? Three Types of Empathy and What They Mean." Psychology Today. August 3, 2011. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201108/are-you-empathic-3-types-empathy-and-what-they-mean

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Anna Zimmer goes beyond the buzzwords to explore the deeper meaning of empathy.

Do We Need More Empathy?

For most of my life I was just Willem Reerink, the half-Dutch kid with the funny spelling of “William.” This background wasn’t interesting to my classmates.

However, this changed one day during A.P. Economics. Toward the end of class, our teacher said we could start our homework. As I took out my workbook, others began discussing who in our class resembled basketball stars. One pointed out that nobody looked like any African American players. Why? Well, because there weren’t any African Americans in our class.

Puzzled, I slowly raised my hand. “I am,” I said.

The whole room went silent. Everyone’s eyes were on me. Even our teacher looked surprised. I guess my caramel skin hadn’t attracted attention before. Our town is close to the beach, and everyone has a deep tan.

Then the silence changed, and I was bombarded with questions about which side of my family and exactly what percentage of my heritage was black. Many wouldn’t believe my mother was African American and had to verify my claims on Facebook. Pictures of my African American family at a big reunion in South Carolina soon quieted any doubters.

As the truth set in, I immediately sensed my classmates saw me differently. I think they felt betrayed. “Willem, how come you never told us?” they asked, like I had hidden some tragic secret.

Soon the whole school was buzzing: “Willem’s black!” I got fist bumps from guys I’d never spoken to and questions about rappers I’d never heard of. One kid told me I wasn’t “really black” because I swim and don’t play basketball. I was the only black student taking A.P. classes; the other two African American guys didn’t have great grades and even got into a fight with each other (one got suspended and the other expelled). And so I became “the smart black kid.” The kid, my classmates said, who would automatically get accepted by any college just because he’s African American.

I felt sad at first. I had earned some cool points by being black. Yet I also felt as if I’d dropped in my classmates’ esteem. I had worked so hard to be a good student and athlete, but my achievements didn’t seem to matter anymore, only my blackness did. And I felt really trapped by stereotypes for the first time.

For me and my family, being African-American always meant a history of community, struggle, and hope. Collard greens and cornbread are staples at holiday meals. My great-grandfather was in a segregated medical unit in World War II, and later became a medic for the LA Dodgers. “Pops” sounded just like Nat King Cole when he sang. My mother was told to “go back to Africa, N—r,” when she was in school. She instead went on to be the first in her family to earn a master's degree.

Now I started to understand how hard it must have been for them to pursue their potential in the face of others’ preconceived ideas of who they were.

I realized I could never go back to being just Willem — either to my classmates or myself — and that was OK. I decided to become a role model instead. I want my classmates to know black students are as diverse and ambitious in their goals as anyone else. We can be basketball stars, earn great grades in A.P. classes, or do both. I’ve also worked harder to give back to those not as fortunate as I am. I want to show the underprivileged kids I teach at the YMCA pool that they, too, have options. I hope they’ll see it’s cool to be smart, to strive, and to lead.

That day in A.P. Economics changed people’s perception of me — and it changed my perception of myself. That day, I became black.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments piece, teen writer Willem Reerink describes how his peers' views of him changed when they learned about his race.

The Day I Became Black

“I guess I should probably take a moment to define what popular means as best I can. It's a complicated word. I know what it's not. It's not sitting alone or being made fun of. It's not feeling ashamed of how you look and constantly wanting to hide in corners, wishing you could disappear. It's not what I feel right now.” 
- Maya Van Wagenen

At the beginning of Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek, Maya Van Wagenen, the real-life protagonist and author of this true story, has no experience with popularity. Instead, she is regularly bullied and often deals with insecurity and anxiety at the bottom of her middle school’s social ladder. The excerpt above shows the loneliness she feels every day at school. She is used to being invisible and trying her best to fit in.

From this humble beginning, Popular is a book that weaves an inspirational tale about Maya's road to confidence, self-discovery, and courage. Her journey begins when she finds Betty Cornell’s Teenage Popularity Guide, a book originally written by a famous model in 1951. Her mother then inspires her to start a social experiment in which she spends the school year following this guide book. Can vintage 1950s wisdom turn this hobbit-loving nerd into a popular icon in 2013? The real-life reactions are not only hilarious but also set Maya on a path to self-confidence and courage.

One of my favorite parts of the book was the description of Maya’s social experiment. From putting on a girdle every day to sitting at different cafeteria tables, nothing is out of bounds in her quest for popularity. Maya makes sure to follow Betty Cornell's exact advice. The book portrays an accurate reaction to the changes she makes.

Popular addresses the issue of cliques in middle schools. Sometimes, students form a group of friends and then exclude others. These cliques can make students feel alienated and often lead to bullying. In middle schools today, you can see examples of these social groups in lunchrooms, where there seems to be an unspoken rule about who sits where. These regulations often create boundaries between students and discourage them from ever moving away from their social groups, which is seen as social suicide. However, rules don't stop Maya as she bravely begins to visit all the various cliques in the lunchroom and make more friends.

Lack of popularity isn't the only hardship Maya overcomes: the book describes her life in a poverty-stricken border town between Texas and Mexico. There she witnesses a drug war; at one point her school is put on lockdown due to a drug operation. One of her sisters struggles with autism, and the other died in childbirth. Yet despite all these struggles, Maya remains optimistic. This book not only teaches readers about popularity but also shows Maya's resilience when overcoming other serious difficulties.

Popular also shows how society’s ideal image of a popular girl has changed. In the 50s, a teenager could achieve popularity by wearing pearls or curling her hair, but as time has passed styles have gradually shifted. Slowly, gloves and stockings have gone out of fashion and been replaced by skinny jeans and crop tops. Although trends have evolved, however, the limelight has still been on appearances rather than personality. Additionally, popularity always seems to be about what clubs and teams people join — typically the jocks and cheerleaders are seen as being at the top of the scale while the “theater geeks” or “science nerds” are thought to be near the bottom.

Because of these perceptions, students develop a fixed mindset about the school’s popularity scale. They get trapped in the school’s social bubble, socializing with the same people and not making any new friends. However, Popular proves that by stepping out of your comfort zone and breaking social protocol you can make new friends and experience true acceptance. In the end, Maya’s story shows that popularity can be achieved through compassion towards others.

I rate Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek four out of five stars, because I feel it has a strong message that many readers can relate to. It’s a huge page-turner and challenges readers to think about the true meaning of popularity. However, parts of the book are very fixated on Maya changing her appearance rather than her attitude. I feel this detracts from the story’s overall moral, which is that popularity can't be achieved based on your appearance. Personally, I think that Maya should have just focused on changing her attitude.

I enjoyed the diary style of the book and the excerpts from Betty Cornell’s Teenage Popularity Guide. The included pictures helped me visualize what was happening. Although the theme and message of Popular are very powerful, the reading level and vocabulary are pretty simple. However, I think that the character development is very moving. Maya doesn’t have a sudden transformation in which she became popular overnight; the book describes her struggle and illustrates the realistic, gradual effects of her social experiment.

I would recommend this book to readers 13 and up. Although the vocabulary may seem simple, the story line and message are more suitable for an older audience. The moral of Popular, while perfect for young readers, can be appreciated by anyone, regardless of age. And although some might assume that only female readers would enjoy a novel about a middle school girl, readers of any gender can relate to and enjoy the book's theme and life lessons.

SPOILER ALERT! Towards the end of the book, Maya develops her own definition of popularity: “who you are and how you treat others.” Usually, people think of popularity as blending into society's stereotypes about beauty and success, but Maya believes that to be loved and admired by others you must be compassionate and caring. Personally, I find that this is a great way to look at popularity, and I'll definitely try to apply Maya's advice to my own life.

Maya’s writing is inspiring and motivational. She starts her journey by trying to upgrade her social standing and finishes by improving her mindset, confidence, and attitude. No matter how embarrassed she must have been to dress like a 1950s teen for a whole school year, Maya is to be admired for her courage and her commitment to Betty Cornell’s advice.

In a KidSpirit Media review, teen writer Ameena Naqvi reviews Maya Van Wagenen's memoir, Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek.

Popularity: The Teenager's Enigma

because you can’t look
inside my dark eyes

because I sometimes hear
a thousand lonely whispers in my head

because you can’t untangle
my unruly thoughts

you ask me why?
I’m telling you why . .

it is because you have taken up the responsibility
to be the judge of sanity

your court gives the verdict
and stamps a label onto my chest

in large blocks of black and white
it reads

In a KidSpirit Poem, teen writer Sunwrita Dastidar confronts how society treats those it labels "mad."

I Am Mad

This is a message I recently tweeted while attending Islamic Relief’s Day of Dignity 2016, where a partner organization distributed clothing, food, and school supplies for about two hundred homeless people and community members in need. Events that affirm the dignity of people whose rights to shelter, food, and other basic necessities of life have otherwise been denied shed light on how dignity is something that is both innate as well as a process. In other words, while dignity is something we are born with, it is also something we affirm for one another. It is essential to be aware of how we treat one another, because it is only through paying attention to the process that we can bring healing to a world that is plagued by inequality and violence.

In the Quran, a book that I, as a practicing Muslim, revere, we are told that God conferred dignity on the children of Adam, which means on all humanity since Adam is seen as the first created human. The idea that human beings have an innate value and worth that is God given was not a new one, since religions prior to Islam also put forth that human beings are made in “God’s image” and thus have something divine in their being. In God’s view, or in the view of sacred texts, the sanctity of human life is inviolable. Yet, in practice, human beings regularly encroach upon and deny one another’s inalienable dignity when we engage in small and large acts of violence. Islamic or other religious and humanist practices that affirm dignity, such as almsgiving during Day of Dignity, help us to actualize and affirm the dignity that is our right.

To confer dignity means, for me, recognizing the wholeness of people. Many times, we are stuck in ways of seeing one another that restrict people to one particular category, such as religion, race, class, gender, or sexual identity. We sometimes compel people to choose between their identities — like boxes on a survey form that ask us to choose our gender or ethnic background. Don’t get me wrong — it’s helpful to know how many people participate in a survey are male or female, or Arab, African American, or Latino. But ultimately, we are so much more than these individual labels.

Bringing a holistic approach to dignity is really important for me as I do my work in city government, and I believe it begins with me. It is only when I see myself in my fullness that I can grant this fullness to another human being. When I walk into work, I want to bring my brain and my heart, my thoughts and feelings, my academic background and my applied work, my faith and my secular ideals into a passionate fusion. I actually think this uniqueness is partly an expression of what God packaged for me and for each of us as our individual dignity. From my faith perspective, it is my sacred duty to create a space, a public square, where everyone’s human dignity is affirmed. We can’t affirm dignity without seeing one another first and foremost as full human beings, beyond the roles that we each play or the identities we carry.

Seeing people as whole human beings also has implications for how we live out democracy, which is a process as much as a product. Democracy is a form of government in which people come together to give voice to their opinions, identify common problems, and agree on solutions that benefit the common good.

Dialogue and deliberation are two distinct processes that inform democracy, and dialogue must come first. It helps us get acquainted, which is important to do before we can make decisions together. Dialogue is especially needed as we encounter people whose opinions, history, experiences, and identities are different from ours. Dialogue helps us create a shared space where we discuss what matters to us, what we have in common, which differences we can bridge, and which we must agree to disagree about. Dialogue is a process that ideally lets us be who we are, without judgment. It respects the sanctity and dignity of each human voice.

Then, as we identify what matters to us individually and in groups, we must deliberate and think critically in order to figure out common priorities and how we can solve problems together.

Both of these processes are needed in order to create a healthy public square. When we deliberate and make judgments without first having engaged in dialogue, there is a risk that we will come from a place that sees people based on single identities as opposed to one that acknowledges everyone’s complexity. We may use win-lose frames, listen to one another less, put each other’s ideas down, and ultimately deny the worth of each person’s unique voice. I cannot work with you to figure out what policies we should pursue if I haven’t bothered to respect you as a human being with dignity. I can’t reduce you to categories and unitary identities of black, woman, Catholic, Republican, and expect to find solutions that work for collective humanity. What is important to collective humanity — the common good — can emerge only when we listen to one another as whole human beings, not as special interest groups.

As I reflect on the nature of human dignity, I am coming to see that it is a responsibility as a well as a right. It is both something that is rightfully ours and something we must give to one another. In our daily interactions, when we treat one another with respect and compassion, what we are doing is affirming one another’s humanity and wholeness, and fundamentally recognizing the divine gift given to each of us.

In a KidSpirit PerSpectives piece, Sarah Sayeed draws on her experiences of building bridges between communities to explain that dignity, respect, and democracy are part of a process we must all undertake together.

Affirming Human Dignity

Today, society seems more socially and technologically evolved than ever before.

With smartphones and social media, we are able to get timely updates of world events. Observing the many conflicts around the world today, I can clearly see disregard for the important concept of dignity.

Dignity is the connective tissue of any relationship. It serves to inculcate equality and unity in society. My faith and culture have been the major sources of my understanding of our inherent worth as humans. The Quran has a very famous verse about Prophet Adam, who in Islam is known as the first prophet and the father of mankind: “We have bestowed dignity on the children of Adam . . . and conferred upon them special favors above the greater part of Our creation” (Q. 17:70).

This is an important verse that I try to apply as much as I can in my life. It explains that the rights to equality and fair treatment were given to people regardless of their caste, creed, or even social or geographical boundary. Everyone is entitled to be heard, recognized, and respected, and hence I try to be as fair and just as possible with everyone around me.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) brought Islam to the world and was a true model of excellence for human values and rights. He worked tirelessly to reduce the social and economic injustices in Arabia. He advocated for the rights of all living beings in a society where very almost nobody understood dignity, respect, or even self-worth.

In those times, women were silenced, female infants were buried alive, slaves were beaten, animals were abused, and honor was reserved solely for the influential and wealthy in society. After Islam began to spread, Prophet Muhammad freed slaves and openly preached about the rights of all humans, including women, because the teachings of the Quran are all based upon the upholding of fair and universal human rights.

Once, the prophet decided to sacrifice a lamb to feed some companions who had come to visit him after long journey. One of his companions asked to take responsibility for the task because he did not want the prophet to be burdened by it. Muhammad refused and said to him: "I know that you are eager to do it all, but Allah isn't pleased with the slave who distinguishes between himself and his companions, and considers himself better than others.”

This incident shows that dignity cannot be based upon any premise or reserved solely for a certain class; it is a natural right belonging to all people, whether they are leaders or workers.

Reflecting upon this idea on a more personal level, I realize that I have also learned to view the dignity of others through my own experiences. I remember when I disrespected my aya, or “caretaker,” because I was convinced she had misplaced my iPod. Though I had not really thought about it before my parents reprimanded me, I realized that it was unfair of me to blame my aya without evaluating my own actions. Instead, I was indignant and did not see her as my equal, which was very wrong.

Just as one act of disrespect can harm someone, one act of appreciation, recognition, or respect can improve relationships and even repair broken ties. Life really is a two-way street — kindness and fair treatment will always have a good outcome.

At a young age, my parents told me to stop being careless about how I treated others. “Actions have consequences,” they said. One small action can go a long way when we recognize our inherent human dignity. The secret to any good relationship, be it one with our siblings, parents, or friends, is treating all people with respect.

I have now, at the age of fourteen, come to truly understand this lesson. Once I stood up for a peer in class who was being mistreated. I remembered that he had teased me in the past, but I felt that what my classmates were doing to him was very wrong. I stepped up to stop it because it would not be any better for him to be treated wrongly also. He apologized to me for his past actions, and from then on he has respected me.

In my limited experience of life, I have found this one core truth: love, happiness, and even hate are not emotions that are automatically reciprocated. But the amazing thing is that across all cultures, dignity is always present.

You give dignity automatically because it is the intuitive and inherent code of life. Though others may not agree with me, I have learned that it is a natural right, first given to Adam by God, that belongs to every human being. In our world we should ultimately be honored not for our physical attributes, caste or social status but rather for our commonality. We are all one race: the human race. It is this recognition that will help us progress in any field of life, be it international affairs or personal relationships.

In a KidSpirit Interfaith Connections article, teen writer Ryeaan Chaudry examines how Muhammad, the Quran, and the Islamic faith instruct us to honor one another's dignity.

Reflections on Dignity

It's often the first thing that comes to mind when people see me. At five feet four inches tall, I'm far below the average height of American men.

I used to get uncomfortable in middle school when my friends stood side by side and compared heights. I faced their jokes about my height with resentment. Visits to the doctor left me with a sense of impending doom. Why was I so freakish? Would people ever take me seriously?

I tried to shove away the idea that I would always be short. My low self-esteem bled through in social interactions, and this fear of being taken lightly became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It was years before I matured enough to realize my mistake. I had given the label life, and in the process degraded myself. As I learned to process my height in context, I realized that it was really an insignificant thread in the vast web of labels that could describe me. A little close inspection revealed this label to be more illusion than substance, like the Wizard of Oz. It was a purely subjective label that wasn't intrinsically negative; I alone had made it big, bad, and scary.

When I accepted my short height and internally made it a nonfactor, it became a nonfactor for others as well. So yes, labels can limit us, but only if we let them.

A step back. What are labels? Labels are the way we make sense of the infinite complexity of the world. We process the world in caricature. David Hume, the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, pointed out the disjunction between the world of reality and the world of perception (the world as we see it in our minds). Our perception of an object is not the same as the object itself. He explained how humans, in order to make sense of the chaos and mind-boggling complexity of the world, use past experiences to form expectations of how the world functions.

Reducing the world and people into labels is a necessary skill, but it can be dangerous if we don’t realize its limitations. The limitation is that labels are half-truths at best, and lies at worst.

Labeling pickle jars is easy. Labeling humans is where we enter murky and crocodile-filled waters. Is it possible to accurately label a person? It seems not — people are too vast to fit within a tag. But that hasn’t stopped us from trying. Every generation’s heritage is a knotted net of labels to untangle. Labels to do with race, gender, social class, and more.

Many of the social changes in the last century have had to do with battling deeply rooted labels, labels that almost take on the guise of reality because they have been fed by people's belief in them. For much of the 20th century, society believed that women weren't fit to work outside their homes. This label manifested itself in a lack of women in leadership, which was then used to lend credence to the label itself. The result was a continuous violation of human dignity as millions of people were stuffed into narrow stereotypes like socks into an all-too-small drawer.

There is no label big enough to hold a person. That is a realization that societies keep coming to. Which raises the question: if labels are inaccurate caricatures, what even am I? If labels are the light in which we see ourselves, what is there to see without them?

This is where I pass the floor to the Bhagavad Gita, the scripture of Hinduism and an integral part of my belief system. The question of personal identity, or lying in a tent underneath a starry night wondering who you really are, is one of the main topics of the Gita. Its verdict is that almost all labels don’t really describe the self, because the self is separate from the body and even the mind. The self is the soul, which is described as pure consciousness. It rides the body like a driver in a car.

The view that the self is separate from bodily labels is echoed in most major religions. The Gita takes this further, stating that my soul stays constant even as it passes through new bodies in the process of reincarnation. In a sense, the soul passes through sets of labels like we pass through clothes every day. That means that most labels, even my name, race, and gender, can’t truly describe me. Even though bodily labels might have some truth in them, they aren’t the be-all and end-all of my identity.

The idea that my body is just one transient link in an endless chain of bodies that I've inhabited is both dizzying and freeing. This realization doesn't alienate me from life but rather helps me approach labels with healthy detachment. According to the Gita, every person’s soul is equal, despite external inequalities in their bodies.

One of my favorite verses from the Gita summarizes this sentiment beautifully: "The humble sage, by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana [priest], a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste]." If everyone lived like this humble sage, conflicts of clashing labels would disappear. By seeing beyond labels, we could treat all living beings with the dignity they deserve. This verse presents an ideal that I strive for.

In a KidSpirit Big Question response, teen writer Nimai Agarwal reflects on his own life to show that labels and stereotypes limit us most when we accept them to be true.

Can Labeling Predetermine Success or Failure?

I'm not sure I believe in fate, but the fact that my dad bought a house in Windham, New York, is too important to me to be sheer coincidence.

He bought the house when he was in his twenties, before he even thought about having me, and spent the better part of a decade rebuilding it. It was the original farmhouse of the surrounding area when it was built in the late 1800s. My dad bought it when all that was left was a frame and a roof, and the work began.

The Adaptive Sports Foundation on Windham Mountain has become one of my favorite places to go to in the winter. From the moment we walk in, it's brimming with activity, from all the students itching to hit the slopes to the instructors coming in from morning runs. My brother Izzy, of course, runs straight for the hot chocolate, which he has dubbed the best in the world. Then, right around ten o’clock, a sort of choreographed chaos ensues as we get ready to take on the mountain.

My dad is a Broadway stagehand, but not just a regular stagehand; he's the head electrician. A light in the ladies' room doesn't get changed without his say-so. Here's something you need to know about my dad: he can do pretty much anything. And when restoring an 1800s farm house, that's a good thing. There was no construction crew for this project, just my dad, whichever buddies came to help, and Sammy, my dad's beloved dog. I have heard many times about the early days, when my dad and Sammy would sleep next to each other other on the kitchen floor because the only heater in the house was there. My dad had to keep rotating because one side would be sweating while the other was freezing.

Getting in the ski is a bit of a process; it involves duct tape and many straps. I go down the mountain in a bi-ski, which is a bucket seat with two skis on the bottom. Once I'm strapped in, all I want to do is go fast! When I'm in that ski with the mountain flying by, I feel totally independent. The instructors and everyone on the mountain disappear, and I really do get to do this on my own. That sense of solitude while sliding down the mountain is enthralling.

The first time I tried skiing, it was nothing like I imagined. Often when the word “adaptive” is tacked on at the beginning of something, it can lose some intensity. But shredding down that hill, I knew the instructors weren't letting up. We were hitting jumps in the second lesson! There was one thing I was sure would bother me. While the vast majority of the population loves and thrives on that whole wind-in-your-hair feeling, I am without a doubt an outlier — wind is usually sensory hell. But I rarely noticed it once we got started.

The house on Mill Street was my dad's weekend project on steroids. It still has a whole workshop that would make any tool buff drool. The shop is where the heavy work got done. It is like something out of a PBS woodworking show: table saws, sanders, even an axe from Japan — a tool for every job.

In talking about the shop, I'm obliged to mention the table. My dad had this idea to build a round table à la the Knights of Camelot. The problem is he never got to it; the wood has been sitting there since before I was born.

Having a family changed everything for my dad. Before he met my mom,  two wood burning stoves were going to heat the whole house. My mom wouldn’t have that, and he installed a real heating system that he is now thankful for.

My dad always says, “We are a DIY family.” This year he made me a sled for cross-country skiing. I love that he made it, but cross-country misses the best part of skiing: speed. They should call it snow hiking.

Hiking around North Lake is serene any time of year, but winter is stark and still. We find silent moments between snowshoes crunching the frosty path. The sled glides. Slowly, we appreciate the afternoon sun's waning.

Our Mill Street house is a place that will always be special to me. It is where I learned to ski, but it is also so much more. It's where we go to the creek, sometimes for a bike ride and sometimes for an evening stroll. I don't even want to think what would have been if my dad had chosen one of the many other houses he saw. Would I never have skied? Where would my oldest friend's mom have gotten married? Would Camp Weitzman, the annual week where our friends come up for a mini summer camp, even exist?

Some things have changed — my brother and I now have our own room, and our family has a new hot tub — but the essence stays the same. We may not have a giant man cave like the house across the street. We don't even have cable. What we do have is a bunch of amazing memories from our time there. I'm not sure I believe in fate, but my dad’s buying that house was more than just coincidence.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments article, teen writer Abraham Weitzman reflects on how a mountainside farmhouse and adaptive skiing have helped him experience freedom, family, and independence.

My Home on the Mountain

We walk with it.
Backs straight and eyes fixed to the air,
As if receiving some great knowledge that can only be found
In the shallows of the swelling sky.

There is music in us. 
An old, viscous longing to go back to the beginning,
When we were young 
and indistinguishable from the promises of earth.

Now, new walls shudder into being,
Rising and choking. 
They blind us with masks forged from uncertainty,
The root of desires long suppressed.

Some of us move with arms outstretched,
Feeling for the presence of other shadows in the dark.
When we find each other,
We pull back the curtain of differences 
like strings of candy-colored beads,
And see clearly.

We find we are the same.
Made of a luminescence, throbbing and pulsing,
Calling out for the vulnerable,
The recognition of history,
The serpent of memory writhing in our veins.

We walk with it.
Dignity.
All the walls crumble to the ground
And we are not afraid.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Eliza Moore offers an inspiring message about destroying the barriers between us and rediscovering our essential dignity, humanity, and compassion.

Walls

You know that one girl who swallows all her feelings? That girl who covers her pain with the great smile she has?

Well, that’s me, Jessica Monique De La Mora. I am 17 years old. I have a mother and father like any other girl. My family is from Guadalajara, Mexico, and I was born and raised in Venice, California.

Little does anyone know, once you open me up, you will find my deepest pain and the true me. I am not really like every other girl.

Wouldn’t it be nice to say that your mother is your best friend and you are Daddy's little princess? I can only imagine how awesome that would be.

My mother is Esmeralda Jimenez. She is a great mother, and I wouldn’t ask for anyone else. But she isn’t my best friend because she’s too busy being a mother. She raised me and my sister, Pricilla, who is now 21, all by herself. All our lives, it was my mother who brought us everything we wanted and who tried to do everything she could to keep us happy. In her beautiful hazel eyes, I see all the pain she has endured — her pain and her anger because my father, Mike De La Mora, has been in and out of prison since he was 17 years old. He left my mother all alone with her two baby girls. He broke his promises that he wouldn’t go back to prison, his promises that he would be out here to help her raise us.

My life changed forever in 2001, when the cops took my father away from us. My sister Pricilla and I were left fatherless, my mother husbandless. I was only two years old, and Pricilla was six. I have no memory of my father living at home. I don’t remember the details of the day they took him away. Everything I write on paper now are things I’ve been told, not my memories.

About a month ago, I asked my cousin Jose, who is 24 years old, if he remembered the day my dad was taken away. He stopped sweeping the floor, looked up, and smiled. The expression on his face gave me a glimpse of that day. As he began to tell the story, his movements told me even more. Jose remembers being upstairs at our grandma's house with his sister, Adriana, when the phone rang. Adriana answered; it was my dad. Jose said he had a bad feeling when he looked at his sister's face. Adriana took the phone downstairs to Pricilla, and my dad started apologizing to her, telling her he was going away again, this time for a long time. Pricilla began to cry hysterically, repeating, “No, Daddy, you promised . . . ” and she fell to the ground. Jose says she “went crazy.” Adriana grabbed the phone and tried to calm Pricilla down.

After that my dad was on the run for some time. He sneaked into family parties through the back door. Once he stole Jose’s bike to take off. Jose remembers waking up the next day and feeling angry because his bike was gone.

The cops finally caught up to my dad one day in front of my grandma's house. Jose remembers my dad staying calm. All the time he was being handcuffed, he kept up a conversation with my cousins and aunt; he kept smiling, asking how their day was going, and telling them he was going to be okay.

Since I was two, I have been fed lie after lie about why my father was taken from me. The first lie I remember was my mom’s telling me he was taken away because he didn’t put on his seat belt. The last story I was told was that he was taken away for committing armed robbery, possessing an illegal weapon, and violating his probation. My father told me this last one himself, just a little while ago, on June 19, 2016. I remember the date because it was Father’s Day, and I asked because for the longest time I had wanted to know the truth.

Along with telling me what he was charged for, my father, Mike, finally told me the truth about how many years he has to serve. My father, the guy who is supposed to be my superhero, was given 21 years. This year I am 17 and a senior in high school. All I have ever wanted was for my daddy to watch his little girl walk the stage wearing her graduation gown. All I have ever wanted was to hear him cheering my name.

Year after year, my father told me he was getting out in “one more year.” Now that I’m older, I can see the picture more clearly, and I’m not afraid to ask questions. I see why he fed me that lie. He did it so that I wouldn’t lose faith in him, so that I would still talk to him. He didn’t want me to give up on him. He didn’t want to lose his little girl.

As I was growing up, whenever I saw friends and family with their fathers, I cried and wondered where my daddy was. For years I thought I wasn’t good enough to have a father, but my mom used to take me and my sister Pricilla to visit him all the time. All I remember about those visits was my mom being angry and the two of them arguing. But I was young then, and I didn’t pay much attention to their arguments. I used to hold my hand against the glass, pretending to hold my daddy’s hand, trying to get his attention so they would stop fighting.

But after a few years my mom began to give up on my dad, and she took us to visit less and less often. She realized she didn’t want us to have that kind of lifestyle — one that included visits to prison. But she felt guilty about not letting us see our father, so she had his sister, my aunt, take us instead.

Pricilla had it worse than I did; she was older and more aware of what was going on, and after a while she was angry at the world. She never talked about our dad. She still doesn’t. I don’t blame her. She saw more than I did, but she holds in all her anger and pain.

In 2008, my mother left my dad. That was the year his mother was dying, so those were dark times. He told me that a lot of crazy things were going through his mind, and often he wanted to give up. But, he said, Pricilla and I kept him going; he said we were what kept him strong. My dad was in prison when both his parents died, and when his brother and his cousin died, too. He was supposed to be at my grandma’s funeral, but it became too complicated and expensive. His sisters told him they were willing to pay the expenses to get him there, but he knew they were already paying a lot for the funeral, and he refused their offer. So he wasn’t there.

A few years ago Pricilla stopped talking to my dad, but a couple of months ago I was on the phone with him and I told him I had a surprise for him. I put the phone to Pricilla's ear and made her talk. They both started crying, and I could hear my dad saying over and over and over how sorry he was, and I thought about how before I was always ashamed to talk about my dad, and part of that was because I didn’t know much about him. I only remembered seeing him in an orange jumpsuit through a glass window.

Whenever my friends asked about him or talked about their dads, I just walked away. As I got older, I started opening up a little, but only to the point of telling people where my dad was. Sometimes I told them why he was in prison and sometimes I mentioned how long he had been gone. But whenever they asked more questions, I couldn’t answer.

Then one day when I was in 11th grade, my friend Kat told me I should go with her to POPS, which stands for Pain of the Prison System. It’s a club at my high school for kids with incarcerated loved ones, kids with problems they don’t know how to deal with. The club meets every Wednesday during lunch. The staff feed you and help you learn how to write about your feelings. Even before Kat convinced me to go, the smell of the food had been enticing. I always wanted to go in, but I was afraid of being judged or looked at the wrong way.

The moment I walked in, Amy welcomed me in the warmest way; she’s the woman who started POPS with her husband, Mr. Danziger, an English teacher at our school. Amy made me feel like I was home. After I sat down and listened to other people telling their stories, I knew I was where I was supposed to be. I felt like I had finally found a family. Mr. Danziger gave me a notebook to write poems, my story, or anything I wanted to write, and within a week I’d written two pieces. By the next week I was showing Mr. Danziger my first piece, and he was happy to help me edit it.

POPS is the reason I am able to open up and talk freely about my dad. Now I don’t need to cry every time, and have also had the opportunity to make my dad proud. My stories have been published in a book, and my piece "Fatherless Girl" was read by a famous actress at a show at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. This year I am President of POPS the Club at Venice High, and I am so proud to be able to help and talk to other kids and share my advice with them.

Also, this summer I went to Washington, DC, where along with 18 other youth with incarcerated parents from 14 states, I talked to Federal officials about the problems we’ve had. When I first arrived in Washington and met all those other kids, I was hesitant to talk to them because I knew nothing about them. But then I thought about POPS, and I remembered how scared I was at first. As soon as I started talking to the others, we connected. That first night together, 16 of us went out to dinner together, and in just a few hours we felt as if we were one big family who had known each other for a long, long time. The experience is hard to explain, but I know our bond comes from the fact that we children of the incarcerated have so much in common.

I was scared when I first walked into POPS. I practically had to be dragged into the room because of how nervous I was. I looked around and felt as if everyone was staring at me and wondering why I was there. I thought they probably believed I was there just for the food because when people look at me, they see a happy girl, not the pain behind my smile. I used to be ashamed of talking about my father because of I feared people would think I am my father’s shadow, but since I have been a member of POPS the Club, I have learned that you can break the chain and be a better and stronger person. There's no need to be ashamed of who you are or who your parents are. Even though my father has not been there my whole life, I want to say he is my superhero.

POPS made me strong enough to begin to tell my story. I no longer worry about being judged. I know there are people I can reach out to when I feel sad. I have learned not to hide my emotions, because now I know there are millions of children that go through the same thing I’ve gone through. There will always be someone to talk too. I do not need to be afraid or feel judged for something I didn't do.

I am Jessica Monique De La Mora, and I am the daughter of an incarcerated loved one.

To learn more about POPS the Club, please visit the organization's website.

In a KidSpirit Feature article, teen writer Jessica De La Mora describes her experiences growing up with a father in prison. Once ashamed, she finds the strength and courage to tell her story.

I Am Mike De La Mora's Daughter

Discomfort seeps between this second layer and I,
Foreign in its ways, and formidable in the way it becomes me.
I scrub to wipe away the blasphemy
That is the brown curdled in my veins,
My vigorous movements grit out a warning:
Virulent melanin, I will overcome you!
But this color is not so easily washed off,
Resistant as plastic.
Plastic that stretches stereotypes across my skin,
Plastering lies on my forehead and eyes,
A suffocating hat on the dome of my head,
So that I may be as thoughtless and shortsighted as you wish.

I cut the plastic into strips
Fashion myself a jacket,
It flashes leather texture in certain lights
On the doorstep
In the guest loo
Now in my bedroom
And I hug it closer, the warm leather almost familiar.
It seems darker when I stand next to you, and I realize it suits me
This dark color
Brown
Crinkled in corners where I have sat too long — too complacent.

You reduced me.
You said “Pakistanian” and I said “Pakistani,”
The “an” and the “I” continents of stubborn ignorance that divide us
These different sounds a foundation of mockery
That buries my vast culture,
The pain of a people torn across boundaries
A people born from a struggle of identity, and you have the gall to mock mine.

Racism tainted your breath
I felt it linger in the air
And coagulate around my accent, my body
And you spared nothing, for all of me was too different
So different that you, dear Normality, held the gavel
And passed a sentence shutting the valves before I could find my way home.
So, let us add
Your disdain,
Your dismissal,
Your tongue bending, marching lines of hate to hover in the air
Letting them resound, and they still do.
They ring in time with my typing hands
They ring in time, as I like your posts where you embrace “liberalism”
But my reduction was an addition of your destructive behavior.
It is a reduction you can never redact,
So, forgive me, your liberalism is insignificant in the face of my liberation
Because it happened in spite of you.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Heer Cheema offers a moving and passionate response to racism and stereotypes.

Reduction

Bright sunlight filters through darkening clouds 
The light is now silver below.
Warm wind grows frigid against rustling leaves 
Of trees that just cannot grow.
The Earth is a sphere of silence, and yet 
Their voices are swamped, never loud 
Enough for the humans, deaf ears in the dark, 
If you look, they emerge from the crowd;

At the bus stop, a boy, in a coat, on his phone, 
He stands back, lets the elderly by.
They smile in response, and he gently blinks back 
But he's voiceless, and empty inside.
That night he sees a new lock on the door 
He knew they'd find out before long.
All for the love of a boy in his class 
His devotion has branded him . . . wrong.
Nearby, a girl cuts fine shapes through the dark 
With wide eyes, from a bench, all alone.
She can't find her friends, it's her they will blame 
Filled with fear, no charge on her phone.
She was one minute late; “Unsatisfactory work!” 
Lost a job to that ruthless glass floor.
In a car to the side, a man travels home, 
But it's not the first place with that name. 
He brought his family here seven years ago, 
When their country was lost to white flame.
On the passenger seat, The Great Gatsby, in print 
He's fluent in English, but can tell
That because of his accent, there's men filled with hate 
They forget he reads placards as well.
The skyscrapers blot into checkerboard towers, 
They can leave, the reports have been done
But they sit at their desk, eyes fixed on the clock 
The hour hand hasn't reached one.
The meeting room chairs were too plastic, too cruel 
And his voice was too loud for their brain.
Their anxiety denied them promotion, because 
They'd stay silent to not be in pain.

The platinum coins of the sun and the moon 
Spin past in a myriad of light.
The stars flash and change but the people remain 
And the voiceless continue their plight.
Their dignity stripped and their names tainted red 
Their identities marked on a page.
These are the humans who suffer your words 
And cry out in unvocalized rage.

In a KidSpirit poem, teen poet Eleanor (Rose) Roberts takes us into the minds of those affected by injustice, intolerance, and society's lack of compassion. 

The Park

In the popular classic novel A Little Princess, heiress-turned-scullery-maid Sara Crewe is startled and embarrassed when a young boy, Donald, approaches her and presses a sixpence into her hand.

He has taken pity upon her disheveled state and identified her as one of those beggars without parents or food he has heard about in Christmastime stories. He has therefore decided to part with his sixpence, which would no doubt keep her content and well-fed for life.

As an eight-year-old first reading the book, I found Sarah’s ordeal to be a very confusing alien concept. Why did she display such hesitancy? I wondered at her distress over accepting a measly little penny. Surely, accepting money when she was clearly in need of it was a logical, rational thing to do?

I was to make the same mistake young Donald made, only a few months after reading A Little Princess.

On the back entrance of the Haroon K. Baksh (HKB) department store in Lahore, Pakistan, there is a wizened old man whose sole job is to sweep his allotted floor twice a day and oversee the back storage. He was not quite so old when I first saw him; in fact, eight years ago Uncle Masood had no white hair on his head.

With unrelenting, curious eyes, I took in his deplorably patched but meticulously pressed clothes, his skinny frame, and the hungry, defeated look in his desolate black eyes. I now realize how shamelessly obtuse I was, and how he no doubt politely ignored my incessant staring. Unfortunately, my childlike, unthinking resolution compelled me to walk over to him, brandishing the crumpled change from a previously bought (and consumed) chocolate bar. As I proffered the 50-rupee note, I confidently boomed, “Uncle, this is for you!”

The man stared at my outstretched hand and hopeful smile for a few moments before sinking to his knees, his kind eyes twinkling. With a smile, he said, “You are very kind, little lady. But I cannot take your money. Why don't you give it to your abba, and he will buy you a delicious ice cream!” He pointed to my father, who stood with a sheepish and apologetic smile a few meters away. I was utterly dumbstruck and very, very disappointed. After the man patted my head and stood up, I turned mechanically and walked to our car. I remained silent throughout the journey.

At home my father explained that the man was not a beggar, and my gesture could have offended him. I did not understand.

Over the years, a friendship developed between the man and my father. Being acutely embarrassed over my past behavior, I never accompanied my father to HKB. He told me that the man still remembered “little miss” and thought of me often. Sometimes, he would send a toffee or chocolate bar, chuckling as he reminisced about my chocolate-smeared cheeks from 2008.

I learned that I had been right in my initial judgement; Uncle Masood is very poor, and the little money he makes from his job barely covers what he and his family need to survive. And yet he accepts not a single rupee in charity. When he and my father meet, they shake hands and depart as equals.

When he and my father meet, they shake hands and depart as equals.

To my mortification, my family has not let me forget my mistake. It has made for a highly amusing anecdote, a dinnertime favorite to be shared with guests and visitors. At first, it drove me crazy. It seemed everyone was taking Uncle Masood’s side, when it was clearly me who had been slighted. I did not understand why, instead of being thanked for my offering, I was being treated like an infant. To my unreasonable young mind, it was as if Uncle Masood had shown me my place.

Every night before we went to sleep, my mother would tell us fairy tales and fables about princesses and warriors, dragons and magical birds. So for a while, instead of these fantasy stories, my mother told me to close my eyes and imagine I was a little girl called Sara Crewe. Sara, as the title of the book suggests, is born and bred a little princess, until her father dies and she is left at the mercy of a cruel, sadistic headmistress.

“Sara Crewe,” she said, “has no nice clothes. She has no fancy cars. She doesn’t even have a home, or parents. But Sara doesn’t want to be a beggar. Sara decides she wants to earn her food and shelter by working at Miss Minchin’s seminary, even though the tasks are unreasonable and menial, the hours are long, and it is very, very cold.”

Then Mama asked me, “Tell me, Sara Crewe. You are a very hard-working girl, you teach French lessons during the day and run errands during the evening, all for some scraps of food and a lumpy mattress in a rat-filled attic. If a little boy comes to you, and gives you his only penny, thinking you are a little beggar-girl based on your appearance, how do you feel?”

My first thought was “surprised.” But as I contemplated the idea further, I thought, “Hurt. Embarrassed. Offended.”

It was oh-so-clear to me now how awkward and difficult the transition from riches to rags was. How the rags were not a true reflection of a person’s spirit, pride, and status.

Understanding Sara Crewe was just a step away from understanding Uncle Masood. Granted, he was no born heir. But like Sara Crewe, he did not let his finances and his appearance define him, his values, or his choices. He was not a beggar, and he would not accept money from a well-meaning young girl, because he felt he had not earned it.

In the past, the feelings of the person being helped had never struck me as an important part of the equation of generosity. It seemed straightforward enough; if there was anything I could do to help, I should do it.

But these discoveries? They threatened to overturn every carefully constructed concept I had of what was good and what was bad.

Ever since I was a very little girl, I had watched superheroes on television. I had cheered and clapped along with the other kids in the cinema when the valiant saviors restored justice, helping the ordinary folk from impending harm. Since nursery I had been taught to share, to be generous, to be kind.

I realized now that people who are more fortunate, who pride themselves upon being sensitive to the suffering of others, can sometimes be so blind that they see only the issue instead of the human behind it. When I had looked at Uncle Masood, I had seen poverty; I had not seen a living, breathing human being, whose feelings and self-respect were to be accounted for.

When I had looked at Uncle Masood, I had seen poverty; I had not seen a living, breathing human being, whose feelings and self-respect were to be accounted for.

I had thought I was being kind. On the contrary, it was a selfish generosity. The purpose of my offering the money was to give myself a sense of fulfillment and to feed my own conscience, much like someone would feed their ego. But more importantly, it was selfish because I wasn't thinking about the other person's feelings at all, but how good I would feel upon helping him.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized I have a passion for helping others. But something has changed between that fateful day in HKB and now. Today, I know that generosity and charity are so much more then carelessly thrown paper notes. Generosity isn't about thrusting portions of wealth at people who you think need it. Generosity is about respecting and valuing a human being so much that you want to make him or her happy. Generosity is about that special bond you make with the person you help, where there is no lingering aftertaste of dept.

In a KidSpirit Awesome Moments piece, teen writer Zainab Umar shares how a novel, an innocent impulse, and an exercise in empathy taught her the true meaning of generosity.

Selfish Generosity

What is our inherent worth as individuals? Can the labels placed on us by society predetermine the course of our lives? KidSpirit contributors consider their essential dignity and that of others as they reach for a deeper understanding.

Human Dignity Group Guide

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