Underlying resentment toward white society had not shaken his optimism. I asked if he had a job waiting in Chicago. Carefully repositioning his Muslim cap as if it were a holy object, he placed his hands together in front of his face in a meditative pose. After a deep breath, he joked that he wouldn’t have minded coming from a middle-class while family like mine. Never experiencing life free of hardships, he confessed that he made mistakes along the way. Nevertheless, society’s punishment for his skin color never stopped. “ Looking back in my teenage years, I wanted what all boys wanted. There was this fine-looking girl in the neighborhood and everybody was after her. One day, I was walking in front of her house. There she was on the steps of the front porch, looking fine and slick as alwa
