Being Muslim American today means dealing with a president who recently expanded his travel ban to six new countries, all of which have sizable Muslim populations. What surprised me was what all the Muslim students listed not as a privilege but as a source of marginalization: being Muslim.
Unsurprisingly, my students pointed out many intelligent things, such as how English-language skills and physical ability are often unacknowledged as forms of privilege. Following Gay’s lead, I asked my students to reflect critically on their own lives, on when they benefited from certain forms of privilege and when they didn’t. Last semester, I was teaching Roxane Gay’s essay “Peculiar Benefits” to a class of college freshmen. This essay was published on, which is an excellent resource on Muslim affairs.