The Prayer I Shouldn’t Have Prayed
- melnairmason
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 15 hours ago
You know those moments when you expect yourself to respond with compassion — and instead, something uglier rises first? That was me. Half-awake in my kitchen, waiting for the kettle, when the alert flashed up about a stabbing on a train from Doncaster to King’s Cross. Everything in me tightened. And before empathy could arrive… dread did. Not for the victims ... for the name.
My stomach dropped. My hand literally froze mid-air, and then, I did something I’m not proud of.
I prayed ... but not for the victims — not in that first heartbeat!
My first whisper — the one that slipped out before my brain could catch it — was,
'Please don’t let it be an immigrant'.
'Please don’t let it be a refugee'.
'Please don’t let it be someone with a name that sounds Muslim… or sounds like mine'.
Because I already knew what would follow if it was. I can just imagine the headlines, the rage AND the “go back where you came from” brigade warming up their vocal cords ... and, of course ... we all know how quickly an entire community ends up carrying the weight of a single person’s actions .
So, without even realising it, I started scrolling, waiting for the name, bracing myself for the narrative the world might write about it. That’s where we are now — before we even feel anything, we fast-forward to fear.
Then it appeared.
Anthony Williams. British-born.
And ... exhale! Phew!!!
And that… that’s the part I can’t shake.
It was the wrong exhale and definitely the wrong sigh of relief )!! and ashamedly, it was a very wrong prayer!!
It should’ve been grief or shock or compassion for the people whose whole world had just shattered — but instead, it was relief. That moment showed me how I’ve been conditioned to flinch the second the words “suspect identified” appear.
"I've been conditioned to silently hope it isn’t someone brown, Black, Muslim, foreign, African, South Asian — anyone whose difference can be twisted into ammunition for the darkest corners of the internet, with the media only fanning the flames."
A white man commits a crime: he’s “a troubled loner.”
A Black man? “Known to police.”
A Muslim? “Radicalised.”
A refugee? “Should never have been here.”
Same act, different blame and a completely different story
It’s not just in crime reporting — it’s everywhere.
Westerners move abroad and they’re celebrated as “expats,” but when people like us move, we’re “migrants.”
Same suitcase/dreams but completely different framing.
Even the royals weren’t spared — and yes, I’m fully aware of the irony here (wink!!) Kate and Meghan lived through the same moments, yet one was wrapped in grace while the other was dissected relentlessly.
It’s all interconnected — the bias, the framing, the subtle ways language decides who gets grace and who gets crucified; who gets to be seen as human… and who gets turned into a headline.
What unsettles me most is how quickly I slipped into that narrative without even realising it. It all felt so automatic—fear leaping ahead of empathy, without hesitation.
Somewhere between the non-stop news cycle and the noise of everyone arguing online, I stopped thinking for myself.
I reacted exactly the way the world has trained me to. And I hate that ... soo, soo much!
I don’t want the first thing that leaves my mouth to be relief that the attacker isn’t “one of us.” I want my first instinct to be for the victims and their families.
So yes — yesterday, I prayed the wrong prayer.
Today I’m trying to pray better ones anchored in our humanity, and brave enough to push against narratives of fear/bias fed to us on autopilot.
And maybe — one day — we’ll get to a place where the label doesn’t matter — immigrant, expat, refugee, British-born all taking a back seat — and being human finally becomes enough ...?!
Written with love, frustration, and a whole lot of honesty — from one human heart to another.
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