What Happened?

The night before Abdul was supposed to graduate high school, he attended an alumni and graduate bonfire at a beach in San Diego. As the night went on, he heard people exclaiming about five boys trying to bully a trans teenager, and stepped in to help, even though Abdul had only known of this classmate by name, in passing at school. Abdul defended his trans classmate saying he had as much of a right as everyone else to be there. This led him into a defensive altercation on behalf of himself and his trans friend. At the end of it, Abdul - a young Black Muslim man - was taken into custody by the police and accused of multiple felonies. The bullies responsible for initiating the altercation were not taken into custody.

Due to a lack of immediate funds, Abdul stayed in several jails over a period of one week, as his mother and sister searched for bail bondsmen who accept payment in monthly installments (Abdul’s total bail was set to $100,000). He has since come out of jail and had a preliminary hearing. The family has also found a good lawyer eager and willing to take the case.

The flood of financial obligations related to any legal case can be overwhelming and impossible to pay. Anyone who knows Abdul, Iman, and their mother, knows how generous, compassionate, and reliable they are in supporting others in times of distress and difficulty. Let’s work as a community to support this family by alleviating at least the financial burdens they are being faced with.

Please keep Abdul and his family in your prayers. We will update this page with information on Abdul’s case as it progresses.

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• Puritans
• people from rural Ireland and how they would be treated by said Puritans, especially if caught a) in drag and b) doing magic
• the Mayflower’s voyage and death toll
• any First Nation cultures beyond googling “native American mythological creatures” to get some cool house names and creatures
• any American history beyond “and then they docked in Plymouth in America”
• any American historical geography beyond “and then they docked in Plymouth in America”
• relationships between Asian countries, re. where to locate the one Asian wizarding school 
• China’s history of magic and the supernatural and the fact that many roots of the Japanese perspectives can be traced back to China
• Japanese architecture re. building a school out of effing Jade because the Ring of Fire landscape is so good for that. Specifically a Jade commonly used in China, not Japan
• African cultural history of any kind
• the history of magic wands/staffs and the fact that Europeans aren’t the only ones to invent/use them.
• how to keep one’s internal canon consistent instead of writing someone who is borderline Mary-Sue because I am still effing annoyed about the untrained witch and Muggle going “hey! Let’s stick this magic stuff inside this stick! That’ll totally work as a wand! It’s not like it’s a highly-sought-after-skill as set up in the previous books in this lore. It’s not like people died and were killed because they had such rare knowledge!”
• how to avoid displaying Eurocentric semi-colonialist attitudes that should have gone out with the Victorians