It is a sad day in America when we mourn this terrible atrocity one minute, and go out and commit another in the next. This evening, I heard a New Yorker blew up a Texas mosque. I have a friend of arab-descent who is afraid for her safety because people are harassing her. Cities are under martial law because they're afraid of hate crimes against arab-americans.
Why? Are they no less hurt or scared by this? Did they not have friends and family, or know those with friend or family in NY or DC? Are they any less American than we? Are we so terribly insensitive and bigoted to think that a person's ethnic heritage determines their political allegiance? I thought after the internment camps of WWII we'd have learned our lession, but, unfortunately, it appears we have not. Just like the asian americans of the 1940s, today's arab-americans live not only with sorrow in their hearts for the atrocities of 11 September, but also fear--fear that some unthinking racist will hurt or kill them because of the color of their skin.
I could cry. This is not the America I thought we lived in. Maybe I'm naive, but it seems after all we have been through--WWII, the civil rights movement, globalization--that we could see beyond this. Unfortunately, it appears I am wrong.
Calling for more senseless violence on innocents will not solve this terrible situation.
But I do think we should--and must--retaliate. We cannot let cowards get the best of us. I am scared, however, of those who would lash out at the first people suspected. How do we know--for sure--that it was an arab country that did this? Couldn't it have been domestic? Couldn't it have been another country? We do have a lot of enemies... I know signs point to the middle east, but I still think we cannot in good conscience lash out until we can know--at least reliably--who did this.
That's not to say that I'm sure another Tim McVeigh or the Israelies or the IRA did this; but I do think that we cannot act hastily or brashly in this situation. We must think before we act, investigate before we accuse, and look before we strike.
The blood of our innocents cannot be washed away with the blood of others' innocents.
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It is a sad day in America when we mourn this terrible atrocity one minute, and go out and commit another in the next. This evening, I heard a New Yorker blew up a Texas mosque. I have a friend of arab-descent who is afraid for her safety because people are harassing her. Cities are under martial law because they're afraid of hate crimes against arab-americans.
Why? Are they no less hurt or scared by this? Did they not have friends and family, or know those with friend or family in NY or DC? Are they any less American than we? Are we so terribly insensitive and bigoted to think that a person's ethnic heritage determines their political allegiance? I thought after the internment camps of WWII we'd have learned our lession, but, unfortunately, it appears we have not. Just like the asian americans of the 1940s, today's arab-americans live not only with sorrow in their hearts for the atrocities of 11 September, but also fear--fear that some unthinking racist will hurt or kill them because of the color of their skin.
I could cry. This is not the America I thought we lived in. Maybe I'm naive, but it seems after all we have been through--WWII, the civil rights movement, globalization--that we could see beyond this. Unfortunately, it appears I am wrong.
Calling for more senseless violence on innocents will not solve this terrible situation.
But I do think we should--and must--retaliate. We cannot let cowards get the best of us. I am scared, however, of those who would lash out at the first people suspected. How do we know--for sure--that it was an arab country that did this? Couldn't it have been domestic? Couldn't it have been another country? We do have a lot of enemies... I know signs point to the middle east, but I still think we cannot in good conscience lash out until we can know--at least reliably--who did this.
That's not to say that I'm sure another Tim McVeigh or the Israelies or the IRA did this; but I do think that we cannot act hastily or brashly in this situation. We must think before we act, investigate before we accuse, and look before we strike.
The blood of our innocents cannot be washed away with the blood of others' innocents.
Think about it.