WTC Aftermath: My Thoughts

Activity on Listology has been non-existent for a reason. But I still feel compelled to reach out to the members of the online communities of which I am a part, Listology being one of them. Please feel free to comment on what I have to say. Your comments will be read and appreciated regardless of whether they disagree with my opinions.

09/12/2001 11:30pm

It's late Wednesday night. I have literally watched about 24 hours of television in the last 37 hours. I haven't always been sitting with rapt attention but between TV and the web I've really been trying to sift through all of the information being floated out there. Already I can feel the amount of actual information being dispensed by the real news sources starting to wane. But alot of the amateur news sources including weblogs are still providing a lot of insight.

I have been hearing stories of individuals who are citizens of the United States (or other friendly countries such as Canada) that have names and/or physical features which associate them with Middle Eastern ancestry. There is a lot of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment being bandied about by many whose ideas of the world are what I would consider ill-conceived.

This is what I know:

The United States citizenry is composed of people of very diverse backgrounds including Middle Eastern (Iranian, Palestinian, Israeli, et. al.) and Asian (Pakistani, Indian, et. al.) ancestry and diverse systems of religious belief (Christian, Muslim) to name but a few.

Repeat after me...

Not all Muslims are terrorists.
Not all terrorists are Muslims.
Not all Middle Easterners are terrorists.
Not all terrorists are Middle Easterners.
Not all Middle Easterners are Muslims.
Not all Muslims are Middle Easterners.

Not all people who look like they might be Middle Eastern, or sound like they might be Middle Eastern or even have a name which sounds Middle Eastern are Middle Eastern or Muslims or terrorists.

The people of any given country are not the government of that country. Even if that country is Iran, Iraq, Palestine or Afghanistan.

A small group of people (especially when some of them are children) who are shown to be celebrating an attack on the United States do not necessarily represent the bulk of the citzenry of any given country or ethnic group or religious group.

There are specific individuals who are responsible for the terrorist activities throughout the world, in general, and who are responsible for the actions of the last few days, specifically. I truly believe the government of the United States will do whatever they can to find out who these individuals are and punish them accordingly.

Nothing can change what has happened in the past. No amount of hatred, venom or vitriol will save one person who's life has already been lost.

Innocent people who have no relation to those who have perpertrated these attacks other than a passing resemblance, sound-alike name, certain way of speaking, skin color or religious belief do not deserve to be the butt of any hatred by any member of their fellow citizens or other citizens of the world.