I am sickened by the animosity directed toward American residents of Middle Eastern descent.
People who commit hate crimes against this group are no better than the terrorists who attacked us.
Innocent people were targeted because they were guilty by association in the eyes of the terrorists. Regardless of the victims’ beliefs regarding government policy overseas, they were punished by blanket hostility and hatred.
To assume that all Arabs, Iraqis, etc., support what happened is to assume that all pro-life supporters believe in bombing abortion clinics. Or that all pro-choice supporters agree with partial-birth abortion. These are dangerous stereotypes to make, and more innocent people will be hurt as a result of them.
I don’t fool myself into thinking that sympathy with the terrorists does not exist in this country, and I fully support a swift and severe retaliation against those who perpetrated this act.
But we are already making one comparison to World War II–the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
I do not want to create another similarity–I do not want to live in a new Nazi Germany, where people are systematically persecuted for their ethnicity. That is not America.
