noracism

    Americans presently have the profound ability, more so than any terrorists, to ruin and prevent peace in our nation. Our inadvertant weapons are judgement and racism.
     According to the newspaper reports on September 12, hate e-mail began arriving at American Muslim organizations just hours after the attacks on New York and Washington. Muslim students who wear head clothes or traditional coverings reported to their professors that they could not report to class for fear of violent backlash. Racial slurs and harassment against Muslim men and women seem ready on the tongues of too many Americans.
     We, as Americans, have a decision to make. Will we make these fears legitimate? Will we distrust honest Americans because of their ethnic background? Will we create and proliferate racial divides?
     Nearly all of American's citizens come from heritages that have been discriminated against. We, as a nation, stand witness to the memories of American slavery, the Holocaust, Jim Crowe laws, and Japanese internement during World War II. But, at this critical time we should not forget that Americans of all religions are in these tragic circumstances together. We can only escape it effectively if we work together - as survivors of the World Trade Center attacks did when they calmly and respectfully filed down flights of stairs of massively crowded stairs to safety below.
     It was through this cooperation that they survived. The rest of the country should applaod and learn from it.
     If we fail todo this, the terrorists will have won. The horror of buildings collapsing and thousands dying will pale in comparison to the effects of allowing hate, racism, or discrimination to live among Americans of different religion, appearence, or heritage - for then, we will have lost the American ideals of freedom, equality and justice that this nationwas founded on. We will, then, have ceased to be the country that our previous generations fought for and were proud of.
     To avoid this, let us fight the domestic front of prejudice like our brave military fights the enemy fronts of violence.Then, we can preserve the America that we are proud of for future generations.

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