Self-proclaimed defenders of the American Way have wasted no time seizing on their opportunity to assault, berate, threaten, shoot, run over, firebomb, vandalize and beat anyone (American or not) who is Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Persian, Arab, South Asian or just generally has a dark complexion. Armchair generals demand that we bomb somebody soon, whether they are innocent or not. A local xenophobe (who used to complain about government intrusion on private rights) wants the government to close our borders and remove constitutional rights from immigrants. And the great War Profiteer Falwell gleefully converts more than 6,000 deaths into a shoddy advertising opportunity to push his own personal agenda.
Interestingly, I don’t recall anything similar when Timothy McVeigh was picked up six years ago. No indiscriminate attacks on skinheads, militia members, or WASPs in general. No demands to bomb the compounds of the Posse Comitatus or the Aryan Nations. No calls to round up white people (American citizens or not) and send them back to “their own country.”
If we were able to treat McVeigh, a good ol’ boy White American, as an individual aberration not representative of his race and religion, then why can’t we apply the same distinction for other types of people?
Marysville
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