Ground Zero Tolerance

As you all know, I've talked about race, religion, and culture over the time that I've been on this site. Now while I may not agree with a lot of people who tout the necessity of these things and may actively argue against them, I try not to have any blind hatred for these people. I never generalize that all people of a particular faith are bad, just those handfuls that use their god's words as a justification for persecution and prejudice. People tho do this, who hate and generalize, they make me sad, they make me angry, so you can just imagine how sickening it is to me to hear about the protesters of the Mosque at Ground Zero.

Now first things first, this Mosque is not going to be at the world trade center site, it's going to be two blocks away. Secondly, it's not really a mosque, it's a Muslim Community Center that will have a Mosque as a part of it. But the simple fact that it shares some general real estate with Ground Zero has people in an uproar. A huge protest was thrown on June 6th and I must say I just couldn't believe it. I mean, it's been nearly ten years now, I know it still hurts but haven't we as a nation come to a clear enough mind to separate Muslims and Terrorists in our collective minds? I thought this, I honestly did. Then I clicked the article.

I found myself staring at a woman holding up a sign, it said "You can build a Mosque at Ground Zero when we can build a Synagogue in Mecca", I was awe struck. My mind reeled at the ignorance of that statement. The 'Yous' and 'Wes' rang out as this woman certainly didn't consider anyone of Muslim faith apart of her small minded world. I went on to the article to read that at this protest, two Egyptian men speaking Arabic were accosted by an unruly mob. They shouted at the men and told them to get out, the two men were able to escape the crowd with the aide of police, and were in fact two Christian men there to protest the Mosque as well.

I have rarely seen such a unabashed showing of hatred and racism in my life. The idea of freedom of religion and practice, the laws governing property ownership, simple human decency to let others live as they will, all of these things blatantly forgotten by these men and women, if they had ever had concept of them after all. I found myself not satisfied by the one article, and moved to another. I read more of the hate and came across the worst quite I have ever read that was spoken with utter honesty... Mark Williams, a Tea Party leader put this on his personal blog "The monument would consist of a Mosque for the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god." And continue to say "In the meantime I have a wonderful idea along the same lines as that mosque at Ground Zero thing… a nice, shiny new U.S. Military Base on the smoldering ruins of Mecca. Works for me!"

My jaw dropped. It literally hung agape as I stared at the words, I couldn't believe it. I was incapable of believing these words came from a human being. I checked the actual blog, and as I could not find these direct quotes, though the articles he post do seems to be 'updated' quite often, he does in fact refer to Islamic people as savages and post disturbing depictions of Muhammad. The sheer hatred in these people sickens me, they look and see terrorists in every person with brown skin. They call anyone Arabic savages, and completely ignore the fact that whatever they happen to believe, that the people building the community center have a right to build whatever they damn well please as long as they have the blessing of the New York City Council, which they do.

I may not agree with the Muslim faith as I do not agree with any other faith. But I'm also not going to stand around and tell these people they don't have a right to build a Mosque, in the same way I won't stand in front of a Catholic and tell them they can't build a Church. It's not right, it's racist in the worst way. These people these horrible horrible people scream terrorists, they're drudging up hatred and fear that I thought was long since gone in the public mind. I thought we were passed this, that America didn't look at an Arabic man standing in a Walmart and wonder if the guy has a bomb strapped to his chest anymore. I thought in the past nine years out collective anger over 9/11 had calmed to the point where we could all be people again.

I guess I was wrong.