September 12th Revisited

Reflecting further on my last post, I realize it suffers from incompleteness.  While I and others may have experienced a renewed sense of unity and grace in the weeks and months following the horrific events of 9/11, I would be remiss to ignore the dark undercurrent to the national character that still haunts us.  I refer to the demon of racism.  For while many of us came together in a spirit of patriotism and humanitarianism in the wake of our collective tragedy, there certainly were others who began profiling those among us who were visibly different, particularly persons of middle eastern origin.  I did not intend to wear glasses of such a rosy hue to forget my fellow American citizens and foreign nationals who fell victim then, and fall victim now, to racial stereotyping.  Yet I look forward to the day, as a great man once said, when all people are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character; when profiling, stereotyping and persecuting fellow human beings based on their country of origin, their race, or whatever else makes them "different," will be relegated to a shameful but remote chapter of our distant past.