This now 20-year-old story rings true today. Professor Devon Peña asked us, “Was there an ecological explanation for the September 11 attack?” He posed this question in the final few moments of our first class meeting in Environmental Anthropology. It was three weeks after the mostly Saudi hijackers flew airliners into buildings in New York City and Washington, DC and a field in Shanksville, PA.
Your story really speaks as to the value of not making quick assumptions about other people based on their appearance. I’m sure that man faced a lot of prejudice because people assumed that everyone of his ethnicity were terrorists, and you likely added to his fear. And yet people who consider themselves liberal and progressive today are stoking these fears, claiming that all people of X race/gender/sexual orientation must be all evil simply for their identity. We’ve lost the human element and live in fear.
Your story really speaks as to the value of not making quick assumptions about other people based on their appearance. I’m sure that man faced a lot of prejudice because people assumed that everyone of his ethnicity were terrorists, and you likely added to his fear. And yet people who consider themselves liberal and progressive today are stoking these fears, claiming that all people of X race/gender/sexual orientation must be all evil simply for their identity. We’ve lost the human element and live in fear.