Hatred is a current ‘cool’ fad, but a terribly dangerous one. As with Holocaust deniers, evidence does not deter those Islamophobes who smear all Muslims. Since Muslims are roughly 1/5 of the world’s population, they would be wrecking massive worldwide havoc if their nefarious goal was domination and destruction of all non-Muslims. It clearly isn’t.
Our biggest challenge is to be more attractive than those who tout rage as their ‘answer’ to prior rage and retribution; leading only to endless cycles of destruction. How to inspire haters to renounce hate, is our challenge. We face this hurdle within ourselves, as well, when we fall into feeling this way about the haters, or when we even fall into hating ourselves.
Since 9/11, the anti-Muslim drumbeat has impacted vast numbers of innocent Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Arabs, South Asians and others. We, who despair when our children are teased and bullied, are accepting and repeating despicable slurs about others, ricocheting through our culture. I felt compelled to stand up against people being attacked, even murdered on the basis of snap judgments
