kill all the arabs

been thinking. had a friend tell me the other week - a deaf friend - that it was time to nuke all the arabs. kill them all in order to protect us. don't think he knew i had a bit of arab blood, don't think it mattered. i tried to talk about it but he said he would do it for his own safety and for the people he loved. wouldn't i?

well, no. i couldn't. the thing is, it's racist. not all terrorists are arabs. not all arabs are terrorists. most of the US terrorist experiences have been with white supremacists, for example (which goes to show something but i can't think what.) killing a bunch of arabs won't kill terrorists. most likely the terrorists will know it's coming and get out, and all that'll be there to kill is a bunch of innocent people. (well, they're dark skinned aren't they? de facto guilty.) and then of course we get a bunch of people who hate us a LOT because we've killed their friends. and they will then become terrorists. and don't forget not all of america is white. lots of americans are multiracial, too. that kind of racist act - killing a physically different group because you have a problem with an ideologically different group - can only lead to more suffering for everyone. plus we'd have the deaths of millions of innocents on our shoulders. murder is murder, wholesale or retail.

problem is a lot of americans have been trained to make no distinction btw act and race. we hear about a crime and, the news tells us, it's probably committed by a black person. frankly, i grew up without being trained to have the bit in my head that lets color lead to blindness. it's not anything special. it's just my mum liked being around black people and danced to reggae. she loved asian music, indian, and yes, arab; these things were part of my life from the ground up.

when i see terrorists commit a crime, i see criminals. i don't see... a group of people defined by their skin color. i see a group which has chosen to perform specific acts. a criminal group. hell, even "terrorism" is something you can break down. sometimes into "freedom fighters." you could say america was started by an act of terrorism - the boston tea party. when you cut anything down into a simple block of color - whether it's people or an idea - and forget that anything humans get involved with gets simultaneously stained and shiny, you lose sight of the real world. you start seeing people as things....