Irrational reaction not needed

Back in the 70s we parked our car in a gated parking lot and slept securely in a Chicago hotel – only to discover the next morning that our car, and many others, had been robbed. It was the first time our trust in mankind had ever been so rudely violated.
We were unnerved. We wanted our stolen camera and its pictures back. We wanted to do something besides fill out a report with the police department. As we drove downtown to park at the baseball stadium we saw the city differently than we had on our many previous visits. Just folks, who happened to live in a city, now looked like thieves.
As we got out and locked our car, a young man walked by looking us. Suspicion welled up. What was he doing looking at us like that? Was he the one who robbed us? Anger surged, along with the conviction that this was the one who had robbed us and the fear that he would do it again. Anger welled up, hand and arm muscles twitched to strike out because he could have been involved. It was a startling revelation.
I was reminded of that innate need to find someone responsible and do something after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Across the country, to our shame as a nation ofcitizens and immigrants from around the world, many who looked, dressed or were of Arabic descent were too often, too quickly linked with the terrorists. Classmates, strangers, co-workers looked at them with suspicion and anger simply because they wanted a focus for their shock, rage and sense of betrayal.
Ernesto Tobares, a Chilean immigrant in New York City said, “if an Arab got on my bus, I don’t know what I’d do. I’m not going to tell you I’d throttle them, but I’d snap. It’s as much anger as it is fear.”
Some did more than just talk about the anger and fear. Since Tuesday’s attacks, FBI director Robert Mueller has opened 40 hate crime investigations regarding reported attacks on Arab-Americans, including two killings. And that does not begin to address the number of children, women, college students, co-workers and neighbors who were bullied, taunted and teased as anger spilled-over after Tuesday’s attacks.
As a country we do not need to go that way again. During the westward development of our country as a budding nation of immigrants we justified pushing the American Indians out of their lands and onto desert reservations.
During World War I metropolitan streets with German names were changed; anyone wanting to buy sauerkraut had to remember to ask for the more acceptable “Liberty Cabbage.”
Again during World War II thousands of American citizens, whose ancestors happened to be from Japan, were sent to primitive, crowded camps in isolated parts of America. Those camps were still operating two and three years after the war was over and the concentration camps of Germany had been emptied
Yes, as a country we are hurt, afraid and angry. But we need to determine to work very hard to insure that this time we do not have to look back on our knee-jerk reactions and decisions with shame and humiliation.