Race

September 11, 2001 the Twin Towers and World Trade Center were violently destroyed when a plane flew into each of them. Now, September 11, 2010, nine years later a huge controversy on whether or not there should be a building of the Islamic mosque in New York City just a few blocks from ground zero. Some don’t mind the building of a mosque in a diverse country while others revolt at the thought of one so close to ground zero.

Some people of the United States abide by the foundations of which our country was built, and don’t see any problem with the building of the Islamic mosque. On the other hand we have people that cannot stand the thought of the building of something representing “the people” that caused this devastating event to happen. When in reality it wasn’t the group of people that decided to destroy three of our important buildings, but were just some Islamic extremists. To go and blame the whole Islamic society is like accusing the entire population of the United States for a killing that a single man committed. Not only is this irrational but is also an assumption that only shows signs of stupidity and a lack of understanding. This controversy has widely divided the country in two, those who approve of it and those who deny it. This has resulted in many unbelievable actions.

The lack of knowledge of some of the US people results in immature behaviors such as the treat of the burning of the Koran, at a church in Florida. This is attracting global attention as it organizes a "Burn the Koran" day to commemorate the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Pastor Terry Jones, leader of Dove World Outreach Center and author of a book called Islam is the Devil, says Islam is a "violent and oppressive" faith, and that the only way to stop Muslim terrorists is to expose their religion "for what it is."

Actions like this only result from the ignorance and hatred of those that are against change and anything that is not what they are used to, putting our troops in more danger as they fight in Afghanistan. They gather the support of the uneducated by saying things that they know people are afraid of. They didn’t state that the Islamic community is “the devil” based off of fact, but stated it knowing that they can easily convince those who are scared or have no knowledge of the truth to join them in bashing another religion.

I believe that in the United States we have so much diversity that in the end we are all somehow related. This is because we all came to this country to escape the hatred and lack of freedom. So as I notice people bashing each other we might as well be showing that same hatred toward our families.

The term race or racial group usually refers to the categorization of humans into populations or ancestral groups on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics. What I also believe is that race can also group people with the things they have in common. We all came to this country for change and what I see now is not any different from the cruelty so many of our ancestors escaped before. As quoted on the statue of liberty “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” I have noticed over the years that our nation has slowly taken action of just the opposite. Building a two thousand mile long fence to keep our southern neighbors out, having so much paperwork to fill out to become a citizen that it takes years to even get close, and making laws that only allow people to show racism towards each other. This isn’t what our ancestors fought for; they didn’t go through all that trouble just to see us undo everything they have done. If we keep acting like this, we will eventually cause people to flee our nation as they did before when they came here for a new beginning.