"Humane."

Good morning friends….

I’ve been awake for over an hour now. It’s nearly 8:30 in the morning, and I can see through the glimpses of the open curtain that the morning sun is finally beginning to fully rise. The tv is mindlessly running, I think it’s the weather channel; we’re expecting snow sometime on Sunday. We’re getting snow a week after Christmas, a week before, but not the day of; it never makes sense. *grin*

I’ve had something on my mind for the past few days that I’ve wanted to write about; so I’m going to share it here with you even though I’m not exactly sure how to start…. so bear with me and forgive me if I don’t do so well. :)

Sometime last week I looked up the word “humane” a few days after hearing it spoken in one of my classes. In case you did not know; one of the definitions of humane is: “kind and good.” When I read that I have to chuckle and question it. If that’s the true definition of humanity, then I’m wondering what we truly are… truth is, people have a wrong view of humanity. Our intentions may be kind and good, but we ourselves, are not.

In my History class my teacher somehow jumped from the topic of a certain war to the issue of terrorism and terrorists. Now, I’m not one to leave the room when terrorists are mentioned (I know people who hate talking about it) but I am one to get defensive when judgements are thrown upon people. He said something along the line of: “Terrorists are not humane. When you think of a terrorist what do you see? A Middle-Eastern man, wearing a thing on his head (I was going to speak up and say the name for it but didn’t) and he’s probably an extremist in his religion.”

The only thing that stood out in my mind from what he said (besides the fact that he said ‘thing on his head’) was the fact that he had ‘groups’ of people to which a terrorist would belong…
1) A man
2) Middle-Eastern
3) Of a certain religion

Now… I am not a man, nor am I a Middle Eastern beliver in this religion that he was refering to… but my face turned red, my blood boiled, and my eyes glared. Why? Not because I haven’t recognized that most people of terrorism have come from this very background but because now that we realize that these are the backgrounds of people that we fear – sometimes we tend to fear them even when all these things aren’t combined.

We (as Americans, not you or I personally) tend to resist, be hesitant toward, or have fear of people of the Middle East. We see someone or know someone who is a Muslim and wonder if they’re an extremist. I’ve seen this evident… and I hate it.

I do have one question though. The word “terrorism” or “terrorist” is it only seen as one who allows suicide bombings, or flying into American buildings? If so, then yes, my teacher was right – the 3 characteristics that he mentioned were ones that are often defined terrorists, and are the only terrorists. But when I looked up the word I found the definition: “Terrorism is a term used to describe violence or other harmful acts committed (or threatened) against civilians by groups or persons.” So, if terrorism is someone creating any terror in anyone then isn’t terrorism also planning school shootings, killing innocent people, persecuting Christians, allowing slavery 200 years ago and now modern-day slavery….

I don’t think terrorism is reserved or expected only from (as my teacher said) a Middle-Eastern man of the Muslim religon. I think we are (as Americans, not you or I personally) blind to see that terror is laid upon other people because of others actions. If terror is the mere object of terrorism, then we have terrorist in America, not only overseas.

These very judgements, of the ones that my teacher said, are like people pointing toward African Americans and coming to a conclusion that all African Americans will sometime end up doing drugs, on the street or in prison. It’s like people of a different background besides something that leads to white skin saying that all people who are white are judgemental and have hatred toward anyone else different than them; or that all Christians are too narrow-minded. It seems to me that we (all people) have allowed oursevles to expect certain things from certain people.

Okay, I’m not here to preach, and in fact that’s not even why I’m writing. I had no intention on going on a word spree like this. So I’ll stop, but please do think about what I shared as you leave this. I think I’m just tired of judgements laid upon other people – so I guess deep down I knew a “word spree” was expected. *grin* All of this because of simple words said in a class.

More later,
Teresa