Blogger: James Ryan Irion

            …to bring you an important personal belief announcement as I reaffirm my anti-racist beliefs.  But first, I would like to hold a moment of silence for those who lost their lives in the Fort Hood, Texas shooting yesterday November 5th.                                                                                                                                     The details are yet to be fully substantiated so this blog will not focus too much on what happened because, being a History major, I know full well with big events like this it will take some time for the dust to settle on the truth and circumstances.  Yes the shooter was an army Major, of confirmed Muslim background, and it seems he protested the war in Iraq and Afghanistan into which he was about to be deployed.  I bet a good many of you are already rolling your eyes, rolling up your sleeves, getting ready to blast Muslims for this, but I implore you to do the opposite and read further because you could learn an important lesson here.

            Back when I was still in senior high school I was one of a small group of students responsible for helping to found the school's first Diversity Club.  I wasn't always bluntly anti-racist but I think as I got older and heard of racial violence in history and on the television, I decided to make it a part of my personal beliefs and stand up against racism passionately.  Simply put, I got tired of the senseless hatred.  I can remember a lot of that year during which the Club was established, the float we worked very hard to construct for the Homecoming parade, how happy we felt for having left our mark on the school, and how we hoped to help others.  Now I haven't been back there since 2000 when I graduated to see if they still have it, but ever since then I've been so proud of that accomplishment and have maintained my anti-racist beliefs quietly but firmly.  Whether the act of violence involves a Muslim American, African American, Asian American, or whichever nationality, and yes I used those "American" terms on purpose, I get sick to my stomach when people make hateful claims of retaliation and unjustified threats of violence tied to those other races!  But you are probably asking what does this have to do with the Fort Hood, Texas shooting?  I can already see the comparisons to September 11^th and growing demands for a crack down on Muslims both in the military and society.  So here is where I pull out the history books and point out where such actions have failed in the past and only resulted in systemic hatred; hatred which has and does breed nothing but violent and hurtful consequences down upon otherwise undeserving people.

            "December 7^th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy."  President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Yes, the attack on Pearl Harbor which is still etched into the minds of WWII veterans and Americans everywhere with renewed significance after the September 11^th terrorist attacks.  What happened after Pearl Harbor was that many Japanese Americans were rounded up and held captive under military guard in what basically were concentration camps, though not anything near the kind seen in Nazi Germany at the time.  Just internment facilities intended to protect America from further attacks or covert Japanese spies.  Many, if not all, of them were totally innocent of conspiracies and loyal, legal American citizens but that didn't stop the government from segregating them.  Just to think that our government put otherwise law-abiding citizens into captivity like zoo animals just because they were of a certain unlucky nationality is appalling.  And an embarrassing fact that some would rather forget, I'm sure.  Not to forget the fact that the camps used were of some similarity to the Nazi concentration camps across Europe.  Justify that one for me.

            August 28^th, 1963, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech riveted into the hearts of many African Americans and passionate anti-racist "whites" alike.  Though that was well before my time, I sometimes wish I could have stood beside him as he made that speech, being of light skin color, to support his call for non-violent racial equality even if it might have meant being gunned down too.  To hear as I grew up about how African Americans were segregated so ruthlessly, couldn't share the same bathrooms, schools, sports, restaurants, busses as in Rosa Parks' Montgomery Alabama bus boycott, just made me vomit sometimes.  I questioned my views of compassion, friendship, and forgiveness, that is for sure.  After I chose to be an adamant anti-racist I said to myself I would never blindly victimize someone of another race nor would I believe that everyone of a particular race is guilty of violence against the masses, no matter how great the number of individuals involved.  There are good African Americans out there and there are bad ones.  There are good Japanese Americans out there and there are bad ones.  I believe there are good people of every race no matter where you look, and that includes Muslims too.

            September 11^th, 2001, what I've often called "my Pearl Harbor", is a day I shall never forget but is also a day which reminds me that not all Muslims are guilty of those terroristic attacks and anti-American sentiment.  Do the math and quit being "sheeple" leading others to the slaughter because of blind hatred.  Yes, they were wrong in committing such an atrocious, mass act of violence on innocent civilians.  And yes, our country has been wrong at times in how we handled ourselves overseas and particularly in the Middle East with our oil endeavors.  Violence begets violence and therefore solves nothing by pouring more gas on the fire, unless that is your intent.  Not me, if given the opportunity I would befriend a Muslim, as long as I could trust him as I trust my closest friends and family, same as I have befriended people of Indian, African American, Hispanic, Croatian, and Vietnamese backgrounds throughout my life so far.

            Sure some of you may feel anger that a Muslim soldier in our military unjustly opened fire and killed innocent people.  I am too.  Believe me when I say I am not taking the shooter's side, but instead advocate reasonable compassion.  Even if he was in cohorts with one, five, or fifty other Muslim Americans, it still wouldn't change how I feel that not all Muslims are to blame.  And I say reasonable compassion because you have to be keenly aware of where to draw the line whenever you trust someone.  That's just common sense.  But anyone who wishes to turn their nose up at this and stay the way they are, go right ahead and be my guest.  I believe that I have my opinion and you are entitled to yours.  But when people even think about drawing racial or religious lines in the sand, I'll just stand over on the anti-racist side to stick up for what I believe in.  Violence is not the answer.