Well, let's see. Feelings are the immediate, gut level, unedited, spontaneous part of us, and sometimes instinctive fear is a part of that early reaction. I think a lot of us are terrified because the world seems like is crashing around us right now, and in our society at least, everyone is blaming the Muslims. Of course in Muslim countries, or communities, the Americans are to blame, so certainly there is prejudice going on everywhere.
Did you still feel the same way once you were able to remove yourself from the situation and think more rationally? You sound like a basically liberal, open-minded person, and it seems like your reaction may have scared you a little.
I was watching cable news while I got dressed this morning, and someone--I think a famous general but I'm not sure because I wasn't paying full attention--said that he thought the reason there had been no recent attacks in America is that the American Muslim community really was not helping the terrorists much (unlike the European Muslims). I had not thought of it that way, and it was a little bit reassuring to me.
When I see Muslim women I have not had time to be angry or afraid of them because my first, overwhelming feeling is that I am so sorry for them, all covered up and stuck in such a subservient role in a male-dominated religion. The little girls at the bus stop are particularly striking to me, because they have the happy energy of children everywhere, but I know they will lose that, and it seems so wasteful. |
