Someone recently asked me about the Black Lives Matter movement in this country. "Why isn't it 'All Lives Matter?'"
Well, people who say "Save the rainforests" aren't saying to cut all the other ones down. Firemen can say "All Houses Matter" but they show up to the ones on fire. Our American culture is becoming one of more overt racism -- ignorance that is cooked over a fire of bigotry and distilled into hate, and is nowhere more observable than in the current political debates. I realize it may seem strange that I am writing this as someone who through no fault of my own was born into white privilege. I'm tired of the parade of unarmed black people being killed for nothing. Just imagine how these families feel.
I haven't been to church in a while, but as far as I know this verse hasn't been removed. I thought of it this week: "You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God," Leviticus 19:34.
This week Muslim ninth-grader Ahmed Mohamed was arrested in Irving, Texas, because school authorities thought he brought a bomb to school. Strangely they didn't call a bomb squad or evacuate the school, instead they called the cops and had the boy handcuffed. Is this the normal protocol to deal with a bomb threat? I guess nerding out and building a clock while Muslim is really scary to people who are idiots. How do you think that boys parents felt? Oh, not now, he's been invited to the White House and is going to NASA Space Camp. How you would feel if your child were handcuffed, not allowed to speak to you, and asked to sign a confession by the principal because he's suspected of terrorism? All because this child is perceived a stranger among us?
Here's a note to bigots and racists: all people love their children just as much as you think you do. Teaching your children to hate others based on race should be considered child abuse.
Though Ahmed has garnered amazing support and encouragement from all sorts of fancy people, the letter that got me was me was from "Star Trek" actor George Takei. He said, "You see, when I was a bit younger than you, I was also viewed by others as "the enemy" and treated as such, simply because I happened to look like the people who had attacked America ... But my childhood was interrupted by fear and ignorance ... I spent my childhood in an internment camp because of that fear and ignorance."
Right. We have done this before. Suspecting people based on their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, abilities, or whatever else is on that list is just really stupid. It's worse than stupid. We are holding ourselves back as a country when spouting "Let's Make America Great!" and fostering hatred of our citizens. Dare I say it's un-American? Well, it should be un-American. This country was built on poet Emma Lazarus' words: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
The rhetoric has gotten worse over the last decade. When Sen. John McCain was running for president, a lady in the audience who hadn't bothered to brush her hair said she was afraid of Obama because he was an Arab. John McCain said he wasn't, and that Obama was a "decent family man."
Colin Powell took that and ran with it: "Well, the correct answer is 'He is not a Muslim, he's a Christian, he's always been a Christian.' But the really right answer is 'What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?' The answer is 'No. That's not America.' Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she can be president?"
Every 7-year-old in America should believe that.
This week at a Donald Trump rally (I know, I can't believe it either), a man said "We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims. We know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American."
Trump welcomed the question. The man went to crazy land about terrorist training camps and blah, blah, blah then asked, "When can we get rid of 'em?"
Really? Okay. I can't fault Trump for a nut job's question. But it was his answer that was chilling.
"We are going to be looking at a lot of different things. A lot of people are saying that."
Who? Who is saying that?
Who is saying we need to "get rid of 'em?" People hiding behind their Bibles? If so, please see the verse above. By the way, "you shall" is not "if you feel like it."
There is one race, the human race, and we are all losing. Every one of us. Silence in the presence of racism, bigotry and discrimination makes us all accomplices. It's past time for us to stand up for our founding principles of inclusion and be true patriots.
Shannyn Moore is a radio broadcaster.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.