2001-09-12 - 0:20

Intolerance of intolerance

What is there to say today? It was surreal watching the first news coverage before I left for the office. I can't say that much work got done today. We were much more caught up in following the news.

There's really nothing in my mind, nothing in my life experience, that lets what happened sink home. It's hard to conceive of two huge towers suddenly being wiped out. Or to think of it from the perspective of those on board the planes. Or the firefighters. Or . . .

Of course, not a day goes by when the world isn't killing itself. Parts of the world have been at war for generations. It just hits harder when it's closer to home. I can pretend that Sierra Leone doesn't exist; it's harder for me to pretend that there is no New York City.

Maybe I shouldn't be so ignorant, or so deliberately ignorant of what goes on in the world; but honestly, the scope of daily inhumanity would incapacitate someone, if they were truly able to experience it fully. Tonight, at least, I'm unable to choose to be unaware.

I spent some time today arguing on the message board that I mentioned before. So sad. So sad to read peoples' reactions of, "Let's bomb that entire country (or this list of countries). None of them are innocent. They're all evil and deserve to die." Didn't they just witness the consequences of that attitude? Do they not understand that they have the same viewpoint and argument as the people who they say that they hate, just with a different reference for who is "us" and who is "them"?

Hearing even a few people spew their hateful anti-Arabic or anti-Muslim bile is so disappointing, so disgusting.

I dunno. I'm not very politically inclined. I feel powerless to influence a government or stop a war. The only contribution that I feel that I can make is to call someone on it when I hear their racism, their sexism, their religious bias, their hate.

Even on an individual level, I know that many people are so in love with their own hate that they will never be reached. But if every reasonable person let it be known that they have no tolerance for unreasoning hatred, and if they voiced their opposition to every example of hate that they saw, I believe that it would have to help.

I know that my statements here are echoing something that Henry Rollins said on one of his spoken word albums. Hate hate. Do it forcefully.

That is the only resolve that I can make for today.

J.