[Prudence]

I've been pondering all morning and into the afternoon.

These events bring out the worst in me and I vacillate between hiding the unflattering thoughts deep down where no one will see them but they fester and breed, or shining the bright light of exposure on them so that hopefully they will, like a nest of cockroaches, flee into the night.

Today I sided with the cockroach approach. Which means that I'm going to say the things I don't like to admit that I sometimes think. The things that are hurtful and offensive and that I don't WANT to think. And it's selfish of me to even say them, because it's for my own benefit -- to confront the cockroach thoughts in public in the hopes that I can see them for what they are and banish them with mental Raid.

For example:

As I stood in the shower this morning, I found myself thinking that internment camps sounded like a good idea. Not that I actually in my rational brain think that this is good. Or even in my usual empathetic "let's all hug a tree and then go embrace our neighbors' differences" brain. But the deep down reptilian part of my brain said "F*ck 'em all. They're not like me, they don't like me, they never will like me or be like me, they want to eliminate me and everything I hold dear, and they'd be lucky to end up in Gitmo instead of dead at my feet."

And I hate those thoughts. And I hate myself for thinking those thoughts. And I hate people that encourage me to think those thoughts.

It's a frustration for me. Like many flag-wrapped Americans, I, too, want to know where the condemnation is on the part of mainstream Muslims. I watched the 30 days episode with a redneck southerner livining 30 days as a Muslim. I heard the one man say that he won't apologize for what a handful of Muslims do because he's not responsible for their actions. But the voice in my head responded: "And yet you want to hold me responsible for the Crusades, which happened hundreds of years before my birth?"

Because part of me does believe that average, run-of-the-mill Muslims give an internal cheer for terrorist acts. Not a rational part, but a part nonetheless. Part of me does look at passers-by with suspicion and the nagging thought that they probably do want to exterminate me and impose their religious laws on my country. Part of me suspects that those people I see in the hallway at work every day are really more loyal to their ethnic homeland than to the USA, and that if push came to shove they'd shout "Death to America!" with the rest.

And it's not fair to the people around me. What, exactly, would it take for me to believe that they weren't terrorist sympathizers? A full page NY Times ad? Sousa marches on their car stereos? "USA!" chants at ball games? An H2 in every driveway?

I have the benefit of looking back on the Japanese internment camps as part of history and knowing that it was the wrong action to take. Of knowing that those Japanese-American families were not secretly rooting for the Emperor and hoping for a US defeat. Of seeing the horrible photos of families leaving houses they once owned, leaving lives they'd earned, and living as prisoners of war in their own country. I've had the opportunity to read the rationalizations -- conditions aren't that bad, for their own protection -- and the blatant racisim from national leaders of the time.

And then I examine my own thoughts and I'm no better than my ancestors. I see a culture I don't understand and I see some members of that culture attack mine, and I don't know how I'm supposed to tell the difference between potential attackers and law-abiding citizens. All of it looks foreign and foreign = suspicious. And suspicious = better safe than sorry. I'm scared of them, I'm scared of myself, and I'm scared for future generations.

And my own selfish, reprehensible, rascist inner turmoil is nothing compared to loss of life. But damn the terrorists for feeding my internal monster. Damn them for promoting fear for fear's sake. Damn them for promoting eternal reward as a justification for present pain. Damn them for using the powerless in their own power grab. And damn them to the deepest hell for every husband, wife, mother, father, sister, brother, and child who cries themselves to sleep as tears overflow the holes in their hearts.