Extremists - They are all around us.

In the past few days we have seen laid bare some of the ‘isms that Americans have.

For some, it is extremism.  Donald Trump, Ben Carson, 31 governors and 242 Republican and 47 Democratic Congressmen have put it on display in reference to the Syrian refugees.

Millions of Syrians are on the run for their lives.  They are running as a direct result of our country, the United States of America invading Iraq. Saddam Hussein may have been a dictator and a bully, among other things, but he kept the peace.  Terrorists have replaced him.  Evil people who, who under the guise of an ‘ism’ are creating havoc. They are murdering indiscriminately and destroying the heritage of the Iraqi people.

Donald Trump, who is of German descent, was holding the door when the history of Nazism was taught. He missed that the path to the ovens of the Holocaust, started with registering the Jewish population.  His solution, a variation of the database in which he proposes including every Muslim living in America, was used in Germany and ended with 6,000,000 deaths during World War II of just one group of human beings.

Ben Carson, not to be outdone, I can’t even think of an ‘ism to describe the foulness of his comparing the Syrian refugees to ‘rabid dogs’.  This a man, an educated man, a man who is a neurosurgeon, a man that I have decided is suffering brain damage from inhaling ether all the years he was working in the operating room.  How else can we explain the absolute vile and obscene comments that he makes?

For others, the ‘ism is nativism, directed towards Muslims. We, Americans are guaranteed freedom of religion by our Constitution.  Apparently that only applies to Christians and I am beginning to realize that again it only applies to white American Christians. If it applied to all of Christians, 9 people would not have been murdered in a church, and that horror would not have been followed by a spate of arson, almost all Black churches.

A few days ago, there was a town hall meeting held in Virginia to discuss the building of a new mosque.  The hateful comments made at that meeting, (including one man who was so angry, his neck in the photo was literally red,) referred to the Americans at that meeting as terrorists. Why? Because in the eyes of some Americans if a person is a Muslim then it follows that person is also a terrorist.  I don’t remember anyone referring to Dylann Roof as a terrorist after he was arrested for the murder of 9 people attending Bible Study at Emanuel AME.

Where was Congress and Trump and all the others who are now calling for our borders to be closed, where were they in 2001?  Our government knew that the members of Al Qaeda were Saudi’s. Were there calls to create a database with the names of all Saudis living in here? In the past 14 years has there been a bill brought to the floor of the House and passed immediately, a bill that would subject Saudis wanting to come to America to be vetted the same way the Syrians are already being vetted? No, there has been no such bill.  The Saudis are exempt from the ‘isms.  Those In power and those who want to be in power have managed to forget that Osama Bin Laden, a man who killed over 3,000 Americans was a Saudi prince.

Those running for office, specifically at this time, the Presidency, and those who voted to close our borders to the refugees, those who have decided that these words no longer apply to America –

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning 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.” By Emma Lazarus.

Let us pray and if you do not pray, then hope, that one day Trump, Carson et al, do not stare at their TV screens, stare at the results of an ‘ism and wonder if they are looking at the response to their words.