Brown is the new Black

While listening to the radio this morning, I heard something that gave me pause. NPR is doing a series on Muslims in America and apparently people are outraged. Some of the letters that I heard made me wonder what the hell is wrong with people and how many people have white sheets, crosses and matches in their closets. People thought that the five-year anniversary of September 11th was no time to listen to what Muslims have to say. I'm sorry but I find this absolutely preposterous. Yes, September 11th was a horrible thing and yes, the people who committed the heinous act were evil people who claim to be Muslim, but I'm sorry I cannot get behind the thought that all Muslims are evil. First of all, I'm sure that there were some Muslim people who were in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon who passed away. Are their lives less valuable just because of their faith? Second of all, people have said time and time again that the hijackers were crazy fundamentalists that didn't speak for the majority of Muslims. The "evil September 11th hijackers were Muslims therefore all Muslims must be terrorists" belief just doesn't fly with me. If I were to follow that reasoning, I would also have to conclude that all white people were members of the Ku Klux Klan and any fundamentalist Christian must be an agent of Satan. That being said, I am becoming increasingly worried for my Muslim friends and people who even look like they could be of Middle Eastern descent. This whole "kill anyone who looks remotely brown in the name of patriotism" business strikes me as jingoisitic nonsense. It seems to me that brown is the new black. It used to be that black people were the ones who were blamed for everything, now that focus has shifted to the brown people. I have to wonder who is next? I mean they are already up in arms over the gays so I'm guessing that in awhile after targeting all of the minorities, people are going to start discriminating on the basis of eye color or hair color or something equally as stupid. Kind of gives a new meaning to American Idiot doesn't it?