LETTER: Post-Sept. 11 paranoia reintroduces racism

A person can safely assume the world is plunging into disarray. I hate to be the voice of your withheld conscience, but the blatancy of the situation is too strident to ignore. Our post-Sept. 11 world has introduced into most Americans a feeling of paranoia that is almost inescapable unless we hide in a room, distancing ourselves from the incessant broadcast of the world's chaos. This feeling of paranoia has almost subconsciously reintroduced feelings of racism, and the bar of what is considered racist has been adjusted slightly lower than our pre-Sept. 11 lifestyle.

Imparted into one's childhood educational curriculum is usually a section on racism in American history. We look at the stories of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and James Meredith, and we are dumbfounded and insulted at our nation's naivete. We read of lynching and gruesome murders and can't help becoming squeamish in empathy. Our moral absolute has been raised believing that racism is inherently wrong, and in no way will we turn to a state of ignorance only to repeat the history we've worked so hard to clear our name of.

However, how many of us can get on an airplane and not look twice at the Arab sitting in the seat three rows up? We always hear of stories about passengers telling a flight attendant that he or she feels there is something strange about the gentleman sitting in the next seat, only because he is of a different skin color.

The most crucial example of this rekindled racial intolerance is the situation of the so-called Jena Six. In Sept. 2006 in Jena, La., black students sat under a tree that was considered the "white" tree at their school. The following day, a few white students hung three different-colored nooses. Though the students were punished with a three-day suspension, animosity between the whites and blacks flared and violence erupted. But when a white student was beaten up after harassing a black student, District Attorney Reed Walters charged him and five other black students responsible with second-degree attempted murder. The court set bail between $78,000 and $135,000, and the black students are now awaiting trial for a crime that they never committed.

This is racism at its very core. It is our duty as human beings to realize the inherent problem with racial prejudice. No longer can we allow our minds to drift toward racism, for if we do, we are doomed to repeat the very thing history teaches us: not to repeat it.

Nathan Goldman

CGS '11