It's not black and white...

My anonymous commenter under the Ramadan post got me thinking about a lot of things this weekend. Like how I find it very strange that people can make assumptions about entire groups of individuals based on the actions of a very few. Or how people think they can make assumptions about any single person, simply based on something superficial like skin color, or a name, or religious beliefs, or political beliefs, or clothing choices, or any of a number of other little bits and pieces of individuality that make up a human being. To go back to religion – if God had wanted everyone in the world to be exactly the same, he would have MADE us all exactly the same. The differences we exhibit shouldn’t be some kind of cause for fear or distrust – the differences are what make us human. Otherwise, we’d be some sort of bizarre race of mindless clones…

I went to a high school that can only be described as very, very white. In fact, the kids who happened to be something ELSE were probably the most popular kids in school. The non-white kids were like rock stars – everyone wanted to get to know them, I guess because they broke up our Anglo-European monotony. My school was also very, very Catholic, which gave me the slightest edge toward “interesting,” especially around Lent. On Ash Wednesday, other kids and teachers would be showing up with dusty gray crosses on their foreheads and asking the “what are you giving up for Lent?” question. When I was asked, and I said, “nothing,” they would give me strange looks that seemed to be half “she must be a heathen pagan” and half curiosity. For a few moments, at least, while I explained my Protestant beliefs on the subject of Lent, I would be one of those unusual novelty kids that all the others took a slight interest in.

My own interest in the differences between people began earlier, probably when we first moved to Texas when I was nine years old. Of all the places I’ve lived, Austin has always been the most racially, culturally and religiously diverse. In contrast to my überweiss high school in New Jersey, school in Texas was a mixture of all kinds of people, with very different backgrounds and cultures. And what’s more, I discovered that all of those differences were fascinating – the different languages other people spoke, the foods they ate, the clothing they wore, the countries they traveled to in order to visit relatives – it was all extremely interesting and thought-provoking and intriguing.

But I’ll admit I didn’t have an overabundance of knowledge on the subject of other religions. During high school, I have two distinct memories of delving into the realm of Islam. One was in my senior AP English class, where we read a little bit of various religious texts – the Bible, the Talmud, the Qur’an, the Bhagavad Gita. And the other was in a history class, where I can still remember a picture from my textbook of Hajj pilgrims walking around the Kaaba in Mecca. It’s probably a picture we’ve all seen at one time or another – it looks like the picture was taken with the shutter left open for a few seconds, so while the motionless object in the middle is perfectly clear, the people are blurred – the people in the middle are like a sea of motion, spinning in waves of black and white, becoming less and less hazy toward the outer edges of the picture. It actually looks very much like a human hurricane – which, the first time I saw it, probably meant nothing significant, but now seems to convey some rather interesting symbolism. After all, what other religion has lately stirred up such storms of fear and misunderstanding and prejudice and ignorance and controversy?

After high school, I can remember exactly – and I mean EXACTLY – when I decided I should educate myself a bit more about Islam. That would be September 12, 2001. The 11th, of course, I spent in a complete daze, certainly unable to comprehend anything I may have tried to read. But by the next day, when the stirrings of “them” and “those people” and “let’s turn Mecca into a parking lot” (what???) began – the sort of talk that suggested there should be a line drawn down some imaginary part of society to separate the obviously superior from the obviously evil – I stared at my laptop computer and thought, “no.” I refused to believe that what happened was indicative of the thoughts and beliefs and wishes of the majority of Muslims on this planet. So I picked up the laptop and started researching. (I also researched that ridiculous “prediction” supposedly made by Nostradamus that seemed to make its way into everyone’s email inbox on September 12…) And it’s not that I even had to CONVINCE myself that most people on the planet, regardless of belief, would denounce what happened on September 11. But at that point I felt it was necessary to understand just a little bit more about some of the people I share the world with. The terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks didn’t do what they did because they were Muslim – they did it because they were TERRORISTS. There’s a huge difference. Really.

I remember a few years ago overhearing an acquaintance talking about how he hated his job, because his new boss was Muslim, and I quote, “I can’t believe I have to work for one of THEM.” (Again with the “us” versus “them” mentality??) It is unconscionable to me that people actually THINK this way (if you can call it “thinking”), yet that, of course, isn’t an isolated view. My question is, why? It honestly doesn’t make sense to me… because to ME, common sense would dictate that you get to know a person before you make any sort of judgment about them. If your boss happens to be a purple-polka dotted Taoist Republican monk who follows the Atkins diet and wears nothing but power suits and leather sandals, well, he might look a bit strange, but there’s nothing there that would tell you exactly WHO he is.

So I guess what I’m saying is – try to get to know people. Try to understand them as best as you can. Try to learn as much about the differences that much-too-easily divide us for absolutely no reason. Because otherwise it’s all just ignorant assumptions and gullible ideas and random hearsay and urban legends and email inbox hoaxes. The truth might be a lot more fascinating and amazing and beautiful than we even realize…