SongsForGrownups

Today I came across a letter I wrote to the editors of several newspapers a week and a half after the destruction of the World Trade Center.  I don’t think any of them published it.  In view of President Obama’s historic inauguration, and his wasting no time in signing the Executive Order to close Guantanamo Bay within the year, it strikes me that it would be appropriate to publish it here.

Our new president’s inaugural address signaled a clear change of direction from the past eight years, a commitment to working toward unification before aggression, and upholding the ideals which distinguished our country from the time of its founding.

It is clear to me, however, that very few of us remember that there were well-established societies and cultures here well before the United States of America.  In fact, our form of government owes a good deal to the Natives and their organizational structure.

Now a number of people have become quite upset that Gitmo will be closed, and we must actually review and evaluate the status of its 260-odd inmates, and decide how to try those who actually appear to be guilty of terrorist acts or crimes against the United States.  And we must cease to treat them in ways not allowed by our own country’s rules of engagement, regardless of the policies or practices of their own governments or leaders.  Imagine that: we are to be held to a higher standard.

Here is the letter I wrote, on Sunday, September 23, 2001.

Friends:

I am the Caucasian husband of an American Indian professional woman who works as an epidemiologist for our Federal Government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  She is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina’s School of Public Health.  I would like to present a point of view which I have not yet seen represented in the media on a subject which has been given a great deal of attention, to the credit of our leaders and media.

In the wake of our great calamity, some of us have succumbed to their baser natures and seen fit to treat fellow citizens as scapegoats for their grief and rage.  People with different clothes, such as turbans or scarves, or who because of dark hair and complexions look like they may be from the Middle East, have become targets for evil looks, epithets, violence, and even murder.  I am sad to say that those whose ancestors met and welcomed the first visitors and immigrants to these shores hundreds of years ago, usually to their immediate or eventual regret, are also in this group.  My wife, who is full-blooded Nez Perce, and quite dark, with long, dark hair, has been getting more than the usual amount of stares, lately accompanied by finger-pointing and whispers.  Her Indian colleagues have confirmed that it is not just her imagination: all around the country they are seeing the same thing.

Can you imagine how it feels to an American Indian to be told to “go back where you came from”?  What a terrible irony.  Whether a Brahmin in a Boston mansion, a member of an old Savannah family, or a descendant of the founding governors of New Mexico, to these people every one of us is an immigrant.  My father has ancestors who came on the Mayflower.  My mother was the daughter of Italians who came through Ellis Island, and felt the pain of prejudice.  She spent her life championing civil rights, subscribing to Ebony Magazine in the early 1960′s, arguing for equality, often to the derision of her neighbors and some members of her own family, and eventually living the last 25 years of her life on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, of which she wrote that she could “breathe no other air”. She is buried in my wife’s family cemetery; she is the only non-Indian buried there.  But not everyone can see others as anything but “other”.

Think: does anyone imagine that the men who committed these acts were wearing desert robes, turbans, and swords?  They were able to do what they did because they looked pretty much like anyone else in the airport.  And this is the difficulty we face in fighting this menace–he is not what we expect.

This the strength of the United States of America: it is the most diverse nation in the world.  We embody some of the spirit of all the world’s peoples.  Now we continue to face our greatest test: to embrace all our differences rather than seeing them as obstacles or sources of fear and mistrust.  So many have risen to the challenge and given us reason to be proud, yet a few still bring us shame by yielding to ignorance, fear and hatred.  This is how the terrorist wins.

The way we win is this: unite in ways that we never imagined, both within our nation and around the world.  Recognize that what we have in common counts for much more than anything else.  In the long run, nothing else counts for much at all.