I just spent a good chunk of time reading other people's responses to Scalzi's weekend assignment on 9/11, and the blunt honesty of this lady talking about her own fears of other ethnic groups brought back the most vivid memory of a friend of mine from High School.
Right after the Oklahoma City bombing, my friend Shadi and I were watching the news and he was so upset. "Every time something happens, they assume it was us." And it's true - all of the initial reports on that event were that Arab terrorists must be to blame. He seemed to take the whole thing so personally, and I just couldn't relate. After all, what do people ever blame blondes for, except the general harmless stereotypes?
On 9/11, most of the initial reports again jumped to the conclusion that we had been attacked by people from the Middle East. And I thought of Shadi. It had been five years since I last saw him. I assumed that he was still living in New Jersey, and I hoped that he was in an environment of supportive people. I hoped that ignorant people weren't hating him personally. And I hoped that everything worked out ok for him. I still do. Shadi was the kind of guy that everyone needs to have in life -- he cared about everyone. He had the biggest heart around. And when the rest of us were forming cliques and ignoring people who had been our friends the week before, he continued to be friends with everybody. And I bet he's still like that.
Right after 9/11 I also remembered reading "Farewell to Manzanar" in high school and I remember wondering if the powers that be were going to try to "protect" another generation of another race by sending them away to camps like they did to the Japanese Americans during WWII. I was glad to see that we as a nation did learn from that mistake and allowed citizens to respect and even embrace eachother's races and religions.
I've looked Shadi up a few times, but he's not on the Alumni web board or on myspace (seriously... who ISN'T on myspace? my GUINEA PIG is on myspace!!). Whenever I think of 9/11, my thoughts eventually stray to him. And I wonder how much more his world has changed than my world.
1 comment:
How many friends does Zoe have on myspace? It was neat to remember Shadai, his little sister, his dad drowning. He's an amazing human being.
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