Dear America,
You’re right. Evil is invading our nation. These people are callous and ruthless, sometimes acting alone, sometimes acting in larger groups. They are murderers, firing bullets through the flesh of the innocent, dropping bombs on the weak and the healthy, and assaulting the young and the old.
But don’t be fooled. These people disguise themselves quite well. Interestingly enough, most of them have been here all along. They’re your neighbors, your classmates, and your employees. They’re the ones who see young girls walking alone, grab them, pull them out of public view, and sexually assault them with no empathy or compunction. They are the ones who indiscriminately kill students on campuses, leaving them to lie in pools of their own blood, their lives stopped short in the very location that was supposed to promise them a future. They are the ones who shoot others for being in the wrong place at the wrong time or for wearing the color of another gang. They are the ones who enter churches not to pray for salvation, but to murder those who are for the mere color of their skin. They are the ones who abuse positions of power and, on the basis of race or ability, decide who will be able to seek justice and who will be locked away, who will live and who will die by 16 bullets, by suffocation, by brute force. They are ones who are too cowardly to face the expressions of the teenage boy walking home from school, so instead will pull a trigger from the inside of a car, shoot, and speed away. They are the ones who terrorize abortion clinics. They are the ones who humiliate and bully those struggling with their sexuality and drive them to suicide.
Before you judge those from outside the United States seeking asylum, be sure to look within. Evil and hatred are pervasive. We are quick to judge others but are not as quick to recognize the hate perpetuated by those around us, in our own country, in our own states, in our own neighborhoods. We struggle to grasp this inherent hypocrisy. So while you’re worried about intensely vetting refugees for often flawed reasoning, worry instead about the state of this country.
Dear America,
We are a nation made almost entirely of immigrants and refugees, of people whose ancestors sought a better life and a future for their descendants. While there are Americans who are native to this land, a majority of us are not. Most of our ancestors fled their homelands because of religious, social, and political persecution, or for the desire to have a better life, something that the United States would provide. For many of us this land was not inherently ours, but it promised us a future and a life that we wouldn’t otherwise have, and so we came, on ships, on planes, trains, or by foot. Yet, some will stand on a pedestal and deny others the very privilege that our ancestors were given, for fear that with them comes danger. But this is not the case. They aren’t the danger, but rather, they are the ones in danger. They are running from the same terror that we too fear.
It is important, yet hard, for many to recognize that we are all human. Let us not deny protection to people because of the lands from which they were born without choice, the color of skin they were given without say, or the religion that they practice which provides them the necessary hope in times of inevitable questioning, grief, and pain. Strip us of our deceiving masks to find that what’s below is the same bones, same blood, same beating heart as everyone else. Let us be tolerant and understanding of various members of humankind who wish to create a better life for themselves, their families, and their descendants, just as many of our own families did as well.
Dear America,
In 1939, Oskar Schindler, a gentile German man, jeopardized his life and property to save the Jewish people who otherwise would most likely have died at the hands of the Nazis through various ungodly means: gas chambers, torture, starvation, cremation. During a time when the Jewish person was demonized, humiliated, and tortured, Schindler found within his heart tolerance, acceptance, and utter respect for human life. As a result, he saved more than a thousand Jewish people. But the number of people alive today because of his actions expands far beyond 1,200. Those who he saved had families and those families had families of their own. Members of my own family would not be alive today had it not been for his genuine care and compassion for humankind and his desire to save those at the feet of barbaric cruelty.
Here we are in 2015. How will we choose to act? Will we act out of genuine care and compassion for humankind? Or will we let fear and prejudice inhibit that ability? Will we save those fleeing from the hands of evil, or will we act indifferently, turn a blind eye, or even outwardly prevent them from finding peace and safety? As Martin Niemöller, an adversary of Adolf Hitler during the time of the Holocaust, wrote:
"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me."
-- Martin Niemöller
