THE EDITOR, Sir:
In most cases, how people see and understand things is heavily influenced by their own personal situation. Where do you stand on things, and how do you see yourself?
For example, being a white man, I can say that I will probably never understand, try sincerely as I might, what it's like to be a black man in a white society, nor do I concede most black men will ever understand what it's like to be a white man in a predominantly black one.
The same is probably true for my religion, and the lesson could equally well apply to my being a Protestant or a Catholic, a Christian or a Moslem, or whatever else. Still, to improve the world around us, don't we have to try to find valuable lessons among the myriad differences between us? Don't we have to look beyond ourselves and this 'mirror of our vanities?'
To understand the roots of terrorism, an even more poignant example, isn't it necessary to know what it's like to feel desperation?
Unfortunately for the misguided terrorist, desperation is just not something a large majority of people in the so-called, free, democratic, and developed world, especially in the predominantly white, Christian U.S., seems to have all that much experience with recently.
SMALL MINORITY
On the other hand, there are some, a small minority it would seem, who actually have felt and appreciated it. They are no longer so arrogant, inept, lazy, selfish and cruel that they don't care anymore what happens to their fellowmen.
In fact, there are a good number of us, both here and around the world, who have begun to develop a social conscience. Some even care about the poor souls desperate and foolish enough to waste their own lives trying to destroy someone else's.
In our mirror, there is no enemy.
I am, etc.,
ED MCCOY
mmhobo48@juno.com
Bokeelia, Florida
Via Go-Jamaica
