Posts Tagged ‘tolerance’

At the suggestion of my best friend, Carol, we watched a wonderful documentary this weekend called “Paper Clips.” We got it through Netflix. It’s the story of how a history project on the Holocaust transformed a rural Tennessee middle school and its surrounding community.  The students and teachers at Whitwell Middle School remind us of what can happen when hate speech is tolerated and how evil spreads when times are challenging and we demonize people because they look different, have different religious beliefs, or come from other cultural traditions.  The closer we get to the fall elections it appears that hate speech rules. I suggest we take a breath, remember we have much more in common than our differences, and look behind the curtains to see OZ-like people who are fanning the flames of division and funding the sources of hate speech. And if you’re looking for something uplifting to watch try “Paper Clips!”

The furor over the proposed building of Muslim cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero has reached a fever pitch, now that the President had weighed in, at least it has in the media.   Freedom and democracy is messy and more importantly, our freedom does not mean bupkis if we don’t stand by our principles when it is hard.  There are many millions of people who will be against whatever this President says or does.  I’m familiar with that feeling because I have felt it when someone I didn’t vote for got elected to run this country.  However this principle is bigger than politics.  And if we allow the haters to win on this one, we have truly handed our enemies a gift wrapped victory and more propaganda to use against us.  And if this organization is somehow tainted by extremism, which I seriously doubt, what about the idea of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer?