56 Sarah Street: If You Judge Everyone, You'll Love No One

Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances. ~Wayne W. Dyer

The tragic events that occured on September 11, 2001 changed the United States and the world drastically. Not only did Americans come together and develop a tremendous amount of patriotism, but many also formed an overwhelming distrust and, for some, hatred toward Muslims.
Ten years later, I was sitting next to my grandfather watching TV specials about the anniversary of 9/11. I was shocked when he started talking about Muslims ruining our country and how we shouldn't allow them to continue coming into the U.S.
So many thoughts began to flood my mind... "Does he even realize that Muslims are believers in Islam; that they're not a nationality?" "Are people really still thinking this way 10 years later?" "Why doesn't he realize that he's being prejudice and steretyping?"
On September 11, a group of Muslims did attack the U.S. A group of Muslims; not every Muslim on the face of the planet. However, if we throw every Muslim under the heading "Terrorists," we must do the same with every person or group of people who have ever done something terrible.
Prior to the Civil War, many American plantation owners were also the owners of African American slaves. Does this mean that all caucasions are racist toward African Americans?
Adolf Hitler, an Austrian-born German, ordered the deaths of an estimated 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. Does this mean all Austrian-born Germans are also murderers of Jews?
Thirty two people were murdered on April 16, 2007 by Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Cho was a 23-year-old South Korean native. Does this mean that all South Korean's plan to massacre college students?
On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, a U.S. Army veteran, detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. The bomb killed 167 people and injured more than 650 others. That must mean that all U.S. Army veterans are also murderers, right?
It doesn't feel good when the finger is pointed back at you, does it? Especially when you're an innocent citizen, associated with something tragic simply because you are the same religion as a terrorist or same ethnicity as a mass murder.
There is so much hatred in this world, and if we sit down and start hating other groups of people because of the events committed by a single person associated with them, who will we love? Our mothers? But mothers in this world have killed their children. Our children? Every person who has ever done something awful was someone's child.
When are we going to open our eyes and see that anger and hatred amounts to nothing more than anger and hatred? We need to love each other for who they are, instead of hating them for who someone else was. We need to stop assuming that all Muslims are terrorists; that all caucasians are racists; that all Germans are anti-Semitics.
We need to unite as one and realize that we are all human beings, therefore making us one, yet we are all individuals, thus setting us a part.