Hate and Fear

We usually call people like him cowards. It's true. It takes no courage to shoot little children, a receptionist and unarmed letter carrier. But Buford is a particular coward.

Before he went to the Jewish Community Center, he came to the University of Judaism where I was teaching that morning. At the time we had no guards. Still, Buford confessed to police that having spotted some of our maintenance staff, he went to look for a yet softer target.

Buford hated Jews. People ask, "Why is it always the Jews?" This implies we must be causing it. Well, who else has been here for over 3,000 years? He couldn't really go after Babylonians or Aryans. There was no continuous Inuit hating tradition in Europe. In the Middle Ages, Europeans lacked Mexicans to blame for all their woes and Africans were pretty scarce outside of Africa.

Irrational and violent hatred of the different, the stranger amongst us is all too human. It may be instinctive to hate and fear the "other," but the identity of the "other" is arbitrary. We are taught whom to hate. Yes, Jews have been the continuous tradition but it can be gay people or Hispanics, it can be Protestants in Catholic countries or visa versa. It may be Sunni against Shiah. It may even be a Filipino letter carrier because he wore a uniform and represented the government.

We could look for great lessons here on paying for guards and restricting guns--both of which would be fine by me. But neither of which would protect us from irrational and cowardly hatred. The only real lesson would be if we could learn to communicate civilly with each other. Killing is too easy and civility just too hard for the frightened.