Garcia Lacks Feeling or Logic

To the Editors:

I am writing this letter to the pseudo-intellectual who strongly believes that we need “many, many” bombs in order to swiftly and permenantly do away with the overwhelming threat of terrorism that is unraveling the “unblemished” moral fabric of America. This letter also goes out to all of the angry people who are ready to brand people as terrorists because they are willing to consider viewing this tragedy in more than one unified, marginalized and bloodthirsty perspective.
Before I begin to address a number of disturbing issues brought up by our dear friend Ms. Garcia, I would like to make two important points. The first is that regardless of whether America decides to go to war or not, the maintenance of innocent human life is a policy that everyone must keep as their main objective. I believe that it is reasonably safe to assume that it was a blatant disregard for innocent human life that played an integral role in fueling the mindset of those who committed this tragedy on American soil.
The second point is that in my neigborhood, while it is true that you “defend your property” and “do not offer half to a thief who wants to steal everything,” that does not give you an excuse to run around and gatt everybody that you think is the thief. In fact, in my 20 years in an “urban environment” (which the media and prejudiced opinions of society consistently and annoyingly liken to breeding grounds for uncivilized social behavior, or “war zones” because of gang activity, but I affectionately call da Ghetto), where I have directly or indirectly been affected by the crime of robbery, I have noticed that banding together as a community, educating your neighbors about how to defend themselves with and without force and keeping a tighter rein on strangers or faulty people that enter your community, seems to have always been a more effective solution than the person-on-person crime caused by vigilantism.
What I found disturbing about Ms. Garcia’s article was not the fact that she was angry, but that while expressing her anger she allowed herself to make some of the most ignorant statements that I have ever encountered from a person who indirectly claims to be a real intellectual. To say that “I know innocent people will die...if they did not fight against their government and remained in such conditions, then I do not distinguish them from the terrorists” is no better to me than saying if African slaves did not fight against the slave traders and owners and chose to remain in such conditions, then they are not to be distinguished from their oppressors. There was another article in which an alumnus named Paul Madavi expressed a very personal, introspective and informative account of a person who is from one of the the aforementioned nations in Ms. Garcia’s article. Are you also willing to assert, Ms. Garcia, that others left behind in Mr. Mandavi’s country (some possibly being his family members) who may not fight against their governments out of fear of being killed and their families tortured, rather than because they are in agreement with their conditions, are terrorists also? I should hope not. It is this type of arrogant perspective of equalized freedom that may have perpetuated the “Great Satan” stereotype of Americans in the first place. Also, as you are calling for those opposed to war to “wake up to reality,” I believe that all Americans should also wake up to the reality that we do not have a clean slate when it comes to dealing with persons of a different shade or religious affiliation. If we are going to go to war, then so be it. But I hope that the decision to go to war is sincerely to combat terrorism for the justice of all men, and not to satisfy the wishes of those in this nation who use this event as a justification for their pre-established hatred of those people from the Middle Eastern region.

–Shanelle D. Jenkins
Double-Degree Fifth-year