Perpetuating the violence

Ken Anderson, Las Vegas

Friday, Sept. 20, 2013 | 2:02 a.m.

Terrorism: the use of a violent act to frighten a specific demographic of people as a way of trying to achieve a goal.

A half-century ago, in Birmingham, Ala., “terrorists” set off a bomb in a church and four innocent little girls were killed. If this had happened in the past several years, would the media call those whose goal it was to terrorize blacks “terrorists”? I don’t think so.

A year ago, terrorists bombed an embassy in Benghazi and four innocent people were killed. Was there a difference?

In one case, we had four innocent children on American soil; a group of racists ended their young lives. In the other case we had four innocent adults who knew they were in harm’s way just by being in a place where they were openly disliked. Why does it surprise anyone that people in the Middle East are willing to attack us on their soil when all they hear is that we have missiles that can bomb them?

In the first case, civil rights legislation was sped up, recognizing that there was just too much inequality out there. In the second case, it seems that there was more blaming of the White House and the State Department than blaming the terrorists who committed the actual crime.

What does all of this tell us? Maybe Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was just a little bit correct when he said that America was not exceptional. Maybe we have problems to solve internally, and then we can claim how exceptional we really are. But, as long as there is hate, as long as there is a disunity among the American people, we are only perpetuating our problems, not getting any closer to solutions.