Tuesday, August 21, 2012

A few nights ago there was an attempt to lynch a young Palestinian in Jerusalem. The teens who beat this boy, Jamil Julani, who ended up in the hospital in intensive care, is a hate crime.
 
They beat him and tried to kill him because he is Palestinian. Just for that reason.
 
 
 
Unfortunately, this story is not unique. Unfortunately, this story is a (near) re-run.

Emmett Till was murdered in 1955 in Mississippi, when he was 14, for supposedly flirting with a white woman.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jamal Julani, who is 17, was brutally beaten in Jerusalem, in a lynch attempt for supposedly flirting with a Jewish woman.
 
 
Our children have grown up, learning from us, that just as the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, hatred of the other is a given.
 
The teens (including girls who were involved) were not born hating anyone. They were not born with the belief that it is okay to violently harm someone because of his nationality/ ethnicity/religion/skin color. They were taught this along the way.
 
We taught them this.
 
This is a terrible education to be ashamed of, and to fight against
 What good is it if children can read, write and do basic math, but grow up in hatred and with the incentive to harm others, just because they are different from them?
Our children have grown up in a region where Occupation is okay, oppression is okay, trampling of human rights is okay, violence is okay.
 
.
It is not okay.

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