He's an Arab

So I was watching this clip yesterday from a McCain rally where his supporters got to ask him different questions and voice their apprehensions about certain things.  So, one man said that he was scared of an Obama presidency and McCain said that he was a "decent man" and he didn't need to be scared of an Obama presidency.  Then an elderly lady said that she was also scared of an Obama presidency, she said "I've read about him.  He's an Arab."

Before I go any further, I would like to point out that I am not an Arab--I know the distinction between Persian and Arab is hard for some people to consider "real"--but it is real--and, for those who do see the distinction, maybe they just see one as the lesser of two evils...Who knows, but the point is, I did not take offense at the comment because it hit home.  I took offense at the comment because it's disgusting.

I'm not going to sit here and rant about a 75-year old woman who's scared of an entire ethnic group who's name probably evokes images in her mind of airplanes crashing into buildings...but, it just made me really sad...

It just shows how much hatred is really out there...How much work we have left to do. Prejudice is such a barrier to the unity our nation and world so desperately needs in these trying times.  Sometimes I wonder how our race--the human race--is still so dumb.  I mean, we now have science to corroborate that there is indeed only one human race, so why do we still cling so idiotically to these manmade categories which are so divisive and perilous to the well-being of us all?

Should you fear someone who crashes airplanes into buildings and seeks to destroy your country? Of course.  Should you fear or hate everyone who has a grandparent who inhabits the same continent as that person?  Should you hate the grandparent who inhabits the continent?  I mean, seriously.  How hard is it to understand that one person, one group of people, does not, do not, represent an entire region of the world?  And that, in reality, we are all one human family?  If the citizens of the world are as the body of humanity, it's so clear that attacking one part of the body is detrimental to and painful for the ENTIRE body.  

It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens. 

                                                                                                                            -Baha'u'llah