Now, my mother is not an ignorant or intolerant individual. She's an educated, open-minded professional. But I could not help being enraged at her seeming narrow-mindedness. How could she honestly think that just because individuals are of a certain ethnic background they might be more likely to commit acts of terrorism and violence? My mom, after all, witnessed the wounds and ruins of racial and ethnic bigotry. In our conversation, her fears seemed nothing more than xenophobic hysteria. We tried to talk it through, but neither of us could understand the other.
My opinion of her statements remained the same, and I was admittedly disappointed that my mom could really think in that fashion. That all changed on my flight home for Thanksgiving. Sitting in an aisle seat with a sleeping woman at the window, I was reveling in the prospect of having an empty middle seat to accommodate my backpack when a man walked toward row nine with a briefcase and coat. He was about thirty, with glasses, slight of build and appeared to be of Arab descent. For some reason, a voice in my head started saying, 'Don't let him sit here. Just let him sit anywhere but next to me.' Of course, he did, and over the next hour, I contemplated various scenarios of my taking him down if he tried to do anything. When he asked me to move so he could stand, I did so convinced he was about to do something reprehensible and it would all be my fault because I let him out of the row.
As it turned out, he just needed to use the restroom. How the hell could I have been so stupid as to seriously think that just because he had a little more pigment in his skin, or that he wore his clothes and facial hair in a certain manner, he was more of threat to my safety than the white woman muttering to herself a few rows back? I have never been bigoted; I have always tried to be sensitive and inclusive and to reject stereotypes. Had I really descended to such a level of ignorance and unfounded prejudice?
Arriving at home later that night, I confided in my mom my experience on the plane and she laughed at me, thinking she had caught me at the zenith of intellectual hypocrisy. But for me, my more than embarrassing flight revealed just how deeply the events of the past few months have permeated our national and individual consciousness.
But wait, I'm a student at Amherst, where we aren't supposed to think in stereotypes, where we are supposed to be politically correct and sensitive and tolerant and free of such ignorance. Either I am an exception to this rule, and thus should be expelled from this ivory tower of enlightenment, or xenophobia has infiltrated even intellectual ranks to a certain extent.
In recent newspapers and magazines, our generation has been given the appellation "the 9/11 generation." That is quite a shift from "Generation Y" conferred upon us a few years ago, but still just as unrepresentative of the real substance of our generation. As a generation, as arbitrary a group as that is, we have more to accomplish. For years, our forebearers said we have not known tragedy or strife. We have had no Great Depression or World War. Now, in the face of world challenges, we will not be identified by the violence and tragic consequence of terrorism. No matter how much our lives have been impacted by the events of September and the aftermath, they do not define us. These tragedies are not our legacy. They are a call to action to end the bigotry and prejudice that pervades today's society. In an age of fever-pitched instant gratification, we are already at risk of losing sight of the humanity that we all share.
But we are all new victims of a loss of innocence, and sometimes without that innocence we are wary and untrusting. That became clear when my common sense was overridden by baseless ignorance and fear. Ashamed, I struck up a conversation with my neighbor who I believed to be plotting my demise five minutes earlier. He was from Hartford, Conn. where he worked as a private consultant. He knew of my high school and my hometown.
Sometimes I am amazed at my own stupidity. It's times like that when I'm amazed at how connected we all really are. I have to try not to lose sight of that. I just have to try.