May 29th, 2003, 06:27 PM
Okay, I got a response from my grandmother today where she replied to my "This is a really bad joke, right?" mail. Here is an excerpt of what she sent me (the rest is irrelevant to this discussion, unless you want to know about the weather in Florida):
dEAR jASON: i DO NOT KNOW IF THIS IS A HOAX OR NOT BUT i HAVE RECEIVED IT SEVERAL TIMES FROM SEVERAL DIFFERENT PEOPLE. I SURE HOPE IT IS NOT TRUE BUT YOU CAN BET I WILL KEEP MY EYE ON THE STAMPS AT THE POST OFFICE. THAT WOULD SURE BE A SLAP IN THE FACE OF THE U.S. IF IT IS TRUE.
And yes, sadly, that's exactly how it arrived in my inbox. But hey, she's old, she doesn't know about the whole caps lock thing.
That really upset me. She completely missed what I was trying to say, and realizing that I was a bit vague, I decided to send a much clearer response to the group:
I'm sorry, but I cannot remember the last time I was so upset by something I received in my mailbox, and my reply was apparently misunderstood (I was upset by this mail itself, not the stamp), based on the response I got. I don't mean to start anything here but I cannot remain silent on something I feel so strongly about.
To make myself clear, I SINCERELY hope nobody is taking this "boycott" seriously. There were MUSLIM AMERICANS who died in many of those attacks as well. I have several good MUSLIM friends, one of whom is currently serving in the U.S. Navy. The religion of Islam, while not my own preference, is at heart a relatively peaceful one (at least as much as any other). The extremists who have been attacking the US are insane fringe groups that are by no means representative of the religion as a whole. As such we should not discriminate against Muslims, many of whom just want to live peaceful lives and are as "American" as any of us on this list. Is there any religion on this earth that doesn't have members who are wacko extremists? I have yet to find one.
This notion of a boycott is ridiculous anyway when you consider that we (and anyone who would forward this email) are obviously not the demographic the stamp is aimed for. Since none of us would be inclined to purchase such a stamp in the first place, it does absolutely no good to actively boycott something you wouldn't buy anyway. The Muslim Americans who the stamp WAS made for are going to buy the stamp regardless. It celebrates their religious holiday season, just like the Christmas and Hanukkah stamps. And that, I think, is a good thing. There are a lot of Muslims in this country and instead of shunning them blindly we should accept them as our friends and neighbors. Because that's all most of them are, and all most of them WANT to be. Muslims aren't dangerous, nor are they the enemy. CRAZY Muslims are dangerous. Just like crazy Christians, Jews, Atheists, etc.
The only "slap in the face" to America I see going on here is in the creation of this email in the first place. The person who wrote it obviously doesn't have much of an idea what America stands for. In the past year and a half since the September 11th attacks, I have become disgusted with the direction our country has taken. Instead of trying to unite the world in peace, we have decided to divide it with hate and war. I think our actions have shamed those souls that died on that horrible day. Martin Luther King Jr. said "Peace is not merely a goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal". The United States is not seeking peace. That is not our goal. But it should be. (And no, I haven't turned into some kind of granola munching hippy who wants to abolish the military, but there is a time and a place and lately I think our motives have been severely misplaced).
I urge everyone to delete this stamp boycott mail and forward it to absolutely NO ONE. It only spreads the hate and paranoia that we should have learned to avoid after September 11th. Once again, I don't mean to upset anyone, but I can only bite my tongue to a point before I have to speak out. If I did upset you, by all means, speak up, and maybe we can learn a thing or two from each other.
I tried to be VERY polite and reasonable about it. I'm sure somebody is going to get huffy and pissed off about it though. I'll keep you posted if anything interesting flies into my inbox.
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