America, we’re missing the point

An important point those opposed to the Park51 project community center miss is that the people who want to put up this building are part of America. They are not “them,” they are us. Terrorism has no religious or racial affiliation. Hating people who are not like ourselves has always been the easy way out, and it’s always been un-American.

That the people who brought down the World Trade Center towers were Muslim is utterly irrelevant. Muslims are not the enemy, and thinking so only shifts the focus away from the terrorists and allows them to grow stronger.

The best way to honor the victims of the World Trade Center attack is to let the Park51 project put up their building, then to be proud of it.

Editor’s note: Miles Bannan, a former news editor of The Eagle, graduated from Chadron State College last spring.