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She says it better than I can.

Important Message
------------------

You will notice that this is the only section of this newsletter. This is
because there is nothing else that I can tell you about The Equality
Project that is anywhere near as important as the message I wanted to send
to you all today.

Yesterday, September 11, 2001 the United States of America was attacked by
terrorists. The death toll may reach the thousands. The Equality Project
joins with the world in grieving those who have been lost and in sympathy
for their families. I pray that none of you have lost loved ones, but I
know that we are all saddened by the fact that anyone did at all.

I am writing this edition of our newsletter today, however, as an appeal to
you. As many of you may have heard, in our grief and horror over these
recent events, some misguided people have been sending hate mail and making
threatening phone calls to Muslim groups. Several major Muslim websites
have had to be shut down and many Muslim community centers have been closed
as a result.

For another related story, how an online chat room became a "virtual
battleground", please read the following news story available on Yahoo!:
http://us.news2.yimg.com/f/42/31/7m/dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010912/wr/att
ack_internet_arabs_dc_1.html

Though I am sure that none of The Equality Project members would engage in
such hateful acts as you all joined this project because of your beliefs, I
implore all of you to let your voice be heard by all of those around you.
We do not yet know for certain who is responsible for these attacks, yet we
do know for sure that it was the fault of individuals, not an entire group
of people and certainly not an entire faith.

If ever there was a time when we were sure of just how important whatever
small changes the work that we do with The Equality Project are, it has to
be now. We must stand beside our Arab sisters and brothers in our
collective grief. People of all faiths and all backgrounds have been lost.
Let us not diminish their memory or their families' grief. We must resist
the temptation to blame entire groups of people for the actions of a few.
Now is a time for the world to come together as one to make a stand against
terrorism anywhere in the world against any nation's people. Now is a time
to move beyond our political and social differences and join together in
honor of furthering the cause of co-operation among nations and a universal
respect for all human life.

This is not an American tragedy and it is not a tragedy because it happened
to the US. This is a human tragedy of enormous proportion. As an American
living in Canada, my personal experience has been that the world is indeed
grieving over this tragedy regardless of nationality or ethnicity or
religious affiliation. Make no mistake, this was not only an attack on the
US people, but an attack on the world as a whole by individuals who
obviously hoped to plunge the world further into the depths of war and
hatred. We must stand together and refuse to allow that to happen.

What You Can Do:

* Speak up. Let your voice be heard. Use your voice to bring comfort and
calm. If you hear someone making racist comments, please speak up and
remind them that these were the actions of a few individuals, not all
Arabs, not all Muslims. Remind them that these actions, if in fact
eventually proven to be the result of Arab terrorists, remain the
responsibility of those individuals. Terrorists come from all groups of
people, from all walks of life, from all nationalities. Let us not make
this tragedy worse by terrorizing our fellow human beings as these
terrorists have done. We must show more compassion than they have shown
their victims.

* If you are spiritual, please pray to your deity/deities for their
guidance and comfort in this time of need.

* If you feel comfortable doing so, please light a candle in honor of those
who have been lost and those who are grieving their lost loved ones.
Please also light a candle in honor of healing our wounded world.

* If you are able, please consider donating blood. Blood can come from all
over and is needed from all who can give, not just those in New York and
DC. From what I heard last night, they are particularly in need of O type
blood, but they need all types of blood.

* If you are able, please also consider donating money to organizations
like The Red Cross who are providing aid and comfort to the survivors as
well as assisting in the enormous recovery and clean-up effort.

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Posted by Kim @ 09:52 PM PST