i agree with yods, caity, and everyone else who says it should be allowed to be built, but is in poor taste.
here's the thing: you cannot "make" someone love you, or forgive you, or "get over it" for that matter. my friends were all in an uproar over this, as they felt that it should be allowed to be built, but I gave them this example:
What if, say, it was a black church in the South that had been bombed by the KKK, and all kinds of women and children killed, with a modern-day lynching/drag-behind-the-car body killing of a few black guys to boot. the nation is in an uproar. jesse and al sharpton are mad. blacks want blood, etc. years pass, but this incident (and social volatility) remain at the surface of the consciousness of the populace in the immediate vicinity. then, randomly(?), the Daughters of the Confederacy decide they want to build a building, raise a confederate flag, and hold meetings approx 600 feet from the bombed out church site.
Legal? Sure. Problem? Most certainly!
I dont care if I went to church with the standing leader of the UDOC, and could personally vouch that she wasnt racist - its just a BAD idea, because it rubs salt in an old wound, and is basically akin to a slap in the face of the grieving. While I'm bringing flowers and crying over the memorial wall built for my dead loved ones, the confederate flag is flying right above me, and die-hard segregationists are walking past shrugging their shoulders and giving me a "get over it" look, and celebrating the very thing I may hate (for the wrong reasons, or any reason).
Its a recipe for disaster, and its not a wise move. You cannot make someone forgive you. You cannot make someone love you. And you certainly cant make them heal. In fact, if you truly cared about them and their healing process, and wanted them to see that you are not the enemy who has hurt them - you'd give them all the space they needed.
If nothing else, they could show their altruism, patriotism and support of the grieving, and simultaneously repudiate the acts that created Ground Zero, by simply making the edifice a joint effort between the survivors and the muslim population who is against the Taliban.
now THAT would be building worth building, and an effort worth making. And if i do say so myself, i think itd go a long way in easing distrust.
here's the thing: you cannot "make" someone love you, or forgive you, or "get over it" for that matter. my friends were all in an uproar over this, as they felt that it should be allowed to be built, but I gave them this example:
What if, say, it was a black church in the South that had been bombed by the KKK, and all kinds of women and children killed, with a modern-day lynching/drag-behind-the-car body killing of a few black guys to boot. the nation is in an uproar. jesse and al sharpton are mad. blacks want blood, etc. years pass, but this incident (and social volatility) remain at the surface of the consciousness of the populace in the immediate vicinity. then, randomly(?), the Daughters of the Confederacy decide they want to build a building, raise a confederate flag, and hold meetings approx 600 feet from the bombed out church site.
Legal? Sure. Problem? Most certainly!
I dont care if I went to church with the standing leader of the UDOC, and could personally vouch that she wasnt racist - its just a BAD idea, because it rubs salt in an old wound, and is basically akin to a slap in the face of the grieving. While I'm bringing flowers and crying over the memorial wall built for my dead loved ones, the confederate flag is flying right above me, and die-hard segregationists are walking past shrugging their shoulders and giving me a "get over it" look, and celebrating the very thing I may hate (for the wrong reasons, or any reason).
Its a recipe for disaster, and its not a wise move. You cannot make someone forgive you. You cannot make someone love you. And you certainly cant make them heal. In fact, if you truly cared about them and their healing process, and wanted them to see that you are not the enemy who has hurt them - you'd give them all the space they needed.
If nothing else, they could show their altruism, patriotism and support of the grieving, and simultaneously repudiate the acts that created Ground Zero, by simply making the edifice a joint effort between the survivors and the muslim population who is against the Taliban.
now THAT would be building worth building, and an effort worth making. And if i do say so myself, i think itd go a long way in easing distrust.
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something witty goes here......
something witty goes here......