Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.

- Indira Gandhi

We have spent so much time these past few years in learning how to hate. Wanting to strike back at someone who hits you is a natural response. Kids do it, but they are advised to turn the other cheek. Lashing back only inflames the situation; if the pain is too great to ignore, a measured response dealing a blow to the heart of the true offender can be warrented - after which the adult will step back to await the response. Kennedy learned this during the Cuban Missile crisis. As a people we forget the lessons; we need to re-learn.

We have spent so much time these past few years teaching ourselves to hate. This is not unfamiliar territory to us, we have hated many over the centuries. Hitler hated the Jews who built Europe. Americans hated the Blacks who built this country. We tell ourselves we are above these thoughts any more, but in the dark place we hide, we are not above the hate. There is an attack in New York; the perpetrators speak in a foreign tongue - so we resurrect the hate and focus it on anyone having brown skin.

We have spent so much time these past few years convincing ourselves that this time hate is just. When the World Trade center plummeted and the names were released, there were many there I knew; people I had spoken with on the phone, a few I had met in person. I felt the hatred bubble in me. Who to hit? Who is there to hurt? Over the past years we have mired ourselves destroying the culture of a people we don't know, we can't understand, people who have no interest in world events except for the fact they are being marched on by outsiders who tell them their politics are wrong.

We have spent so much time - forgetting - that acts like this are the brainchild of a relative few; that people act out in hate because they are conditioned to do so. Seeking out the wormy core is just. Hating a race for the sake of hating is not. The adult will step back to await the response.