People's minds absorb messages and too readily devalue others. Hitler's regime, we must remember, was one of the most popular governments in German history. Think of our history as people of faith. Religious leaders of the past have legitimated anti-Semitism by placing blame on Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus, for the Bubonic Plague and for rapacious capitalism. Anti-Catholicism, too, has long roots in Protestantism.
Subtleties camouflage negative judgments.
We are the problem, and we are the solution. The 1960s murders of civil-rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. The shooting deaths of union and community organizers Bill Sampson, Jim Waller, Sandi Smith, Cesar Cauce and Mike Nathan in broad daylight by Klansmen in Greensboro, N.C., in 1979. The chasing and beating to death of Michael Griffith, an African American in 1982 in Howard Beach, N.Y., by white teen boys on their way to a birthday party. After beating Mr. Griffith the boys assaulted his stepfather, Cedric Sandiford, battering him until they thought he, too, was dead.