To the editor:

As one who has studied American history, I find there were times when the people of America discriminated against Puritans, the Irish, the Catholics, the Jews, the Italians, Indians (both East and American), Chinese, Japanese, Polish, and now, of course, Muslims. Have I left any group out?

Each group brought to the American fabric a new value, a new point of view, new cuisine, new customs and new languages. Some of those customs or cuisines we embraced because it fit our tastes. Yet, we hated them because they were not like us. We mocked them, called them names. Some we didn’t like because of their color, accent or they didn’t pray like the mainstream.

Perhaps those that are ostracized didn’t want to blend in because they wanted to maintain their own style of life or their oneness. Yet we criticize them for their failure to melt into our melting pot. We simply hate them because they aren’t like us. Some we have misquoted their religious texts, saying “they want to kill us because their book commands it.”

Some we enslaved and have kept enslaving though they have every right to be equal.

Why do we have these prejudices and hatred towards them that aren’t us? Why is it that our nature compels us to condemn that which we don’t understand or don’t want to embrace? Have we lost that ability to accept or did we never have it? Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?