On a flight from Germany to Jordan in 2005, a presumably Middle Eastern woman sat down next to me before take off. She was attractive yet unassuming in her appearance; but there was something in her body language that made me nervous. I sat there thinking about my state of mind, trying to decide if my observations were sound or the product of prejudgment. "You of all people?" I thought to myself. Nervousness was then replaced with anger: not only at myself, but the ideological assumptions that had been drilled into my thinking since birth - and since 9/11 in a focused, particular way. No one escapes these things. As a professor of mine said during my undergrad years, "If you're born and raised in a racist society, you're a racist."
Wade Michael Page is an exceptional case. Whether this could have been prevented is speculative and sadly after the fact. Despite any mental illness (which can also account for non-racist violence such as the recent theater shootings in Colorado), he clearly acted on judgments that are not only preexisting in the culture but encouraged at the right end of the political spectrum: for example, Michele Bachmann's recent accusations concerning an aide to Hillary Clinton and Muslim Brotherhood "penetration" of the government.
The best we can do in the wake of the violence in Wisconsin is look at ourselves, remain self-vigilant, and resist - at the personal and political level - the kind of thinking that feeds and sustains our culture's worst inclinations.
To continue writing here would be to simply repeat what I cover in the new book; I mention it here not as a plug, but as a source of information that is tragically timely.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/sikhism
