Jeff Davis | Vent Section Manager

She was trembling so hard. I don't know her well; only that she was a poet like I. It was the Thursday after the terrorist attacks and she was reading aloud a poem about her religious experience with the event.

She's Islamic by choice. She has blond hair, blue eyes, and a light complexion. She does not use the purdah or look down when a man appears. She's just like any one else I know. But she is intensely Islam, the faith running through her veins, bringing her the same hope Christianity brings the majority of the nation. And I know it will get her through this.

Still she was trembling like cars were running over her as she sat in her chair. "I lost two, an aunt and an uncle...how many did you lose?" she asked in her poem. With the towers that fell that Tuesday morning, two of her family died, and part of her died as well. The same part that died in every sentient being on this earth.

"My friends and I are all so scared...for our lives," she stammered as she grasped my hand and choked back a storm of tears. They thought because she was Islamic that she was to blame.

Two Arab humans were stabbed to death in Terre Haute, Indiana. A man who appeared to be Arab was shoved off the road as he was driving in Virginia. Two young males showered a woman who appeared to be Arab with obscenities as she walked to class here at Radford University. Virginia Tech closed on that Tuesday for the sake of their tremendous Middle Eastern population. I've been hearing about students opening up their apartments and dorm rooms as a safe haven for their Middle Eastern friends. Or people who have a deeper shade of skin and black hair.

They have much to fear. They have to fear ignorance and misdirected anger. They have to fear people who are as afraid as they are. They fear people who have bought into a homogenized image of a people based solely on the terrors of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, the late Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, Operation Desert Storm, the Oil Embargo of 1974, reactions to the 1989 Salman Rushdie novel The Satanic Verses and the movie True Lies. In a time that calls for unity and solidarity, an entire culture must take precautions they shouldn't have to.

The attacks made on our country were clearly precipitated by a smart and severely wealthy group of fanatics, likely initiating a jihad against America out of a perversion of their religion. They were planned, strategic and deadly accurate. And they were not caused by the entire nation of Islam or Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has been suffering civil war for decades and the people of the country themselves hardly have the monetary supplies to cause this tragedy. Common sense shows that this attack was financed by corrupt politicians and private moneys in the interest of "getting back" at America for all it has done.

America is not innocent by any means. Despite what CNNBCSPAN tells you, our country has committed numerous human rights violations. We kill 300,000 Iraqis every year with our daily bombing runs that knock out power, schools, hospitals, and homes. Most of the dead are children under the age of 5. The weapons we supply to Israel continue to slaughter Palestinians. The paramilitaries American multi-national corporations in Colombia fund kill almost 2,000 people daily. Our privatization of companies in East Timor has alienated an entire people. Don't believe me? Click here.

Despite all we have destroyed, we do not deserve what happened to us that day. No one deserves any such actions. Especially not innocent citizens who have little idea what their government is doing behind its bureaucratic curtains.

As such, the people of Islam who are citizens of this country are not "in on" the horrendous events that occurred here recently. To think otherwise is to see progress march backwards. To think otherwise is to condone racism, and to promote events in history such as Japanese internment camps in the western part of America.

The hate and violence that is directed at the Middle Eastern citizens of this nation shows that the terrorists might be well on their way to winning a round. Dysfunction and personal, individual destructions were the goal of these international criminals. Don't hand that goal to them like a Christmas gift tied with a bow of complete stupidity.

So when you hang that American flag from your porch or tie it to your car antennae, do not do so as a warning for people who don't fit your ideals to stay away. Show its three hues as a sign of solidarity, a sign that you are human enough to turn your anger and sadness into compassion.

And remember my trembling friend. She does not believe what she does because she thinks it's right. She believes what she does because it gets her out of bed in the morning and helps others to find something to believe in. Not necessarily exactly what she believes, but something.

We should all be so grateful.