Earlier this week I received this joke:

I was sitting at the traffic light on the road yesterday next to a car load of Muslims when a big semi-trailer drove right over the top of their car!

 ”Wow!” I thought, “That could’ve been me”… so I went and got a truck driving license.

Pretty funny, right? Not so much, actually. I was pretty offended. Suppose the joke substituted the word Muslims with Christians. Or Jews. Or Blacks. Or Mormons. The fact that 9/11 happened nearly 10 years ago and jokes like this are still being circulated by otherwise caring, educated and wise people appall me. By people I consider friends. It’s ignorance plain and simple.

 To those who say, “But Muslims flew the planes into the World Trade Center,” I say, “No. No they did not.”  Terrorists committed this act. They may have claimed they were Muslims, but from everything I can tell, they were no more true Muslims than Timothy McVeigh was a Christian.

You remember Timothy McVeigh, don’t you? The white, American male who was responsible for the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building. The act that killed a great many Americans. He, too, was a terrorist. An American terrorist who had been raised believe in God. (For the sake of simplicity, I won’t get into the fact that God can be defined so many different ways by so many different religions.)

 For this post, I was going to add a list of famous American Muslims. Maybe link a few sites so people could educate themselves. Then I realized: If nearly 10 years later people are still passing jokes around thinking a car full of Muslims being killed is funny, my few links will not change a thing.

 Though here’s a challenge. Do you know a Muslim? I would imagine you do. Talk with your Muslim friends or acquaintances. Learn more about their beliefs. You may be surprised at how their beliefs parallel yours.

NOTE:   I had this entry ready to post the evening before  Anders Behring Breivik  killed 76 people.  Quite timely.