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I saw a sticker on a road barricade in Capital Hill today that said “Remember 9/11”. This may sound messed up, but I didn't like what I saw.

Perhaps I'm simply convinced that this nation has a streak of xenophobia to it, and this sticker was just a way to keep the anti-Islamic sentiment alive. Before anyone's going to tell me that I'm reading too much into it, do you remember ever hearing phrases such as “Remember the Alamo!” and “Remember Pearl Harbor!”? These phrases served to stoke anti-Mexican and anti-Japanese feelings even decades after the events that we were supposed to remember.

If the point of the phrase “Remember 9/11” was intended to incite hatred towards Muslims and Arabs… well done. We've bread a culture that's placed the Muslim and Arab communities as acceptable targets of harassment that we wouldn't tolerate towards other groups.^{1 2 3 4}

We're never going to forget 9/11, and I'm not saying that we should. However, if we're going to take that memorial and twist it into an instrument of hate, we'd be better off as human beings if we did.

1. http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/06/my-take-christian-group-is-latest-ground-zero-hypocrite/
2. http://www.scribd.com/doc/39608003/DOJ-s-Amicus-Brief-Support-In-Favor-Of-Mosque-In-Murfreesboro-Tenn
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NutFkykjmbM
4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5297822.stm

I know every word in Ricky Martin's “Livin' La Vida Loca” by heart. I blame my sister.