There was an article in today's weekend edition of The Financial Times on Muslim-/Arab-Americans, most particularly young people, and how they are being treated so badly by other Americans--name calling, discrimination, etc, etc. because of 9/11 and its aftermath. They are being discriminated against--taunted, subjected to police searches, shunned--even if they and their parents were born here. It reminded me of having a German name in the 1950s and being called a Nazi. Not often, but I have never forgotten it. So soon after World War II, there was a lot of unspoken animosity to anyone with a German name, no matter who they were. It was enough to leave a scar that has never really healed for me (Just for the record: my father's family came to America in the 1840s; my mother's came in 1630). I don't consider myself to be oversensitive, but I remember those slights. They still hurt. They were from kids, my classmates, and of course were the result of ignorance and thoughtlessness rather than true bigotry (as far as i know). But that doesn't matter. The damage was done. Perhaps that is why I have always felt like an outsider, even though my pedigree is basically lily-white. Interestingly, my parents gave me a wonderful gift without knowing it: they never referred to people by their race or ethnicity. Never. So people to me were always people-individuals, themselves--not Jews, Italians, Irish, Blacks, or whatever. I once thought the two girls in my first grade class had to be related because they had the same first name, Evelyn. One was Italian; the other was Black. Silly me. But color to me was no more of a difference than a big nose or different eye color. I never thought of the Evelyns as different from each other or from me in any way that formed a barrier. The Trayvon Martin verdict (unbelievable on many fronts--as a lawyer, I am flabbergasted, though not surprised) merely confirms something I have felt for a long time: Americans are afraid--of each other. We are obsessed with security, hoard guns, suspect anyone with a foreign name, want to close all our borders. And we look around our communities for anyone who is different in any way (especially if they are black or have dark skin) and single them out for suspicion. Why? Because we are afraid. FDR once said "The only thing to fear is fear itself." His context was different, but the substance is the same: if we succumb to fear, we are lost. And if we cannot conquer our fear of each other--of our neighbors, of our fellow citizens, of our fellow human beings--maybe we are lost indeed.