After the hate, bring on the healing: The other side of terror tragedies

Alexander Pope’s old saying that “a little learning is a dangerous thing” is still brilliant. He might have added, if it existed at the time, especially when it comes from talk radio.

- Clarence Page

Talk radio is particularly unhelpful at times like this, when emotions are so high due to the horror of what’s happening in the Middle East.

Following the Sept. 11 attacks, I had grown sadly accustomed to that ugly xenophobic rise in Islamophobia. Hate crimes against Muslims, according to a Brown University study, spiked 500% from 2000 to 2009.

Now, following the rise of a bitter and bloody war between Israel and Hamas, we see the old fears and hatreds rising again, even from haters who don’t know much about the group they purportedly are hating.

Such is the sorry circumstances that led the Will County sheriff’s office to charge a Plainfield, Illinois, landlord in the stabbing of his tenants, a 6-year-old boy, who died from his wounds, and his mother, who was seriously wounded. The reason allegedly was because they were Muslims.

Charges against landlord Joseph Czuba, 71, include first-degree murder and two counts of a hate crime, according to the sheriff’s office. The Justice Department also has opened a federal hate-crime investigation, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced.