The afternoon of April 19,1995 an editor at the Chicago Tribune called me over and told me to get on a plane and get to Oklahoma City as soon as possible. There was an explosion. Many were dead. A pseudo expert on cable television had already theorized that it had to be Arabs and since I speak Arabic I was on my way there.

In the next few hours, the anger spread across parts of Oklahoma City and Arabs or anyone who looked like an Arab felt it. The next morning I heard their stories but not long after I wrote another story saying that the police had arrested the bomber and he wasn’t an Arab, but a crazed man who would fit into any crowd walking down most streets in the U.S. It was too late to rescind the pain and stereotyping though.

I thought about this when I came across this column by Lou Ransom. I stopped and read it over. This is good writing, good thinking, good insight to who we are and what we sometimes forget or unconsciously file away as not so important. It is the kind writing that brings a newspaper alive: clear and powerful sentences and a vision that captures you because it is so darn perceptive you swallow up every word because you feel like they have grabbed you by your hand and are leading you to place you want to understand.

His theme was the lack of civility that lurks in some of us who “don’t need a passport” and “won’t get stopped at the border.” The lack of civility that so worries some of us today.

Here is a part of his column that ran on Sept. 16,

Steve

“But the most insidious aspect of McVeigh’s dastardly terrorism (until 9/11 the most terrible terrorist attack on U.S. soil), was that he wasn’t a Muslim, wasn’t an Arab, wasn’t a foreigner, wasn’t a communist, wasn’t part of the radical left, wasn’t a member of the ACLU, wasn’t Jewish, or Black, or Hispanic or Asian. There could be no racial profiling to find people like McVeigh, those who thought that America needed to be taught a lesson by “patriots” like him. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why he could drive a truck filled with homemade explosives right up to the building, get out, and walk away. He didn’t “look” suspicious, because he looked just like all the other white American men walking around in Oklahoma City.

Lou Ransom