History Repeats Itself

Submitted by John (United States), Aug 21, 2010 at 19:19

My great grandparents left Ireland and came here 110 years ago for economic reasons. I have five doctors, three are Muslim, none ever spoke to me on the topic of religion. I have several aquantences who are Muslim, none of them ever spoke on the topic of religion. In fact, I am only actually guessing that some of them are Muslim based on their country of origin and I could be wrong. I remember my grandfather telling me about his childhood in Massachusetts and how people threw rocks at him as he walked to church and called him a lot of things I do not care to repeat. He was a child and some of the people were adults. This happens with every wave of immigrants. The Irish went through this, so did the Italians and today mostly the Hispanics, particularly Mexicans are going through this. I recall my grandfather told me of the day that an Irish laoborer in Boston had raped and killed a woman, the next day the windows at a Catholic church were smashed. The church wasn't even an Irish Catholic church but an Itallian one. But it did not matter, it was Catholic and the fact that one Irish Catholic raped and murdered a woman was enough to prove in the minds of many that all Irish and all Catholics were somehow evil. There had been protests in the streets demanding that the Irish Catholics move out of their neighborhoods. It is unfortunate that history repeats itself. I blame this partially on the fact that history is either not taught or not sufficiently taught in the schools today. As the saying goes, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

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