Well, two circumstances lead me to change the title.

First, although Calvin was, indeed, my closest high school friend, I haven't seen him in over thirty years. I phoned him twice, but the attempt at dialogue was forced and uncomfortable. People and things change.

Secondly, I began using “To friendship” as my signature.

Someone once tried to “call me on” using that signature. He said that it wasn't at all about friendship and that I just write it “by rote”.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Although hating has been around forever, the “terrorist attacks” of September 11, 2001 met their goal. They inspired Americans to, once again, hate an entire group of people. This is something that Americans have been very proficient at since Europeans found this land and began hating the “savages” who inhabited it and were the rightful owners of it. Hating entire groups, religions, ethnicities, races, etc. is not uniquely American. However, we're excellent at it.

In spite of the fact that the Europeans forced Africans to come to this land and did so in a most inhumane manner, they hated the Africans. They used Africans as slaves.

Subsequently, after the passage of the fourteenth amendment to The Constitution, they hated the African Americans who were legally freed from slavery but forbidden to vote until 1868, almost 100 years after the founding of this “democracy”.

Even after Blacks legally got the right to vote, states still found ways around allowing them to vote. There were poll taxes instituted specifically to make voting prohibitive to Blacks. There were exams that Blacks were forced to take before they could vote, exams from which White people were exempt.

Just yesterday, while sitting in a restaurant, I heard a man talking about how there were too many “niggers” moving into his neighborhood. In 2006, that ignorance still exists.

So, it was real easy for The Regime to exploit September 11, 2001 for the purpose of injecting Americans with hatred toward yet another entire group of people.

Just as hating Blacks is not only arrogant, but senseless, since they were forced here in the first place, hating Muslims and Iraqis in particular is arrogant and senseless in light of the truth about September 11, 2001.