Moosum Mothers
"Mom, what's a Moosum?" It was Amanda this time, bundled under the blankets beside her sisters and looking up at me in near darkness. I could see a new furrow across her brow and tried to smooth it out while pondering what she could possibly be asking.
"A Moosum?" I asked, still working on that furrow. "I don't think I've ever heard of one."
"I think it's bad people," She said, twisting her head to stop my rubbing of her brow. "Like the people who crashed the planes. The man on the news said that now some Americans want the Moosums to die."
And it dawned on me. Moosum. "Muslim," I corrected. "It's a word for a religion and for the people of that religion."
"Are they bad?"
I sighed. "No, sweetheart. The Muslim people aren't bad. They believe differently than us, and sometimes they look and dress differently than us. But they aren't bad."
"Then why did they crash the planes?"
I hugged her close and reached my arms so that her sisters could also be included in the embrace. "Honey, only a few men crashed the planes. Not the entire Muslim people. Sometimes white people do things that are wrong, and sometimes black people and Asian people do too. Sometimes Christians do things that are wrong, and so do Jewish people and Muslim people do too. But it doesn't make all people of that color or religion wrong or bad."
"Then why do some Americans want them to die?"
"Because they are angry and scared," I reminded her, "Just like some people don't like your brother because he is black or your sister because she is Asian. Not because of anything they did wrong, but because of how they look. Remember how we talked about that? Sometimes people are afraid of things they don't understand. And sometimes they are so afraid that they don't know what to do except be angry."
"I hope I never get so scared that I want to kill someone," Amanda said, twisting a lock of my hair in her fingers as she thought about it.
"I hope not too," I replied.
Suddenly my daughter raised up in bed. "Do you think that's why they did it?"
"Did what?" I asked.
"Do you think that's why those men crashed the planes? Because they were so afraid that they were angry?"
"I don't know," I admitted as I settled her back beneath the blankets. "I just really don't know why they did that."
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