The Color of Evil

When I first heard that a government building had been bombed in Oklahoma City in 1995, I said to my family--"Those people are crazy over there"--meaning that a terrorist group from the Middle East must have committed the crime. A similar initial thought crossed my mind when I learned of the attacks in Norway: Middle East extremists must have chosen an unlikely target for shock value.

We all know the endings of these two stories.

As if reading my mind on Friday--and perhaps the minds of many others--news commentators kept telling us that the gunman, once he was identified, was "blond-haired and blue-eyed." In others words, he wasn't what you think: dark-skinned, dark eyes, dark hair.

Perhaps we are wired in some fundamental way to blame "the other" when it comes to the unthinkable. More often than not, though, "the other" is in our own backyard.

The color of evil knows no color wheel. That we need constant reminder of this shows the depth of both our ignorance and our fear.