300 schoolgirls. 300 schoolgirls. 300 schoolgirls…stolen from their classrooms, kidnapped by men. 300 schoolgirls kidnapped by men who have publicly announced their intention to sell them as slaves. To sell them into slavery. To sell them to men who would rape them and terrorize them into drudgery. No more school.
This morning I kissed my daughters as they went off to school. I didn’t remember the 300 schoolgirls waiting to be sold. I didn’t remember them until I read a headline on a left-wing blog and I think I know why. And it’s the ugliest of reasons. It’s a reason I only impute to others in the most severe situations. It’s the reason that people were stolen from Africa and sold into slavery for centuries. It’s the reason that stands behind slavery, murder, torture, humiliation, lynching. It’s the reason that 6 million members of my own community were exterminated. Racism.
There are only 4our girls in my eldest daughter’s class. She attends a private Jewish elementary school, so the classes are small. And I can’t help thinking that if armed zealots were to somehow seize them and announce their intention to sell them into serial rape and drudgery that people around the country, and in other arts of the world, would be keeping hourly watch for news about negotiations, the media would be debating rescue options, and we would tally the days of their captivity. Everyone would know the number. We would all feel our daily consciousness was is some sense also held hostage. For four schoolgirls. Four American schoolgirls. Four Jewish schoolgirls. Four white schoolgirls. The same would be true if it were four Israeli schoolgirls. The same would be true if it were four Palestinian schoolgirls. The same would be true if it were four British or French or Russian or South American schoolgirls kidnapped by Islamist zealots for the auction block.
But I don’t know how many days it has been since these three hundred schoolgirls have slept in their homes. Do you?
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