Who we blame often reveals something about our biases.
There is more information about the material that was in the bombs and that one of the bombs was contained in a pressure cooker. Early reports proved inaccurate about a number of things: The fire at the JFK Library was not connected to the bombings. There were no undetonated bombs. A student from Saudi Arabia is not held as a suspect.
Our human tendency is to find the person or persons responsible and bring them to justice. Our suspicions reveal our biases. The evening of the bombing, while the Saudi Arabian student was in a hospital being treated for his injuries, his apartment was searched. Many of our nation’s biases which are based on 9/11, Al-Qaida, and hostile relations with Middle Eastern nations assumed that the terrorist has been discovered.
White-supremist, anti-government groups are another group that is being blamed for the bombing. Until there is more information, clues, evidence and arrests each of us have our suspicions that are motivated by our biases. They may be correct and they may be wrong.
When things go wrong in your work place, school, community or neighborhood, who do you blame? Do you blame young who have lost respect, the elderly who have lost their prime, the unemployed because they lost their job, or somebody else? The blame-game can help raise awareness of your biases and challenge you to ask yourself where those biases originated.
Leviticus 19:15
“‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.”