Let's not forget our past in mosque debate

In reading about the impassioned debate over the proposed building of an Islamic cultural center and mosque near ground zero in New York City, I can't help but wonder if anyone considers the hundreds of sacred places desecrated by Anglo-Europeans across the continent of North America in the past 500 years.

From the defacing of Mount Rushmore to clear cutting the forests on Mount Shasta, from the tourist circus of Niagara Falls and the insensitive display of ancestors' bones at Dixon Mounds, white people have been thoughtlessly desecrating holy sites for centuries.

The proposed Islamic building would be near, not on, ground zero. As Oglala Lakota Sioux Simon Moya-Smith writes, "If only we were lucky enough to have seen Christians build their institutions and monuments near our holy sites, and not on them."

Whether you consider ground zero to be a memorial, a sacrificial altar, or a place of mourning, it is important to bear in mind that white people have paid little to no respect for places of spiritual importance to indigenous peoples of North America.

Valerie Blaine

St. Charles