Tom Richie, Anderson, South Carolina:

Thanks so much for this. How we need the voice of reason, honesty, compassion, and responsibility.

Michael Fultz, Clarkston, Michigan:

Hatred and distrust of "other" people has been a driving force behind pretty much all of the conflicts and wars in the world since the beginning of time. The fact that the world is getting smaller via communication and transportation technologies just makes things worse; it's harder to avoid people we don't like. However, I think a lot of European countries will end up closing their borders to "outsiders" in an attempt to preserve their cultures and welfare systems. Although all humans mistrust and dislike "other" people, only the bad decisions made by the men that you mentioned led to their deaths at the hands of the police. Police officers are ordinary human beings; they aren't omniscient. Of course, the fact that police officers are ordinary human beings means that they need oversight, but it also means we need to give them the benefit of the doubt, because we ask them to do things we don't want to do ourselves.

Blayney Colmore, La Jolla, California:

Your point is poignant and critical to considering how we live with and respond to what is perceived as ruthless Islamic savagery. I am in the midst of an ongoing conversation with a Jewish friend who insists that we liberal gentiles are unable, or unwilling, to see extermination behavior for what it is. He doesn't disagree with your point that the vast majority of followers of Islam are not like those who have perpetrated the horrors. But he points out that if 1% do, that represents a huge number who can continue to wreak havoc. He also insists that those of us who have decried Israel's increasingly militant treatment of Palestinians, ignore the reality that a significant part of the Islamic and Arab worlds still have the extermination of Israel at the top of their agenda. I have said to him that, as a middle class American, white, gentile, I am constitutionally unable to believe there is a human conflict that has no resolution. And that if this one is, then the millennialists may be wrong in their timetable, but right that this could be the trigger that ends the planet's experiment with homo sapiens. Homo sapiens, indeed.

Denise Garfield, Dayton, Ohio:  

I think your Muslim contact summed it up well: fear and fear of the other. You did a fine job pulling all of that together. You often quote some poet about "man's inhumanity to man." That's the basis of all the violence you referenced.

Fred Fenton, Concord, California:

You quote the title of Isabel Wilkerson's opinion piece, "When Will the North Face Its Racism?" When we participated in the Selma March, my wife and I learned that racism is not confined to one section of the country. As soon as we returned to California hate messages began arriving. We were mailed pictures of massacred children and told this would happen to our child. Ugly telephone calls came at all hours of the day and night. One male voice, which sounded quite serious, said a bomb would be placed under our house. The sheriff's deputy who came to investigate laughed and said, "I'd like to see them try. The house is sitting on a cement slab." The next Sunday my sermon title was, "How firm a foundation." 

Elise Kaufman, Spokane, Washington:  

You are a prophet in the biblical sense. You see what is and call it what it is. I send your essays to about 100 people in my church. You would not be surprised to learn that some percentage of them disagree with you on a regular basis. You must be doing the right thing.

Wilbur Gardner, Albuquerque, New Mexico:

Thank you so much for your clear-eyed view of all the tragedies you wrote about today. The man was right, I think, about xenophobia. It's at the root of a lot of the world's troubles. "The Other," as you put it, can't help being seen as "The Enemy." Where does it end?

Tracey Martin, Phoenix, Arizona:  

Great column today!

Richard Caruso, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:  

Your synthesis of the recent violent events you referenced is of great help to those of us whose heads are awhirl with questions of how and why. Thank you for your clarity.

Harold Foster, Sydney, Nova Scotia:

I read your essay of January 16 minutes after I read the New York Times online and saw that your governor there in Michigan vetoed legislation that would have allowed known wife beaters to carry concealed weapons. Michigan gave us some good news today. Thank you for yours. And convey my thanks to the governor for his. Such a shortage of commonsense.

Janice Depew, Ames, Iowa:  

Yours is the first truly helpful analysis of the Paris tragedy and also sheds helpful light on the police shootings you wrote about. I can't say your essay made me feel better, but I can say and do say that being able to see how things fit together is of intellectual comfort. I'm still sad as sad can be about it all.

Josephine Kelsey, Ann Arbor, Michigan:

Well done. Right on target. You're on a roll. Keep going.