"Are you...are you okay? Can I do anything?"
That was the only response I could think to offer my friend,
a kind and funny and talented person who sings with me in my community choir. I
asked because he's Jewish. Because just a week before, the most violent act of
anti-Semitism in United States
history happened:11 people killed at a massacre in a Pittsburgh synagogue, all of them shot, and
why? Because they were Jewish.
"Are you...are you okay? Can I do anything?"
I could have just as easily asked the same question of my
African-American friends too, in light of the murder of two people of color at
a Jeffersontown, Kentucky grocery store late last month. The
killer in that tragedy first went to a predominantly black church to presumably
murder folks in that house of worship, but finding it locked, he drove to a
nearby Kroger's and opened fire. Two
folks cut down while shopping and why? Because they were African-American.
"Are you...are you okay? Can I do anything?"
I might ask those questions of my women friends after the
killing of two female yoga students at a studio in Tallahassee, Florida
last week. The man who wielded the gun in that crime had a long history of
hating women, of posting misogynistic videos on YouTube, who as a college
student was arrested twice on charges of violence against women. Two people murdered and why? Because they were women.
What can I do? What can we do to fight such sick and evil
hatred? To name and confront the sins of racism, of religious intolerance, of
deadly sexism? To stand with and for all
in our world who are threatened with injury or death or hatred because of the
God they worship, the color of their skin or their gender?
As Americans, as humans, as people of faith, we have to ask
these questions. Have to move beyond the lazy and specious responses too many
offer when such hate crimes happen. The
killer was just crazy, mentally ill, yeah...that's why he did it. It was random, an anomaly. Such acts of
terrorism are so rare they are a fluke somehow.
That's not really who America
is, who we are, right? It's easy for me to offer such platitudes, me. Who never
has to fear going out in public because of my race or religion or gender. Me: who's
never been stared at in suspicion or fear or sick lust because of who I
am.
Can we do anything? Will we do anything?
Or will we just let these tragedies quickly fade away in the
insane news cycle that is America
in 2018? Just wait a couple of days. Something worse will happen. We live in
times when it feels as if we are so overwhelmed by so many stories about so
many vicious acts of human hatred that we become numb to it all.
That's no excuse for apathy. We must do something: as
individuals, a nation and as children of God. Because here's the hard truth:
until neighbors truly love all their neighbors; until we refuse to tolerate as
"the norm" the -isms that separate us one from another; until we call
out "leaders" who by their indifference and bullying ways fan the
flames of bias, we are all a part of the problem. All of us. By choosing to do nothing we allow
the status quo of hate to continue.
Will we do anything? Or will we not?
As concentration camp survivor and German Pastor Martin
Niemoller warned the world in 1933, "First they came for the communists,
and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist. Then they came for the
trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I
did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was
no one left to speak for me."
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