- by Laurence G.
I am so
lucky to have the best Facebook friends who, despite their differences in
political beliefs and favorite sports teams, all believe in the struggle to rid the world of ignorance
and hatred. For you "youngins" out there reading this, no, racism, intolerance,
and prejudice was NOT just a movement in the 1960s that doesn’t relate to
anything you have to live with today. With headlines coming out every day on
forms of police brutality, economic inequality and the conflict in the Middle
East everywhere you go today, it's easy to think the hopes and dreams of the enlightened and brilliant activists of the 1960's were all in vain.
If you're young and feel you have an understanding of hatred
in America and the world, then see if you can answer any of these questions: Have
you ever been the only kid of a different color on a crowded bus on the way
home from your middle school day with other children from school who called you
a “white boy” and started beating on you for no reason and punching you in your
face and tossing you from one end of the bus to other until you finally were
able to get the driver to stop to let you out and then ran as fast as you could
four blocks home? I DID.
Ever been the only white kid on a scared, crowded bus
of Black middle school children coming home from school, and waiting at the
next bus stop were about 10 - 15 teenage white kids from a nearby catholic high
school with chains and baseball bats, hurling rocks at your bus calling for all
the ‘N….as’ on the bus to get off as the kids on the begged and cried for the
bus driver to keep driving and skip that stop? I DID.
Ever experience walking
to your once a week afterschool religious school with a prayer book and
suddenly get confronted and harassed by kids in the neighborhood from another
religion demanding to see your prayer book and proceeding to hit you over the
head with it repeatedly while shouting prejudice slurs and asking the question “why
did your people kill Jesus?” at you? I DID.
Ever been called “gay” and f.ggot”
in a derogatory way by a school bully and his supporters because you refused to
fight him when he and his entourage followed you home every day from school? I
WAS.
Ever had to sit on the benches during gym period, excluded from playing
basketball for two and half years of middle school without the gym teacher
caring or saying anything because you were the only kid of your color and the
other kids of a different race than you refused to pick you to be on their team
because they assumed you couldn’t play? I DID.
Ever been on a bus on the way
home from high school, riding through a predominantly Italian neighborhood and
witness a mob of Italian kids sneak on the back of the bus to beat up a group
of Irish kids coming home from school, shouting at them as they hit them with
fists and sticks, “what are you doing on our turf you f*cking Micks!” (short for Mc's)? I WAS.
Ever
been to Israel in peaceful times and witness an Israeli soldier intensely
arguing with a Palestinian gas station worker to the point where he’s got a gun
to the gas station worker’s head about to shoot him in front of you? I WAS.
Ever experienced being verbally and physically harassed because of the color of
your skin DAILY during passing from class to class for 3 consecutive years in
junior high school? I WAS.
Ever work with children on the streets and in the
park in underprivileged neighborhoods only 15 - 20 minutes from your middle class neighborhood who walked around with holes in their
sneakers and their toes sticking out? I DID.
Ever have a teacher who would be
the ONLY teacher who would show any compassion and caring for what you were
going through being bullied daily because of the color of your skin (as not
even your parents would have any clue of what you were going through) be a
woman of a different color skin than yours? I DID (and I will never forget her
for that).
I
saw a lot of sh*t growing up in Brooklyn, NY in the 1970’s and 80’s and
experienced a lot of things that made trusting people, making friends and
feeling socially accepted quite difficult but it molded and challenged me to
understand what hatred and inequality must’ve felt like and created a strong
desire within me to want a better, more compassionate world for myself and the
next generations.
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