Spring 2008 Featured Story Lift Every Voice to Our Silent Tears by Anissa New-Walker We tend to believe hate crimes and bias incidents are from another time – problems against which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others in the civil rights era were forced to speak out. But yet it seems, the more times change, the more they also seem to stay the same. In late 2007, I began hearing a snippet here and a snippet there, in newspapers and on the television news, about a new series of hate crimes in the United States: cross burnings, nooses, and swastikas. It has been striking to see how many of these incidents have been happening outside of the U.S. South. When I searched on the internet for the words “hate crimes,” I could not believe how many incidents had occurred within the weeks just before and after tens of thousands descended upon Jena, Mississippi on September 20, 2007. Nooses were discovered in a New Hempstead, New York police station locker room; in North Carolina and South Carolina high schools; in a Coast Guard office strapped to a gym bag; at a Home Depot in New Jersey; and on the campuses of Columbia University and the University of Maryland. In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, nooses were found wrapped around the heads of two black dolls.
I had to remind myself that it is within our human nature to avoid conflict and even to ignore it. To talk about hate crimes – furthermore, to highlight and make a stand against them – that creates conflict. Hate of race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation is a matter of contention for both power groups (usually white individuals) and non-power groups (usually non-whites or white individuals outside of Christianity or heterosexuality). Individuals within the power group feel too much emphasis is put on this group’s or that group’s fear of bigotry and bias. “Don’t speak about your woes,” we are told; move on toward the future and stop looking back at the past. Subsequently, people in non-power groups feel the real and sometimes subtle hate, bigotry, and racism, but don’t want to appear “whiney” – unappreciative of the prosperity we’ve been “allowed” to share in this country. Conflict averted, everyone stays silent, as not to ruffle one another’s feathers. Despite this deafening silence, we can take on a more active role by acknowledging that each and every bias incident or hate crime is a painful reminder of that group’s besieged history – whether distant or not. We can then internalize that group’s experience, and then become allies to help voice the unrest and fear welling up in our African-American, Jewish-American, Latino, gay and lesbian, and Muslim-American communities. How do people who are not of the same “tribe” feel empathy for one another when a hate crime occurs? I believe each one of us has the ability to open ourselves up to the heartache of another. Life happens to all of us; we all share in common the experience of suffering resulting from the actions of another individual. My intimacy with suffering bigotry in school afforded me an empathetic heart towards others no matter who they may be. Growing up as the only African American in an all-white elementary school, regular abuse and bullying by my schoolmates filled me with anguish and anxiety. So, when I read The Diary of Anne Frank, I felt a strong connection to her plight. Although she and I were of different colors and of different faiths, I felt her entrapment as though it were my own. Even though I was free to go where I chose, children at school ostracized me – no one would talk or play with me at recess. I identified with Anne Frank because although my circumstances were not a life or death situation, I did know how it felt to be hated because of my difference. On the eve of Thanksgiving 2007 (Wednesday, November 21st), an African-American family in New York State – the Artopes of Cortlandt in Westchester County, just a half-hour north of Manhattan – had a cross burned on their front lawn. I wondered if people outside of this tribe could understand the grief if they thought back to the history of African Americans who had to succumb to the horrors of cross burning by the Ku Klux Klansman? In the days of reckless cross burnings, African Americans were paralyzed with fear for their homes and fear for their lives – some were even burned alive by these men in white sheets. Because we know this to be true in our history, can we not feel the heaviness of heart in the African-American community when an incident such as this occurs? And how do we feel when nooses keep popping up? Does anyone care? In fact, the official response to many of these recent noose incidents, as stated by law enforcement representatives, has often been deeming them frivolous, harmless pranks. This trivializes the legacy of pain, and desensitizes those in the majority community to this history. For example, Mitch Rose of Valley Stream, Long Island found a black mannequin hanging from a noose in his yard on Halloween – October 31, 2007. Upon closer inspection of the hanging black figure, Mr. Rose discovered a note with the N-word written on it. Officers from the Bias Crimes division were brought in to investigate the incident, but the story which was first aired on Channel 7 – Eyewitness News for the New York metropolitan area did not even do a follow-up to the investigation. Subsequent searches on my own on the internet have led me nowhere. So, without care and attention paid to this bias incident, people are given a pass believing life is rosy and if the offended group – in these cases African Americans – talk about the incident, they are treated as though they are being oversensitive. So there should be no wonder as to why African Americans are conflicted – while many participated in the Jena and D.C. rallies last year, many others hushed their mouths. When we talk about nooses, in conversations within our own tribe, we are emotionally transported back just 50 years ago, when it was perfectly legal to have “strange fruit” (lynched African Americans) hanging from trees. And power groups expect us to say nothing? Don’t overreact; it’s just a joke?
And then it happened again. The muted response of law enforcement to another hate crime gave us permission to be quiet and not speak out. This incident happened in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on January 1st and 10th of this year. This time, it was a Jewish cemetery – Poile Zedek Cemetery – where gravestones were destroyed. Law enforcement said it may have been a bias attack … or it could have just been a childish prank played by teenagers. How do we not open our hearts to the grief Jewish-American families felt from this crime? How do we remain silent when we know from history that destroying a Jewish burial ground is akin to Nazi Germany and Hitler murdering and then throwing six million innocent lives away into open trenches in the ground? (This occurred mere weeks after Columbia University in New York City announced that a swastika had been found in the mailbox of a Jewish professor.) How do we claim we are one nation when we cannot even take up or speak to another group’s heartache? If we look at our history and remember, if we keep it fresh in our minds and our hearts, we will then feel compelled to voice our opposition to crimes committed in the name of hate. Given the permission to disregard this influx of hate crimes – permission granted tacitly by the weak response from our police, judicial system, and news media – there would appear to be for power groups in this country no sense of history repeating itself. So, the problem of hate crimes is placed in the laps of those who have lived a history of battling hate because of race, ethnicity, religious difference, or sexual orientation. And while it is the deep-rooted history behind the act that makes it so unbearable and frightening, both for the individual who it was directed at and for the targeted group, it is in fact the silence and downplaying of the incident that makes us cry out inside. It is ignoring the hate – by pretending that the perpetrator was playing a funny joke, or worse, that that person was misunderstood in his or her intentions – that make our wounds harder to heal. While our overall culture and institutions seem resistant to acknowledging the severity of this epidemic, I do admittedly find flickers of hope in the concern being expressed by a few individuals. Some have taken the responsibility to dig deeper into their neighbor’s history, into their story, to walk in their shoes, even if it is just a stroll through an autobiography or a history book. And some of us have decided to do our own investigating of bias incidents, notwithstanding the comments by media or law officials. In so doing, we realize that, often, an unresolved conflict developed over time and escalated into a hate crime. For example, the “Jena Six” trial of a group of young black men accused of second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy for a December 2006 beating of a white teenager was rooted in a series of conflicts in the weeks leading up to the fight, as well as a long-standing history of segregation and racial polarization in their community. When we make a conscience effort to dig a little deeper, care for others outside of our group a little more, we prepare ourselves to become an ally. Fully aware and with eyes, hearts, and ears open, an ally can be a voice when a victim is either too afraid or intimidated to speak out. Being that voice can diffuse a tense situation before it escalates into a more violent incident. I felt hopeful when I heard of an individual who took action to interrupt a hate crime on a New York City subway on December 12, 2007. A group of ten white young people taunted and used slurs against three young Jewish people when they answered “Happy Hannukah” to the larger group’s “Merry Christmas.” The situation became violent when the presumably Christian youths then physically attacked the three young Jews. Their seemingly unlikely ally was a young Muslim student – Hassan Askari – who threw himself in the middle of the altercation to break it up. His received a black eye as a result of coming to the rescue of the three strangers. I am sure he believes, as I do, his black eye was a small price to pay for stepping out in love to overcome hate. As more and more individuals break the silence, the easier it will be for our vulnerable brothers and sisters to feel affirmed and understood. And with understanding, we can open up to dialogue. In my own county of Rockland in New York State, S. Ram Nagubandi is doing more than his job as commissioner of the Human Rights Commission. He is invested in responding to problems within our community before they transform into hate, before they lead to crime. Mr. Nagubandi developed a forum for African-American and Jewish leaders in Rockland County to air out their grievances with one another and work out their differences together. After the cross-burning incident in Cortlandt, the town showed its understanding of how the past resonates in the present. The Journal News, the regional newspaper, reported that Cortlandt lawmakers, clergy, educators, and business leaders created a series of initiatives to combat racism. On November 29th, one week after the cross-burning incident, the first local public forum to discuss hate and bias was held. The forum brought together over 400 individuals from the community – an encouraging start. So as I have heard about the rise in hate crimes, I have consciously decided to resist the passivity that I find prevalent in our culture. I verbalized my great sadness about the desecration of the Poile Zedek Cemetary to my friend Diane Goodman, a Jewish American. She, in turn, expressed her deep regret about the Long Island shooting in 2006 by an African-American father trying to protect his family from a white group of young men – what he described as a “lynch mob” outside his home – which has had tragic results for all involved. We may not have held a forum, or devised initiatives for our community, but having my heavy heart validated by her did help wipe away some of my silent tears. I have not had the opportunity to formally thank my friend Liz Walz for opening the dialogue of white privilege in her Fellowship article (Winter 2008, “The Culture of White Privilege Is to Remain Silent”). I commend her effort to urge white members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and other white progressives, to think of themselves as allies. I strongly urge, as Liz did, for people within the power groups to open up minds, ears, and hearts to the circumstances that life has in store for some groups. Learn, learn, learn about each other, Liz asked us. I am asking that too, but I am also specifically asking that we be more aware of the many bias incidents and hate crimes that are happening within our communities. I invite you to confront attacks directly. In this way we will begin to lift our voices against hate.Anissa New-Walker is outreach and communications coordinator for the Nyack, New York-based Creative Responses to Conflict. This article reflects her own views, not those of CRC.
©2008 Fellowship of Reconciliation |
What really unnerved me was the complete silence, the seeming disinterest for these new bias incidents that were happening not just in the South, but nationwide. I kept wondering – silently – Why isn’t there more of an outcry? Yes, in addition to the September rally in Jena, thousands of African Americans also came to Washington D.C, on November 16th, to rally in front of the U.S. Justice Department. But none of my colleagues or friends (many of whom are white) said anything about the increase in hate crimes. Could it be that if we are not of the race, religion, or sexual orientation of the offended group that these crimes don’t stick in our minds for longer than the sound bites allotted on our nightly news? Why is it so hard for some of us to connect with someone else’s pain?