The case of the Jena 6 echoed around the United States and sparked what could possibly be the largest Civil Rights protest in many many years. The incident also had everyone talking, finally, about hate crimes. Whether all that talk will solve anything is yet to be seen; I have my doubts.
I remember reporting about James Byrd more than a few years back. He was the African-American guy who was dragged to his death after being roped up to the back of a pick-up truck in Texas. I remember writing about Matthew Sheppard, the 21 year-old kid in Wyoming who came out about being gay. In that case he was pistol whipped, tied to a fence, and more or less left to die. The stories are endless, some are more brutal than others, but at what point does this kind of hatred stop? Will it ever stop?
I think about the fact that we have lost nearly 4,000 soldiers in a war in Iraq, about the fanaticism that is being played out in the name of someone’s god, and I just shake my head and wonder … what the hell is wrong with everyone?
I am a dreamer who dreams of Utopian landscapes where the color of one’s skin, the god to whom they pray, and the lovers that they choose, etc., that none of it is reason to brutalize the other. Are we really a planet that insecure with ourselves that we need to beat on one another because we disagree with fundamental characteristics of our beings?
I am all pissed off because of a story that I posted to Union Review about a black worker in Philadelphia who has become the latest victim in a string of noose-related hate crimes. A fellow worker, from what I understand, swung the noose in the nose of this man and said that he wanted to hang someone that day … what the hell is that about?
Hate is an illness. The first step toward being cured is admitting your illness. I wish a lot of folks would wake up, get cured, and spread their accomplishment of healing to others who are still suffering. Is that so much to ask for in this day and age?
