Hatred

Lots of sad stuff about today.  First, what’s going on in the Ukraine:  with the Russian pullback to regroup, people re-entering one of the occupied cities have found hundreds of murdered citizens, many with their hands tied behind their backs.  I saw some pictures and they were horrifying.  The news broke yesterday and I’m really glad I wasn’t paying attention.  People can be so evil to each other.  It’s a wonder God isn’t sick of us all.  Today, President Biden called the slaughter a “war crime” and wants Putin to stand trial.

It's also the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination.  He was shot and killed around 6 in the evening, and it was on the TV news when I came down the following morning for breakfast.  I was 13 and in 7^th grade, that horrible year from hell when I was bullied and tormented.  My Deaf parents were in the dining room, chatting over breakfast.  I broke the news to them and their response was “Oh no, now there’s going to be trouble.” 

I didn’t understand.  I was beginning to be aware of what was happening because we had Current Events once a week.  I was assigned world news and so I was more informed about what was happening in Viet Nam and other places.  I’d heard of Martin Luther King, but I thought he was doing a good thing.  Why would anyone shoot him?

My parents were right about trouble.  There were some fights breaking out at my junior high but, more than that, there were angry people rioting in the streets.  We had to have a curfew and only “essential” personnel could be out after curfew.  That meant my dad, who worked the night shift, could go to the Baltimore Sun where he was a printer. 

Watching the news became a terrifying experience.  There were images of cities on fire everywhere in the country, with people raging in the streets and vandalizing stores and cars.  I was especially frightened by the scenes in our city, Baltimore, as familiar places were set on fire or destroyed by rioters.  There was a report that snipers were firing at people driving in cars after curfew.  I couldn’t sleep until my dad got home.  I was afraid he would be killed by an unheard sniper’s bullet.

I was also learning much about systemic racism.  Our history hadn’t impacted me much up to this point; slavery wasn’t taught in school.  Neither was Jim Crow laws or segregation.  Now I was becoming aware of hatred I didn’t understand.  For some reason, white people seemed to hate black people for the color of their skin.  Black people only wanted to be treated as well as white people and that was fair, I believed. 

Even as things began to get back to “normal”, I was beginning to read stories about James Earl Ray, George Wallace, Bull Connor and the Ku Klux Klan.  It was sickening to think that some of the awful things I’d read in Gone With The Wind were still going on.  I shared my feelings with my parents but found to my dismay that they were prejudiced against black people too.  My mom did take me aside and advise me to “make friends” with black classmates so that if there was more “trouble”, I would be safe.  I didn’t bother to tell her I was already friends with black classmates but after Dr. King was assassinated, they seemed wary around me.

At about that time, I read To Kill A Mockingbird for the first time.  There was no way I could make myself think as my parents did and that was the beginning of continuing arguments with them.  I wanted to know why they, who suffered discrimination and prejudice because of their deafness, could hate another group of people suffering because of their skin color.  They always had prejudicial, ignorant reasons.  At 13, I was positive that adults were flawed.

I can’t hate people because skin color, religion, or sexual orientation are different from mine.  I’m not religious; I don’t go to church.  However, I do believe in Jesus and his teachings.  The one lesson that sticks is love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself.  There’s no language that says “only if they are white and Protestant”. 

We sure do need to have the true history of our country taught in schools even if it makes white people squirm.  We should squirm.  People the world over do such evil to other people.  It’s heart-breaking.