When Will Love and Kindness Overcome Hate and Fear?
"It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability
to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences."
… Audre Lorde
This week commemorates the ten-year anniversary of the mass shooting in a Sikh gurdwara (house of worship) in Oak Creek, Wisconsin on August 5, 2012. As families prepared for Sunday services and the community celebration that followed, an avowed white supremacist named Wade Michael Page approached the gurdwara with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun. He entered the sacred space and took the lives of six men and women, leaving several others wounded, and the entire Sikh community terrorized. It was the deadliest massacre of Sikhs ever on U.S. soil.
After this act of domestic terrorism, the Department of Justice organized a town hall meeting. One by one, nearly every Sikh who took the open mic told the officials on stage that the shooting was not an isolated incident but one in a long pattern of hate crimes since 9/11 and before. They told of a long history of being bullied, profiled at airports, and subject to racial slurs and hate crimes.
The first hate crime after 9/11 had been the murder of a Sikh man in Mesa, Arizona as he tended the flowers that he had planted at his gas station, to add a little beauty to the world. (See A Man of Peace, A Tribute to Balbir Singh Sodhi). The irony is that the Sikh religion is one of peace and service to others. Sikh people contribute in a peaceful way to whatever community they live in. They are a threat to no one, except in the minds of people who have been convinced that people unlike themselves are enemies.
So, how do we respond to this information?
What does kindness ask of us?
It is so easy to say that it has nothing to do with me, but is that true? This is one small example of something much larger that is happening in our country. It affects all of us, because it is part of the culture that we live in. When we do nothing, we silently support the continuation of the way it is.
But what can we do?
We can stand in solidarity with the Sikh people by learning about them and by offering a hand of friendship in our communities. In Oak Creek, Wisconsin, the larger community has embraced its Sikh citizens, and they provide a positive example of living peacefully together. We can follow their example and reach out in friendship to Sikhs and other groups not fully welcomed in our communities.
We can learn about the efforts to pass laws that offer more protection for people who are targets of hate, and we can support their efforts to move legislation forward. Thanks to the efforts of the Sikh community and their allies, federal legislation was passed that required the government to track hate crimes against Sikh Americans, along with Arabs, Buddhists, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Orthodox Christians.
Today, more needs to be done to stem the tide of violent hate in the United States. Your voice can support three critical pieces of legislation pending in Congress:
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The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, The Nonprofit Security Grant Program Improvement Act, and The Justice for Victims of Hate Crimes Act.
If you feel moved to speak in favor of these laws, please click here and scroll down to learn more and to sign a petition of support.
The Sikh message to our country is clear:
Today, our wounds are still open and white nationalist violence continues to bleed us. But we are not victims. We are survivors, healers, artists, and warriors. And our story can show America how to stand in solidarity, bravery, and love.
Will you stand with us?
I continue to be inspired by the Sikh communities and the power of their example. Through all of the challenges facing them, they aspire to maintain a mental state of resilience, optimism and joy and to accept and rise above the inevitable adversity in life. They continue to be sustained by this mantra:
Chardi Kala - even in darkness, ever-rising joy.
Our wish for you is that you, also, be sustained through whatever challenges you are facing.
Click below to read more about:
Remembering Oak Creek
The Sikh Coalition
Huffington Post Article
I want to share a YT doc. that touched my heart.
https://youtu.be/4N-UVoc-d5E
Thank you, Maggie. It does seem that hatred and violence have become more acceptable, so we are seeing a lot more of it.
Our challenge is to respond with love whenever we can -taking a stand on behalf of people who are targets of hatred. The greater challenge is to find ways to include the people who hate in our love – not supporting their acts of hatred, but trying to understand that their life experiences brought them to this point.
Minorities have always been picked on, but especially in the last few years when hate, anger, fear and prejudice have been on the rise. Calling people out has become almost normalized. I believe more and more people are very unhappy with their lives and take it out on others with the extreme being killing and torture.. Our society and culture are broken. Where are our role models that we use to look up to I ask? I pray that we can listen,understand and be more tolerant of others with Kindness.