I had a dream that my children would grow with racism only being something they read about in text books.
I had a dream that my children would never see hate like our fathers and our fathers fathers had seen.
I lost that dream this last week. I recently learned that my brother too had this dream. We both had succeeded too. I had made it 13 years. He had made it 10. For a decade, our children lived a life without racism or hate. They only had to think about bullies at school, homework, and grades.
Both he and I had to have a new kind of talk with our children this week. Racism. Neither his ten year old nor my children knew. We are both proud of that. We are also enraged that we lost that.
There many kinds of people in our country right now. There are those of us who are being attacked and told to leave. Those of us who are putting up segregation signs and terrorizing us. Those of us who are lashing back at the terrorists and matching their hate. Those of us who are scared, hurt, and angry, but don’t cross that line into aggressor. Those of us who are putting their heads down and saying nothing. Support comes in so many shapes, sizes, and colors. Support can be aggressive, verbal, passive, physical, passive aggressive…support is still support.
My niece is first generation American. She is half Korean and half American, and she is here legally as is her Korean family. She is ten years old and was just like my children: completely unaware that human beings could be so disgusting as to hate each other without cause.
I just…I don’t understand. What are you so afraid of? How do people from other races threaten you? I am forever fascinated by the people in my life who are from different cultures and heritages. From them, I’ve learned so much. I’ve seen how I in my little world fits into the big picture that is earth. I just…
I still dream that my children will never see hate. I still dream that my children and my children’s children will grow up in an America where racism is only something you read about in books.
