Let Peace Begin with Me

Friday, May. 31, 2024

In his homily on Monday during the Memorial Day Mass at Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery, Bishop Oscar A. Solis urged those of us present “to do our share for people to live in peace and enjoy freedom. Be peacemakers. Live in peace and love one another without counting the peace.”   

His words struck me with a particular forcefulness because recently my reading has been marked with references to racism. This is an issue that sows much discord in the United States today, and I would love to be able to be a peacemaker in this arena.

Perhaps the most poignant item that I read recently was the poem “To the People Who Have Resisted the Urge to Push an Asian Person into the Path of a Moving Train,” by Bao Phi. This came across my desk as the May 22 selection from Poem-A-Day, which I subscribe to via email. I like it because it exposes me to voices I wouldn’t otherwise hear.

The poem’s title shocked me, which it shouldn’t have. I’m aware enough of current events to know that hate crimes against people of Asian descent occur regularly in the United States. Of course, this bias isn’t limited to just Asian persons; it’s aimed against people of many races and ethnicities. A quick look at the U.S. Department of Justice shows that 59 percent of what they call “single-bias incidents” are motivated by race/ethnicity/ancestry. That’s more than all other categories combined. The second-highest category, religion, trails by far, with 17.3 percent of incidents.

The title aside, I was also troubled by these lines in the poem: “… many years I’ve taught myself to walk between my child,/ any railing they could be tossed over,/put myself between them and, say, train tracks,/knowing others see us as moving targets in a steamed jungle …”

I can’t imagine having this type of fear which, based on news reports, unfortunately is well-founded. It also reminded me of something I read a couple years ago, about a Black parent teaching her children how to act with police officers. Her very real fear was that, if they ever did have an interaction with law enforcement, they would end up dead. Again, there are too many incidents of police officers killing Black people even when the “suspect” acted in a non-threatening manner.

I shared Bao Phi’s poem and my reaction to it with a friend, who is very proud of her Mexican/indigenous heritage. I also told her of a conversation with a coworker I had years ago, when I was living in Idaho. The coworker, who was Hispanic, said that whenever she drove outside her hometown, she scrupulously obeyed traffic laws because she was afraid of what could happen if she was stopped by a cop. I didn’t blame her; one of my jobs was working the crime beat, and I was well aware of the high numbers of people of color who were arrested.

When I told my friend all this, she responded with story after story of how her family members have been poorly treated because of the color of their skin. In every incident the discrimination was almost casual – no violence, just behavior that held my friend’s family members in contempt.

I have heard similar stories, some more frightening than others, from all of my friends who are not Caucasian. Other than listening with compassion, I don’t know what I can do to be an ally. I would like to be a proponent for them, even while I acknowledge that in this world no one should need a champion to stand with them between their child and a railing they could be tossed over by someone who hates the color of their skin.