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[Americans Have Had It With Hatred] |
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[Americans Have Had It With Hatred] |
For the new millennium, let's jettison the legacy of bias and just start over
By Jill Nelson MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR
March 29 - Up until a few months ago, it often seemed to me that as Americans we'd slouch into the millennium still willfully divided by race, gender, sexual preference, and all the other immutables that keep us apart. But in the last months America's response to tragic hate crimes in Texas, Alabama, and New York have given pause to some of my cynicism. Maybe we're beginning to realize not only that racism, sexism and homophobia are real, but it's way past time that we did something about them.
Perhaps Americans have finally simply had enough of hatred based on race, or sexual preference, or gender.
MORE OFTEN THAN not, people are politicized when a public event transcends the barriers built of our �isms� and affects them personally. In New York City, the murder of unarmed Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo by members of the Aggressive Street Crimes Unit, who shot at him 41 times, was such a moment.
Why?
My guess is that Diallo's personal history resonated for many Americans, and enabled those who are not black, or young, or poor to transcend racial barriers and connect with his human � and in many ways, quintessentially American � experience. Diallo was an immigrant, a hard-working, religious man who did not drink or smoke. He came to America in search of a better life. At the time of his murder he was, by all accounts, simply minding his own business, killed because he was black and in the wrong place at the wrong time.
DAILY DEMONSTRATIONS
Since Diallo's murder Feb. 4, there have been almost daily demonstrations in New York, with the participants slowly broadening to reflect the diversity not only of this city, but this nation. Demonstrations in front of police headquarters, coupled with symbolic arrests of participants, have both mobilized public response and kept the issue in the public's eye. A former mayor, a congressman, lawyers, women, union workers, elected officials, activists of all colors, both genders, and varying sexual preference, the list of those volunteering for arrest expands daily, capable of including all concerned New Yorkers.
In a similar manner, the murder of Billy Jack Gaither in Alabama several weeks ago has mobilized consciousness, if not massive crowds. It is nearly impossible not to be touched by Gaither's life and death. A closeted gay man who was the caretaker of elderly parents, a religious man who worked hard and keep his sexuality under wraps in a small Southern town, still it wasn't enough. Gaither was killed by two acquaintances who allegedly lured him out of town and beat him to death. His murder had chilling similarities to the murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming last year and brought home to many of us the arbitrary and devastating effect of the crimes that prejudice and hatred produce.
WE'VE HAD IT The conviction last month of the first of three men tried for the motorized lynching of James Byrd, Jr. in Jasper, Texas last year is another sign that as Americans we've had it with hatred and understand that it's time to say �enough is enough,� and mean it. Let me add one caveat though, which is that the next step we need to take is abolition of the death penalty, which has been proven to serve no deterrent purpose and to my mind makes criminals of us all.
Additionally, recent revelations in Illinois, where 11 men unjustly convicted and released from death row over the last decade equals the number executed, establishes once and for all that the judicial system is profoundly flawed, and that life and death mistakes are made. Anyway, what better punishment than a life spent in jail pondering what an idiot you were to commit whatever crime landed you there?
In spite of all the hype, perhaps Americans have simply had enough of hatred based on unchangeable characteristics like race, or sexual orientation, or gender. Perhaps they're beginning to realize that hatred and division does not serve any of us well, and that it is not part of the legacy we choose to carry into the 21st century.
Jill Nelson is the author of Straight, No Chaser: How I Became a Grown-up Black Woman.
She is a regular contributor to MSNBC on the Internet.
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