Generally speaking, I try to make our Monday Mission Updates inspiring and hopeful. There is plenty of news and opinion floating around the universe that cuts in the opposite direction, and given our primary focus on building healthy, inclusive communities, the Y is doing so much important work that is meant to bring us together rather than tear us apart.
And so, when something happens in our country like the mass shooting in Buffalo, it shakes all of us not simply on a personal level, but on an institutional level. The hyper-violence of our society is already at epidemic levels, but when that violence is visited upon a group of people by a domestic terrorist solely because of unmitigated racist hatred and a twisted ideology that has moved from the dark corners of the internet into parts of our “mainstream” culture, then that is both an affront to decency and to the very aspirations that we have for the Y community.
Racism is deeply embedded in the American story, as we all know. Although some try to airbrush that history from our schools and public discourse, the truth and the facts of our systemic exclusion of African Americans and people of color from the full promise of this great country are in plain sight for anyone of goodwill and an objective, discerning mind. However, in an age of growing disinformation, balkanized media platforms, and the open sewer of social media, our collective capacity for shared truths and a clear understanding of the complexity of the American experience is at serious risk.
The 18-year-old young man who is accused of killing 10 innocent African Americans, people who were simply shopping for groceries or working for a living, had ingested an endless amount of lies, half-truths, misinformation and ahistorical nonsense before deciding to drive over 200 miles from his comfortable suburban home, with a recently purchased military-style weapon and body armor, to terrorize people he didn’t know but for whom he had a warped hatred. His hatred was based on a version of what white nationalists call the “great replacement theory,” which holds that there’s a cabal of elites in the political world who are flooding the country with non-white, illegal and/or illegitimate people who are “replacing” the “true” Americans (who, in their view, are white Americans with ancestors largely from Western Europe). This utter ridiculousness has spread thanks to both technology and political opportunists eager to improve their standing by promoting these lies.
Our country has never been a stagnant, homogenous society. Waves of immigrants have come from all over the world to make up what is America. And most of those immigrants have spent time at or near the bottom of our society doing the hardest, least desirable jobs while hoping (and expecting) that their kids will do better than them. Sadly, many of those immigrant groups have been sneered at, viewed as “the other” by those already here, and have been held down despite their willingness to work as hard as or harder than those who are holding them down. And, of course, most African Americans can trace their roots to people who were brought here in shackles and made to work as slaves without either freedom or mercy.
Hate in America is as old as the dirt all around us. Racism is a blight upon the great American experiment. Hating those who don’t look or act like us is a choice, and too easy to make in today’s climate. At the Y, we are part of this American story that we all continue to write and are proud of the good things we’ve done in that narrative, as well as fully cognizant of the part of our history that has contributed to what is wrong with our country. However, we continue to try to bring light, not hate, to our work, and to build a healthier, more inclusive, equitable community.
Please join us in that.
All the best,
John K. Hoey
President & CEO
The Y in Central Maryland