Christina Green was nine years old. She was born on a hateful day, September 11, 2001, the day the Twin Towers fell. She died on a hateful day when a man opened fire at a crowd gathered in a Tucson parking lot to meet their Congresswoman.
I just attended a program to celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that the National Education Association has held for our staff in our auditorium in the basement each year for over twenty years.
Nine year old children danced and played the drums and recited stirring, inspirational words for us. And we applauded and cried and laughed and encouraged.
We are an education union, and we like having children remind us who’s ultimately counting on us to do the right thing.
Students From Watkins Elementary School Pay Tribute To Martin Luther King, Jr.: MyFoxDC.com
Dr. King was killed by hate on a hateful day. And yet in that hour’s program, there was nothing but joy. Gorgeous children of every race and color stood before us, proud of their talents and nervous and wiggling and excited. They made us feel young. They made us open our hearts and take them in and love them.
There is a connection between Dr. King and Christina. But hate is not it. Their death by hate and violence is not their common denominator. They are connected by the love that surrounded their lives. Love is their power.
I’m honoring them both by turning off the television. When the first onslaughts of blame and finger pointing began, I was dismayed. But as the hate on both sides ratcheted up, I remembered that I was in charge. Televisions, even the new, complicated ones that need three remote controls, still come with an off switch.
We are in mourning. Mourners need comfort. The “news” programs have become a Lucha Libre of professional wrestling commentators that pull each other’s hair and spit innuendo and vitriol every hour on the hour. They need us to be part of the show. It’s a routine now.
We’re the spectators who root for our comic hero to smack down the other side’s comic hero over some political issue or another. But this time, a little girl had died. And even then, they could not help themselves from scripting it into the show. They could not stop even for a little girl and those who mourned her.
So I stopped them. With the off switch.
And I will tell everyone within the sound of my voice to stop them, because they cannot help themselves.
Stop the anger. This is a time for tears. Stop the blaming. This is a time to hold each other. Mourn. Do not give into the insanity that took lives.
Hate no one. Blame no one. Find comfort. Think about this remarkable little girl. She was a joy. A kind child who wanted to do good. She was loved and that love will stay.
Think what the great Dr. King left behind. He was brave. He was a peaceful man. He was loved and that love has stayed.
We are in mourning. Hate is the cause. But hate cannot heal. Let it go. We are in mourning. Only love will comfort us. Each of us is in charge. We are in mourning.
Show respect. Turn off the hate.
Lily,
As always, you say it all, in such a few powerful word!
I wish that the entire world will read this blog and your thoughts about no hate! No one is exempt!
Diane
Lily, Great read. Reminds me of what Robert Kennedy said the day MLK Jr was shot and he broke the news to a mostly black audience.
We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization — black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.
For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with — be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.
But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poem, my — my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:
Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfkonmlkdeath.html