“To them, it was a sport,” said Suffolk County district attorney Tomas J. Spota, referencing hate crimes committed by a group of teens in Long Island earlier this month. The New York Times reports that one of the teens—a star athlete at his high school—has been accused of stabbing a 37-year-old Hispanic man to death.
Pretty twisted sport, if you ask me.
Earlier today, our awesome neighbor Jess brought freshly baked cinnamon buns to our house. Somehow, while chatting over cups of tea and warm cinnamon buns, we got into a discussion about white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups. I know; it’s a pretty disturbing topic for a mid-afternoon tea break.
I was reminded of a series of hate crimes that took place in my home state of Maine. Several years ago, a large Somali in-migration entered Lewiston—a mid-sized town in Maine, which at that time was the whitest state in the nation. A bunch of town residents began freaking out, claiming that the Somalis were ruining the cultural integrity of the community, putting stress on social programs, stealing jobs, all of the usual stupid arguments that white people make to avoid looking into their own racist belief systems. The town mayor wrote a letter to one of the leaders in the local Somali community, kindly asking them to stop moving to Lewiston. (Is it actually possible to “kindly ask” an entire racial group to go elsewhere? That doesn’t seem like a very kind request.)
Anyway, white supremacists and neo-Nazis all around the country got wind of the local struggle going down in Lewiston, and decided to travel to Maine to help push the Somalis out. Then the rest of Maine and New England heard about the neo-Nazi rally going down in Lewiston, and decided to organize a pro-diversity rally on the same day.
What ended up happening was really quite beautiful. The pro-diversity crew outnumbered the neo-Nazis by a long shot. Hundreds of people from near and far came together to welcome and celebrate the Somali community in our state. The neo-Nazi gathering looked pretty pathetic in comparison. They made a really amazing documentary about the struggle, called The Letter.
[Below: The official trailer to The Letter.]
Hate is not a sport. If team sports have taught us anything, it’s that we rely upon community, understanding, trust, and a basic respect for our teammates in order to win. I wish that teenage star athlete from New York could have learned this before he adopted violence as a “sport”. I’ve heard arguments that diversity in both college and pro sports has helped to alleviate some racial tension in this country; these days, we consistently see Black, Latino, White, Asian, and others with diverse racial identities playing side by side on the field. But we still have a long way to go in the struggle to create safe, hate-free spaces.
