A responsibility to act against hate
It is no longer enough to condemn the act, be inspired by the acts of forgiveness of the victims, and move on. As Voltaire once noted, “Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”
As I learned that Dylann Roof had killed nine members of a renowned Charleston church's Bible study, my emotions rendered me speechless. I felt horror, grief, and outrage, but surprise was glaringly absent. Three years ago I'd felt the same as another white supremacist, Wade Michael Page, walked into a Sikh house of worship in Oak Creek, Wis., and killed six people in prayer.
In Oak Creek, I witnessed firsthand a community rally together, preach love over hate, and even forgive the perpetrator of the violence. Similarly, the noble community of Charleston and the Emmanuel AME Church has humbled us with its compassion and its incredible acts of forgiveness.
We marvel at these communities' generosity and strength because it helps us draw some inspiration from such a tragedy. It also relieves us from the more difficult question of how to move forward.
Political leaders, the media, and Americans across the country unify to condemn these acts of hate, but condemnation alone will not prevent the next bigoted massacre. Similarly, public discourse on gun control and mental-health support is essential, but ultimately focuses on limiting avenues for expressing violence. These are half measures and sidesteps.
Preventing the next Charleston or Oak Creek requires a deeper and more honest conversation. It requires that we address the hate that is the underlying cause for this violence.
Through the news, political discourse, and social media, our public dialogue constantly stokes the fires of divisiveness. We have given in to creating an "other" — the person or individual who is not one of us.
Those people with turbans, they hate us and don't share our values.
Those African Americans don't want to do what it takes to escape poverty; they just want handouts.
That gay couple wants to destroy the institution of marriage.
In polite society, these attacks take more subtle forms in smaller, less noticeable acts — an inadvertently biased hiring policy or a stereotype disguised through a joke. These biases spill over into all aspects of our lives.
When the police shoot an unarmed African American man, the first assumption is that he must have done something. When a line of travelers at the airport see a Transportation Security Administration official pull a Sikh man aside to screen only his turban, while ignoring the rest of his clothing, observers assume it must be for a good reason.
The notion of creating an atmosphere of us vs. them has always existed, but 9/11 ignited its use to justify civil- and human-rights changes our society would have otherwise never allowed. It quickly and predictably spread to other social and societal challenges facing our nation. It ignited a new level of conviction and more fertile recruiting ground for groups and individuals who have always believed people not like them are the roots of evil.
To reverse the divisiveness that plagues our society and leads those on the fringes to commit such heinous acts of violence, we must do more. It is no longer enough to condemn the act, be inspired by the acts of forgiveness of the victims, and move on. As the writer and philosopher Voltaire once noted, "Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do."
We all have a responsibility to act against the hate in our nation. After an hour of Bible study, it is reported that even Roof was nearly moved not to commit his atrocities. Tragically, it was too late for him to change. But in our day-to-day lives, we can seek to understand differences instead of retreating from them. Exposing ourselves to new people, ideas, and actions can lead to an understanding that the label other is too broad a stroke — one that misses both our universality and the nuances of what makes a diverse society a stronger one.
Our nation's diversity is our greatest strength, and we all must share in nurturing it. If we don't, I fear we will be left to forgive another hateful murderer again.
Narinder Singh, a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, is the board chairman of the Sikh Coalition and co-founder of Appirio, a cloud consulting company headquartered in San Francisco. narinder@sikhcoalition.org