We must fight hate with education

Our hearts are heavy. Over the weekend, violent hate crimes ravaged communities in Buffalo, NY and Dallas, TX. In Buffalo, a white man opened fire and killed 10 people in a supermarket in a predominately Black neighborhood. He targeted this neighborhood in order to intentionally harm the Black community. In Dallas, police are investigating a series of shootings in Asian-run businesses. Please join us in remembering and honoring the victims and sending love and healing to these communities. Let us say the names and learn the stories of each community member lost.

Aaron Salter, Jr.
Ruth Whitfield
Pearl Young
Katherine “Kat” Massey
Roberta A. Drury
Heyward Patterson
Celestine Chaney
Andre Mackneil
Geraldine Talley
Margus D. Morrison

These senseless deaths are a result of fear and ignorance, a fear that pervades corners of America. As the murderer explained in his writings, he travelled 200 miles to kill innocent Black Americans because of his belief in the “Great Replacement.” This conspiracy theory claims that white people are being intentionally replaced with people of color for economic and political gain. The origins of this theory can be traced to French nationalism in the early 1900s, later adopted and promoted by white supremacists. Today, we can hear the idea advanced in some public discourse.

This is fear grounded in racism, fear of being a minority in a nation that historically mistreats people in the minority.

We can fight fear through education. After all, hate is learned. I wrote those words three-and-a-half years ago after the murders of 11 people worshipping at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA. I said them after the murder of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Sun Cha Kim. These latest hate crimes are another reminder to look to the Anti-Defamation League’s Pyramid of Hate as proof that hate is not inevitable. At the very base of the pyramid are the behaviors stereotyping, making insensitive remarks, and fears of difference. If those behaviors are not squelched, if they are not prevented, if they are not addressed in our schools and communities, they can escalate into acts of bias, into violent acts like those we saw last weekend.

As educators, it is our responsibility to teach young people of all ages to recognize, respect, and celebrate our differences. It is also our charge to see, name, and talk about the richness in our difference. We can fight hate with an understanding of and appreciation for people different from ourselves.

Every single one of us, from the seat we are in and the skin we are in (especially our white brothers and sisters or those, like me, who have proximity to whiteness), is called to action to continue leveraging our platforms and spheres of control and influence to address this ugliness.

Indeed, education is our most powerful weapon against history repeating itself again and again and again.