At a crossroads

It wasn’t long after that I had to call both my mom and grandma out on the use of that word. I was a little kid who had to step up to these role models of mine. I was taught in school this language was not OK. My Grandma begrudgingly obliged and altered her vocabulary.

As I grew older and began paying attention to the local paper it became evident that this little college town had a not so nice alter ego. After blistering hot evenings, the folks on “the other side of town,” as the local paper explained, would be out late into the night opening fire hydrants and causing trouble for the police and firemen. “Those people” and “the blacks” were the trouble of the town. “Stay away from that part of town especially at night” the paper advised. As I read the paper day after day it was clear that it, along with the police department and a lot of the locals, had no qualms about placing stereotypical blame on a single racial group. This was in the mid-’80s. The paper failed to mention that the trouble never started until the police showed up or that the fire hydrants were magically shut off before the local fire department had to come out. The views of that community were truly backwards in so many ways. I’m sure this was a small sampling of what was, and still goes on in some communities throughout this country.

Although we are not born with hate, fear and misunderstanding of others, it can quickly be learned and indoctrinated into culture, our society and ourselves. The events in Charlottesville, locally in San Francisco and Berkeley, and other places around our nation are an extension of this ideological development. The groups of counter-protesters are trying to send a clear message that this way of thinking and acting will not be tolerated. And although both groups are allowed to voice their opinions, violence will sometimes dominate the narrative.

I would appeal to these counter-protesters and their respective groups to look at combining their efforts into a larger collective movement that could have the potential as a stronger and more effective sociopolitical influence. Groups like Black Lives Matter, Equality Foundation, Human Rights Campaign, Interaction, Islamic Society of America and other interested stakeholders in the future of our nation should come together to share their commonality moving forward.

By establishing an umbrella organization that focuses on collective human rights, these groups could have a much more cohesive and focused movement that would inherently bring a much larger political influence into local, regional and national arenas and elections.

This is not to say that each group should not keep their autonomy and mission, but collectively there could be potential for a much greater movement toward human rights, eventual suppression and even elimination of these hate groups that have begun to make a comeback. A political extension of these groups could ultimately create a large, influential voting bloc. This body of voters could ultimately put enough local and national representatives into office to truly begin making legislative change for all human rights.

Years later while in her 90s, my grandma could no longer take care of herself. She hired a woman from Kenya to help her. She became part of our family and my grandma loved her. I do want to believe that my grandma not only tried to understand people of a different race/color, but came to love them for who they were as people.

Sometimes things that we are vehemently against become closer than we think. We are at a crossroads and hopefully this time we can really all come together and move our nation forward so that hate, misunderstanding and intolerance of other races and cultures can someday be a thing of the past.

Tim Hilborn, born and raised in the Bay Area, lives in San Carlos. He has been teaching in the San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District for the past 26 years.