Nine incidents of anti-Sikh or anti-Muslim violence/vandalism in less than 2 weeks. Reposting JZP’s reflections:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/blackwhiteandgray/2012/08/ideals-and-realities-of-religious-tolerance/
Reading Jerry’s post makes me think of the Korean American immigrant congregation that I grew up attending, which was smack plop in the middle of a working-class White neighborhood in southwestern Ohio. How strange we must have looked to them, especially in the 80s. Remember moments of both tension and warmth during those years re: the relationship of the congregation and the neighborhood.
It’s hard to pass through a KA congregation without accumulating some sort of Korean-church-baggage. I remember my childhood community as a (mostly) happy place with a lot of warmth, somewhere I could see my parents be in their own skin. Most of all, I remember it being a safe place–a place with massive intergenerational closure (your parents knowing your friends/your friends’ parents/everyone’s business*) where we played for hours unsupervised in the nearby creek, running in for a snack or mixing our own Kool-Aid/Tang from the never-ending stash in the kitchen. So my heart breaks especially for the children in these communities, whose sense of safety and security has been shaken in a way that never should be.
*For better or for worse
