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Four years ago, something profound
happened in my life.
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I saw the fear and mental effects
of racism, hate crimes and Islamaphobia
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was having on my community.
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I'm an American Muslim
of Nigerian descent,
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and growing up,
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my parents instilled in me
the importance of community
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and serving others.
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My mom is fond of an African proverb
from my Yoruba tribe which states,
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(In Yoruba) “Ènìyàn kan lon bímọ,
gbogbo ayé lon tọ́ ọmọ,”
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which translated means, "a single
person gives birth to a child,
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but every other person
looks after the child."
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Now, the essence of this proverb is:
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even though a woman gives physical birth
to each particular child,
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the whole community
plays an important role
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in looking after all children.
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Growing up, it was not uncommon
for me to come home
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and see my mom preparing a meal
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for what felt like
the entire neighborhood.
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She routinely shared food
with people struggling.
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And I recall one day
being angry as a teenager.
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It was a hot day.
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I'd just completed doing errands.
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I was looking forward
to a nice home-cooked meal.
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But when I came home,
there was little food left,
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because it had gone
to the neighborhood kids again.
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I was not happy.
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I just wanted to come home,
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eat my fill.
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My mom consoled me,
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and I settled for smaller portions
while she prepared another meal.
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Now, I certainly did not
appreciate her that day
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but later realized my mom
was providing a safe space
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and food for people
in the community that needed it.
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(In Yoruba) “Ènìyàn kan lon bímọ,
gbogbo ayé lon tọ́ ọmọ.”
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She was looking after all the children.
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I came to the United States in 1999
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and attended the University of Wisconsin
in the city of La Crosse,
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a beautiful city located
along the Mississippi River.
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And La Crosse was lovely.
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I mean, despite the frigid,
subzero temperature
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and lack of diversity,
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people were generally warm and caring.
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My biggest culture shock,
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despite the fact that I came
during the summer,
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was seeing people sunbathing
and laying out on lawns.
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It just didn't make any sense to me.
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Why would anyone choose to sunbathe
and bake your bodies in the hot sun?
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In Nigeria, in Africa,
when the sun comes out,
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you stay in the shade.
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But here it was just the opposite.
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When I was five years old,
something regrettable happened in Nigeria,
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when the country's first
democratically elected president
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required millions of undocumented
immigrants to leave the country.
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And this response
was because of religious riots
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that occurred in parts
of Northern Nigeria in the 1980s.
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The sentiment shared by some
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was that it was caused
by undocumented immigrants,
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but official sources later disputed that.
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Nevertheless, the army was activated
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and over 200 million people,
including children,
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were sent packing.
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The United States government
strongly decried this action at that time.
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I felt echoes of that history
the morning of September 11, 2001.
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I knew immediately there was going to be
a strong backlash against Muslims,
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despite reports that over 80 percent
of global terror-attack victims
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are Muslims,
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and also because I had seen before
how when something incredibly bad happens,
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the easiest thing to do
is to find easy targets to blame.
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I felt deeply sad for everyone
that lost their life in the Twin Towers.
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It was wrong.
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I also felt intensely angry
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that terrorists hadn't just hijacked
a plane full of innocent people
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but also hijacked my religion.
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They turned my beautiful,
peaceful faith, Islam,
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into something twisted and nasty
that I could not recognize.
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And in turn, my adopted country
started to turn against one another.
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The country felt like a powder keg
waiting to explode.
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And indeed within days,
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there were increased
hate crimes against Muslims
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or people that looked like Muslims.
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Hate crimes continued to rise
in the country many years after.
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In 2012, for example,
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a Sikh temple in Wisconsin was attacked,
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and people were killed
because of their faith.
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And the years later didn't get any better.
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Between 2015 and 2016,
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the increased number of hate crime
incidents against Muslims
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actually surpassed the figures reported
during the year of the 9/11 attacks.
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In my own household,
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the run-up to the 2016
presidential election
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was when we felt the effects of increased
hateful racist and Islamophobic rhetoric
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reaching closer to home.
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My wife and I tried
to shield our kids from the news,
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but like noxious tear gas
ready all around us,
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the ugly reality was closing in,
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and our kids were choking
on the fear and hate.
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My 12-year-old son routinely
came home panicked
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that his dad was going to be killed
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and that our family
was going to be deported
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or put in internment camps.
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He thought being identified as a Muslim
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was a bad thing.
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My 13-year-old daughter
simply disconnected
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and shut up completely.
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My wife also felt
the heightened sense of fear.
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She focused her energy
on securing American passports
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for the entire family.
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She didn't want her family
to go to mosque to pray
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and also explored if it would be safer
for our family to go to Nigeria.
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Our family was traumatized,
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and our fight-or-flight instincts
were in full effect.
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For my part, I was pissed off
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that instead of being
our brother and sister's keeper,
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my adopted country was being divided
by race and religion.
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I wanted our local Muslim community
to do something to quell that hate,
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but we were all dealing with trauma.
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The Yoruba proverb called to me:
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(In Yoruba) “Ènìyàn kan lon bímọ,
gbogbo ayé lon tọ́ ọmọ.”
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I felt that our larger community
had an important role to play
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in that if we connected with people,
and people got to really know who we were,
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they would see that we were
part of the fabric of America
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just like they were.
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I got word from a friend
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that a local interfaith group
was looking to build bridges with Muslims,
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but they first needed Muslims
to be part of the group.
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And I remember the first day
of our meeting:
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Wednesday, February 24, 2016 at 7pm.
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There were 12 of us in attendance
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and consisted of eight Christians
and four Muslims,
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including myself.
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We shared why were there,
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and we were all proud to be citizens
of this great country.
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An American Muslim
who immigrated 39 years ago
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shared that he was afraid
for his grandchildren's future.
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Another Muslim who escaped
violent persecution from his home country
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shared that we was afraid
for the first time in a long time,
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afraid of what the future held
for Muslims and children.
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I was afraid for my kids, too.
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I wanted to make sure our community
was a safe and thriving place for my kids
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and everyone else.
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And I felt that most of my negative
experiences up until that point
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were more about me
being Black than Muslim.
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But I also felt negative microaggressions.
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I recall several years after 9/11,
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a colleague of mine mentioned
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that I could potentially be
a terrorist spy.
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And whether this statement
was made in jest, conjecture
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or just plain ignorance,
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the statement really hurt.
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It was also a side reminder
that some people are going to judge me
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and see me as dangerous
without even knowing me.
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Christians around the table
shared they were there to protect
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and support us.
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And I've got to say, it was such a relief
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to be in the company of people that cared
and wanted to help.
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We committed that day to stand
shoulder to shoulder with one another.
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Our next meeting saw our group expand,
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and four others joined us,
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including members of the Jewish
and Buddhist faiths, and a student.
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Our group was diverse and strong.
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We had people in their 20s,
30s, 40s, 50s, 70s
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and a local social justice advocate
who was 95 years old
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and not interested
in sitting on the sidelines.
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A former missionary,
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this 95-year-old woman also experienced
injustice under apartheid South Africa,
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and that experience made her
an activist and a feminist.
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The La Crosse Interfaith
Shoulder to Shoulder Network was born,
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and our focus was clear:
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ending anti-Muslim sentiment
and hatred towards any targeted group
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as we stood shoulder to shoulder.
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In May 2016, the local Muslim community
issued a statement rejecting hate.
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In January 2017,
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a presidential order banning immigrants
from seven mostly Muslim countries
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was declared.
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This Muslim ban,
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which went into effect
on January 27, 2017,
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created tremendous anger
in our community that needed an outlet.
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A small group of us planned
and organized a community rally
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and started to get the word out.
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We were regular folks,
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not community organizers.
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We'd never done anything like this before.
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We shared information on Facebook
with our neighbors and friends
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and had no idea who would come,
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but also knew that it
was important to share
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the powerful, simple idea
behind this action.
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(In Yoruba) “Ènìyàn kan lon bímọ,
gbogbo ayé lon tọ́ ọmọ.”
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We were standing up for each other
and each other's children.
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And people showed up,
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young and old.
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It was extremely cold and below freezing,
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but that didn't stop people from coming.
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The community was responding
to our call for help.
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Over 700 allies came
to the event that day.
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A Jewish woman whose family
escaped religious persecution
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in the Holocaust in Slovakia
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came to support us.
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We sparked something beautiful
in La Crosse that day.
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We made compassion, equality
and justice everyone's business
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and made it everyone's business
to stand shoulder to shoulder together
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fighting fear and hate.
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For little La Crosse,
this was a very big crowd.
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But perhaps even more importantly,
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it gave my family and others
an unending sense of support and comfort
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that we were not alone
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and that more of our neighbors
and communities stood with us
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than against us.
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The lessons I've learned
from these experiences are:
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there are good people in every community,
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and your community will stand
shoulder to shoulder with you
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if you make it your business.
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(In Yoruba) “Ènìyàn kan lon bímọ,
gbogbo ayé lon tọ́ ọmọ.”
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When you really connect with a community
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and are vulnerable in your quest
for support and communion,
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good people will come forth.
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And sometimes, all it takes
is one spark to set things in motion.
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This year, hate crimes remain high,
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with latest FBI reports showing 70 percent
of those crimes being motivated by race,
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ethnicity, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.
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And persistent discrimination,
including the death of George Floyd,
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shows that we have
a lot of work to do in society.
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I mean, this is not one person's,
group's or organization's problem
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but all of our problems.
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We all have goodness in our hearts,
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so let's not sit on the sidelines.
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(In Yoruba) “Ènìyàn kan lon bímọ,
gbogbo ayé lon tọ́ ọmọ.”
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All of our children deserve
protection and help.
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And staying silent does not
make things better.
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So let's make our community
and world a better place
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by making standing up to
discrimination and hate
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everyone's business.