Unlearning Hate

As one who has lived in and loved Tucson, Arizona, and the rare desert it dwells in, I became a citizen again during the horror and darkness of these past days. Beyond the tragic events, the newsreels, updates, statements, hospital reports, heroism, grief, terror, and in the midst of the crime scene, I struggled with Hate.

As a student at the University of Arizona in my mid forties, I was mugged in that very Safeway parking lot. Out of the shadows, Hate rushed up, grabbed at my purse, and threw me to the ground. I fell on the bag, bruised in body and spirit, and my attacker crept back into the darkness without any gain. It was hard not to reflect his face, his disregard, his feeling--that arrow aimed at me.

I drove to a nearby coffee shop, sat in a booth, sobbing. A woman came over, a nurse. She sat down beside me and talked me out of the shock, dipped a napkin in the glass of water someone had brought me, wiped my face and arms and hands, and said, “These bruises will heal. It will take a long while, but they will fade.”

And they did. And the man’s face faded, and so did the incident, which I hadn’t thought of for years until Saturday morning, when Hate came again to that parking lot.

Hate has had plenty of time to grow since my small incident. It’s taken on many aliases in the years that followed. Mostly, it has become a master of denial. “Not racism,” it protests. “Not bigotry or prejudice.” It whines on. “Not ignorance or greed.” Under its breath, it protests that it is not even its own name. It’s moved into neighborhoods, groups, corporations, even into the heart of our political structure, our world reputation. It steals from the hungry to feed itself. It never counts its money because it knows it will never be enough. It breeds. It knows well the arts of deceit and doublethink. Echoes of Orwell.

“Not I,” I say. “Not mine,” I protest. “I am not part of that, and it is not part of me.” But like the tango, it takes two. Hate must see its reflection in my eyes, for I know Fear, the son of Hate. Hate must sense, too, what I do not acknowledge in myself. And thus our battle continues.

From the shambles of lives lost and the sound of shots, from the quick response and the risks to reach the fallen, from the child born on 9/11 and taken on this infamous day, from the hearts of an astronaut and a compassionate Congresswoman, what do I take away from my citizenship in a city of shock?

I can pick up the cloak Hate dropped as it scurried back to the shadows. That’s my first thought.

Or will I choose to draw a line and refuse to cross it? To unlearn hatred and step aside from its arrows poisoned with fear? To watch them fall as though they were flowers. To tend the bruises and watch them fade without rancor or return.

I choose to draw that line. It will be a fine line, wiggled a little to read “Hate stops here.”

Do I have the strength for that? Do you?