At a high school basketball game, a player spit on a player from the opposing team and the crowd was heard shouting racial slurs. A medical provider is asked not to treat a patient by his family because of where he comes from. A person hides their identity because of the fear that they might be harmed. A seven-year-old telling their peer that because they are Black, they should go to another school. Making judgements on someone because they have a substance use disorder. Making jokes about a person’s faith. Rioting on college campuses. The school calls you because another student called your son a monkey. Bullying a child who is autistic. You would think I was talking about the 1960s or 1970s but no I am talking about today. I am telling you of the many stories I have heard over the last few months. These stories anger me, they sadden me, and they shock me.
There comes a time when the good people must come together and say we have had enough. This is not about blaming it is about changing the course and direction for our future generations. We must move this conversation out of the meeting rooms and Zoom calls and into the public. We need to start at our own kitchen tables and then to our schools. We cannot fix this at a one hour a month DEI meeting with no plan to move forward. We cannot continue to have trainings without a plan to say, ‘We have had enough.” Strength comes in numbers. Success comes when people from all backgrounds, faiths, races, genders, sexual orientations and ethnicities say, “No more.” As adults our young people are asking us for guidance. They are asking us to set an example of how we should treat each other and right now we have a failing grade.
I remember back in 1976 when my mother and my three brothers were living in Boston. We watched on the news as parents from South Boston were holding up signs and yelling the most horrible words at the young Black kids that were forced to leave their neighborhood schools and go to an all-white school. I remember not understanding what was happening, but I saw the anger on my mother’s face, but my mother made it clear that not all White people are like those people. She taught us to judge people by their character not by how they looked. She established that foundation in us. Understand, we were not perfect, but we had the tools to understand right from wrong. Those same lessons I have tried to instill in my children. It was lessons they had to learn as they were multiracial and multicultural. I thought we were done with those days but as we have seen hate is letting us know “I am still here.”
Hate wins in silence but we must create an environment where people can feel they are heard, and that change is coming. When I began to tell my story people would ask me why I didn’t say anything when it happened. That was always an odd question to me. We all know the answer. Victims go silent every day. It took people who didn’t look like me that helped me get my voice back. It is why I do the work I do. I want to give people a voice and a chance to stand tall and say, “No more.”
There is something I want to say to the Pittsfield High School basketball team that experienced hate and violence (Yes spitting is a violent act) at a high school tournament. I don’t just stand with you I am the voice screaming from the roof top “WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH”
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Martin Luther King Jr
Charles Redd RN
Dignity Freedom Fighter
Dignity Freedom Fighter 