Feeling Hated

Feeling Hated

“At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other.” (Matthew 24:10 NIV)

I remember the first time I felt hated. It was during the Iran hostage crisis. Many of the brown-skinned children faced animosity from other students in school. Boys who ‘looked’ Middle-Eastern were chased and beaten up; it didn’t matter that they were Christians who lived down the street. As I grew up, I tried to forget these things. I tried my best to become assimilated. The slight accent that I had picked up from my parents was virtually unnoticeable. I was able to move through my days without thinking much about bigotry. Until the terrorist attack on 9/11 happened. Once again, we were treated as suspects until proven otherwise. We didn’t go out to malls or public areas for months, because people would sneer at us. Air travel was the worst. We prayed we wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom on flights, because that was considered suspicious activity for people who looked like us. Eventually, we learned to live with this. The 2016 elections have brought out our fears again. Over the last year, we have heard so much hate speech on TV directed toward people who look different. My family and I are hesitant to go to new places and public events again. My son, who is a young, brown-skinned man faces racial profiling on a routine basis. I am sickened by this.

I know that what my family faces is nothing compared to the persecution that African-Americans, Muslim-Americans, or newer immigrants from non-European countries experience. Many of us who look different no longer feel accepted or welcome in this country, and we have no other place to call home. This might seem overly dramatic, but I have nightmares that my family and I get rounded up and sent to concentration camps. It wasn’t too long ago when Native Americans were forced into reservations, and Japanese-Americans were corralled into internment camps. Even recently, African-Americans were routinely stopped and frisked in certain cities. Hispanic Americans are asked to prove their legal status in this country, even when they have been living in the U.S. for generations. Muslim-Americans are often treated like potential terrorists.  The hatred is not imaginary. I know that many of my Caucasian friends are not racists, but I wonder if they can understand our fear. Would they stand up for us if things got any worse? Would they hide my family in their attics like some Germans hid Jewish families during the holocaust? Even though many Germans were Christians, they somehow were able to justify persecuting the Jews. They just relabeled their hatred as patriotism. They turned away from their faith and hated their fellow citizens. They saw them as less deserving of respect and dignity because of their faith and their non-Aryan features. I wonder how much things have really changed...?