FROM PORTLAND WITH LOVE: FACING FEAR IN A MOMENT OF HATE

Why this resource is helpful:

After a hate attack in Portland, how do people who witness hate and harassment find the courage to stand up for each other?
Quoted From: https://www.niot.org/blog/portland-love-facing-fear-moment-hate

""Tell them, I want everybody on the train to know I love them."

Those were the dying words of Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche who was stabbed by a white supremacist on a commuter train in Portland. Meche, Rick Best and Micah Cole Fletcher were stabbed when they stood up for two young women who were being taunted and told to "get out of his country."

Overcoming hate requires courage. When victims come forward to report incidents and speak to the media, the whole community depends on their bravery. This is the way we can understand the impact, scale and true toll of violence and harassment.

Those who are not the direct targets of bigotry need to do something about it. At this moment, when so many people are being attacked and harmed by hate, there has been a bold increase in upstander behavior across the country. But what happens next, after this high profile attack on the brave people of Portland who intervened? Will fear keep us from standing together?

A coworker expressed what many people may be thinking. "I would absolutely be one of those people who would stand up if I heard racist threats, but now, I"m afraid."

Facing fear is the first step in defeating it. And the fear of being the target of hate is something that so many are living with every single day.

"Communities of color experience hate in every aspect of our lives," -Arjun Singh Sethi, a Sikh American civil rights lawyer based in Washington DC

"It braids through our daily existence, just like friendship, work and family. We encounter it in schools, workplaces and public life. And what we fear most is hate violence, the kind that was on full display in Portland this weekend.""

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