Our Shared Struggle

“If there is no struggle there is no progress.”
Frederick Douglass

Dear Beach Community,

The loss of life caused by racial hatred is heartbreaking—this past week, of course, but also in the months and decades prior.

Our shared humanity is overlooked each time some among us devalue the sanctity of life. Each time a person’s existence is treated in a disrespectful way some of that shared humanity is lost. This loss hurts the victims, certainly, and the perpetrators as well. If we begin to accept the violence as normal or as the fault ofonly the individuals involved we take a step in the wrong direction.

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

As part of that single garment we cannot be silent. We must be active. We should, I think, focus on building a world free of discrimination based on perception of another human being as the other, as one who is somehow less worthy of admiration, care, or justice.

We are a small community, but one motivated by social justice and sophisticated in understanding the intersectionalities that create oppressive and dangerous conditions for many. As we grieve, let’s also commit to shared action from every sector of campus to make our community a beacon of peace in the spirit described by additional words from Dr. King, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”

Let’s keep talking about our gut-wrenching present and history as humans who visit violence upon other humans. If we work together to resist the temptations of hatred, vengeance, and seeing certain groups of people as the other, we have a chance. If we don’t, we are all diminished.

Go Beach!