Friends,
As many of you know, many of us in our community have been feeding the volunteers collecting donations at the Chicano Park donation drop point.
Yesterday, our group of primarily gringos experienced some resistance to serving the primarily Latino volunteers. We came to find out that earlier in the day, they were harassed by the Minutemen and some people came to take away donations, which the volunteers at this station allowed. Why did this happen? Because this drop point is trying help undocumented, non-English speaking people as well as others directly effected by the fires.
Because of this, the volunteers were hesitant to trust. Were we spying, trying to hurt them somehow? We talked with the organizers and some of the tension was relieved. Trust can be hard to come by sometimes.
This morning, Brooke, my kids and others from our community went to the donation drop point again. Our group was delivering breakfast to the volunteers. Four police cars arrived aggressively questioning the intent of the people working this drop point. It was an ugly scene. Seeing only kindness and generosity expressed by these volunteers, my children drove away now afraid of the police because of how they treated the volunteers.
I was planning on sending out a hopeful note this morning. I wanted to share with you about how beautiful it has been to see San Diego’s often divided groups come together and work together peacefully in such a dark hour. But instead I feel I need to get the word out on this.
This is not the time to put citizenship or skin color over humanity. Some of you may not agree with my ‘political leanings’ and that is okay. I will be honest with you, this is not political for me. I don’t want to sound pious, I say this with the utmost sincerity, I am compelled to stand with these people because I am a follower of Jesus.
Please get out the word about this. If you are in the area, go to Chicano Park and use your presence to provide protection to these people. Yes, I am asking you to trust me that the intentions of this group are for good. You are going to hear otherwise. Be prepared. But please act, pray and publicize this.
As a last note, SD IndyMedia may be the best place to find out about this stuff.
4 Comments
Wow. I’m sitting here stunned at the ugliness.
And here are people who don’t get all the mainstream media coverage… unless it’s negative. Let’s spread the word about the great people I met there yesterday, and the great things they are doing!
Fight the Powers, sisters and brothers. Reading, Pa has a similar racial divide between latinos and anglos. Nasty stuff. I’m praying for ya’ll.
You know, when I was growing up, my mom was severely prejudiced against black people, just because of who they were.
50 years after the civil rights movement first started, you might think (hope?) America has risen above differences as petty as skin and language, but it hasn’t.
As a law-abiding American, I am opposed to folks breaking the law. As a Christian, I am commanded to love everyone. How do we reconcile this seeming difference?
It’s easy, really. Jesus commands us to obey the laws of the government, but love our neighbor as ourselves. He commands us to feed the hungry, clothe the poor and give to the needy out of the abundance He’s given to us. Maybe if we all practiced this every day, there would be less laws broken.
History proves time and time again that justice without compassion is not justice at all. It saddens me to see that some in our community still haven’t figured this out.
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