In response to the deaths of eight people, six of whom were Asian women, in the Tuesday, March 16 shooting in Atlanta, Georgia, the Humboldt Asians & Pacific
Islanders (HAPI) in Solidarity and the Humboldt Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bayside will host a walking meditation/vigil on Sunday, March 21, from 4 to 7 p.m. Participants are required to wear masks and practice social distancing on the silent walk and in the courtyard, where there will be a chance to speak.
According to the press release sent out Friday, “The tone of the vigil is compassionate, peaceful, and respectful, to demonstrate support for Asians and Pacific Islanders against whom acts of violence have been increasing over the past year.” Participants are invited to bring “letters, flowers, and other mementos of love, care, support and strength.” Read the full release below:
Love Over Hate – Coming Together to Stand Against Racism and Misogyny and To Support Asians and Pacific Islanders and Women Against Acts of Violence
The Humboldt Asians & Pacific Islanders in Solidarity (HAPI) and the Humboldt Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (HUUF) invite the public to unite in solidarity against racism and misogyny and to participate in a ‘walking meditation’ in remembrance of the victims of the recent Atlanta shootings. The vigil will be held on Sunday, March 21, from 4-7 PM, on the grounds of the Unitarian Fellowship, 24 Fellowship Way, Bayside, CA.
We seek to honor the lives of the eight people who were murdered in Atlanta on Tuesday, March 16. Six of the seven women killed were of Asian descent. The tone of the vigil is compassionate, peaceful, and respectful, to demonstrate support for Asians and Pacific Islanders against whom acts of violence have been increasing over the past year. A donations jar will be set out. Any donations received will be sent to the families of the victims and to support the work of the Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the nation’s largest network of legal and civil rights organizations for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.
To keep our community safe, wearing masks and maintaining social distancing of 6 feet apart are required. People are invited to bring letters, flowers, and other mementos of love, car
e, support, and strength. The walking meditation will begin from the parking lot to the torii, the Japanese gateway to the sacred, where mementos can be left. Then individuals, spaced apart, may walk silently along the pathway, and can also walk behind the Fellowship Hall to the patio courtyard, where individuals may speak their piece. The Fellowship Hall will not be open.
Because this vigil will span 3 hours, people are invited to come for a portion of that time and walk in silence, while on the grounds of the Fellowship. Parking is limited, and individuals leaving will provide space for others to come.
For more information, email hapi.humboldt@gmail.com, as well as the Facebook page for HAPI.
This article appears in The Cannabis Issue, 2021.
Although research reveals infants demonstrate a preference for caregivers of their own race, any future racial biases and bigotries generally are environmentally acquired. (Adult racist sentiments are often cemented by a misguided yet strong sense of entitlement, perhaps also acquired from one’s environment.)
One means of proactively preventing this social/societal problem may be by allowing young children to become accustomed to other races in a harmoniously positive manner. Sadly, some very unfortunate people—who may now be in an armed authority capacity—were raised with an irrational distrust or blind dislike of other racial groups.
The first step towards changing our irrationally biased thinking can be our awareness of it and its origin. But until then, I believe, such biased sentiments should either be kept to oneself or counselled, especially when considering the mentality is easily inflamed by anger.
Remove the greatest difference among humans—race/color—and left are less obvious differences over which to clash, such as sub-racial identity (i.e. ethnicity), nationality, religion and so forth down that scale we tumble. And throw a contemporary deadly virus into the ugly equation for a really hateful fire.
I occasionally muse that, what humankind may need to suffer in order to survive the long term from ourselves is an even greater nemesis (perhaps a multi-tentacled ET?) than our own politics and perceptions of differences, against which we could all unite, attack and defeat—all during which we’d be forced to work closely side-by-side together and witness just how humanly similar we are to each other.
Then again, maybe some five or more decades later when all traces of the nightmarish ET invasion are gone, we’ll inevitably revert to the same typical politics of scale to which we humans seem so collectively hopelessly prone; including that of the intercontinental, international, national, provincial or state, regional and municipal.