By Vanessa Cort
“WE will not let hate win,” were the impassioned words of US Democratic Senator Mallory McMorrow last Monday during a speech on the Senate floor.

In a brewing row, which has turned into a growing social media firestorm, between McMorrow and fellow Senator, Republican, Lana Theis, the latter apparently accused the Michigan State Senator of grooming and sexualising young children.

During her scathing rebuttal of these allegations, McMorrow said she sought to represent transgender and LGBT children, people of colour and others who are being marginalised on a daily basis.

Her words must surely resonate with people around the world, particularly those who have allowed partisan politics to dictate how they interact with others.

“I don’t want to hate people because they’re different,” a highly emotional McMorrow declared, accusing the Republican Party of perpetrating and promoting this kind of behaviour.

Recent police killings of black men, notably the on-camera brutal ‘knee on the neck’ of Afro-American George Floyd, which led to his death, have caused many to affirm that racism is on the rise.

The cry was taken up by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement and echoed around the world as protesters took to the streets railing against racial prejudice and police brutality in the wake of Floyd’s death.

Some have argued that the statement ‘Black Lives Matter’ is racist and should really be ‘All Lives Matter.’ They completely miss the point that the concern is over black lives and the statement ‘All Lives Matter’ can only be true if black lives matter.

And for those who may not be African or of African ancestry, but are nonetheless people of colour, make no mistake that you are subject to the same prejudice and included in the broader statement ‘If you’re not white you’re black’.

Of course, the underlying reason for prejudice is hate spawned by ignorance and fear of what or who is different and we have been allowing our differences to divide us rather than embrace and appreciate the beauty of our diversity.

The struggle to bring about change cannot be one-sided, however, as Senator McMorrow acknowledged when she called on “white suburban moms” like herself “to stand up and say, ‘this is not okay.’”

People of all nationalities and ethnicities have to come together and speak out against racism and hate wherever they exist, following the example of protesters of all colours who marched in unity, carried placards and raised their voices against this growing canker in our societies.

As the Senator so wisely said, “Hate will only win if people like me stand by and let it.” And lending further testimony to this is the fact that hate crimes against Asians have surged in the US following the corona virus outbreak.

Reports state that Asian-Americans have been subjected to brutal attacks, usually in the form of beatings, which take place in broad daylight and in full view of other members of the public, who often do nothing to help.

In this country racial tension ‘rears its ugly head,’ particularly around election time when Indo and Afro Guyanese neighbours suddenly become enemies, friends fall out and even families become divided because of partisan politics which have evolved around the ethnic composition of the two major political parties.

As our own world-famous singer/songwriter Eddie Grant said in his chart-topping song decades ago, “Did you hear on the radio today, man shot for his colour and creed?… Race hate mashing up the world.” And the same is true today.

Writer and poet, Maya Angelou, said so succinctly, “Hate has caused a lot of problems in this world, but has not solved one yet.” And Coretta Scott King, wife of the late Civil Rights Leader, Dr Martin Luther King put it this way, “Hate is a great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.” But injure the hated it does and destroys the very fabric of society.