OPINION: North Shore Is Better Than Recent Racial Incidents

The following is a letter submitted to Patch from Lauren Noyes of North Shore Sides With Love:

SALEM, MA — I have been lucky enough to live on the North Shore for the past four or five years.

Something that strikes me about the region is how segregated it is. In terms of race, economic caste, language, religion and culture, we live in discrete pockets of homo-and heterogeneity.

As a lifelong Masshole, I've always noticed this segregation and wondered about it. I see that, clearly, it is neither a neutral nor a harmless thing.

While, historically, we pride ourselves on being a refuge for newcomers — the LGBTQ+ community, students and STEM experts from all nations — that welcoming spirit is not yet pervasive throughout our communities. There is a deep history of abolition, education and justice work here, is it not always the biggest influence on our everyday lives.

Long before redlining and town-tax-based funding for schools had such a strong negative influence, we saw wealthy shipping merchants profit next door to people who were enslaved or paid insultingly low wages.

Even now, in 2021, we see a widening split between those working for exploitation wages and those with middle-and upper-level incomes. It is increasingly rare for someone who works in Salem, for example, to be able to live in town, much less anywhere within commuting distance.

When you chop the lower rungs off the economic ladder, what is left?

When a community isn't just gentrified but homogenized, what do we lose?

Economic and cultural forces are, once again, segregating our people and leaving behind mostly "wealthy and white" Levittowns.

While these trends ebb and flow, they will not move toward equity and justice unless we force them in that direction. A red flag for this damaging, dehumanizing, culture-easing trend is how the community responds when marginalized people are abused.

One canary in the coalmine is a halfhearted response to hate graffiti, hate crimes and other acts of bigotry. Throughout the North Shore, which has long been an incubator for racism, hate groups, and greedy NIMBY-ism, we have recently seen less-than-effectual responses to hate crimes, hate propaganda, and, specifically, hate graffiti.

I write this after reading about yet more hate crime, hate propaganda, and hate vandalism events in the past week.

Here is just one recent example in Salem, as well as others in Salem and Danvers.

Instead of being afraid of our community becoming complacent about hate, those in power often seem to be more afraid of "stirring up trouble." They forget that we already have trouble, and it needs to be addressed.

Our response to evil needs to be swift, clear and firmly rooted in our founding principles. In all things, we show our commitment to "Do No Harm" when we are willing to have conversations that may hurt or be uncomfortable.

Removing a splinter may hurt, but leaving it in can do irreparable harm. Honestly evaluating, confessing and responding to hate may hurt, but ignoring it does great harm, especially to the people hate seeks to marginalize.

We begin taking off our blinders when we choose to look evil squarely in the face and believe that it exists. We cannot solve this sort of problem without understanding the reality of its existence and the damage it does to valued members of our community.

As in all things, Truth matters.

Thankfully, some among us are willing to be honest about the problem. I want to encourage and thank those bending the trend in the right direction. I want to push us all to recommit to this work that saves lives.

The heroes and servants on the Graffiti Task Force are an excellent example. They reclaim the places in our city that the sociopathic haters try to steal from us. They return, again and again, to paint truth on top of lies, and welcome on top of exclusion.

While the cowards may steal and deface, the heroes choose to redeem and replace. Thank you for making it clear that hate will not win here.

This our turf, however, damaged its history, and we want it to stand for light instead of fear or cowardice.

The leaders who speak up, write letters, join committees, attend boring meetings, donate to antiracist and anti-hate organizations, and do the internal work — they are also our heroes and examples. A few of our elected officials have denounced this hate and called upon the community to do the work to uproot racism and antisemitism in the region.

A few. Too few.

I wait with anticipation to see how the rest will respond, whether with silence or with love. Each day is full of opportunities to heal or to harm. Failure to act only permits harm to double down and spread.

Delay denies the humanity of the victimized.

I exhort our elected (officials) to do better. It is clear that hate, fear, insecurity and cowardice drive the sociopathic stupidity of bigots. Nothing is gained, by anyone, when one person chooses to abuse another. Both are harmed, and perception of the altercation urges other cowards to follow suit.

The source of this misbehavior is deep dysfunction and desperate fear that insisting upon equity, justice and respect for some people would somehow magically take something away from others.

Selfishly flailing, the ignorant lash out and hurt anyone nearby with a "different" identity feature. Rather than deal with areas for growth in their own lives, they throw tantrums, insisting they are somehow more valuable or valid than others are, and thereby don't need to grow up.

Thankfully, the rest of us know, and data proves, the truth that a rising tide does lift all boats.

Because this sort of evil is remedied mostly on the individual level, our population of everyday people has the most power to effect change. Do we call out, myth-bust, advocate against these evils? Do we vote to change the policies that allow the abuse to continue? Do we donate our time, talent and treasure to the groups doing the most effective work? Do we assume and insist that the cowards do their homework, or do we allow our silence to be wrongly taken to mean assent or complicity?

However big or small, offensive or mundane, relatable or abstract, we cannot ignore these damaging actions.

I remind myself: "Hate has done harm to people who are my equals, my neighbors and my friends.

"Enough is enough.”

Let us recommit to doing the work that saves lives. Let us honestly confess the existence of racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia in our lives, families and communities.

Let us work with, and donate our talents to, organizations throughout the North Shore that prevent these evils from taking any more turf from the rest of us. Let us have, host and foster difficult conversations, enduring the pain, so that racist, antisemitic and xenophobic abuse ends with us.

The buck stops here. Imagine this with me: What impact would it have if, each time a hate incident happened, the rest of us, aspirational people of character, did something to undermine the haters?

Some friends and I play a dry version of a drinking game, which I like to call "Redeem the Moment:"

Each time we hear about a hate incident, hate crime, hate graffiti, hate rally, or other instance of discrimination, we either donate or get others to donate to an anti-racist organization.

I would love for you all to join in. Let's turn dismay into action.

Overall, at our best, the North Shore Sides with Love.

Let's make that sentiment a reality in the lives of the marginalized right here in our towns.