On Abovethelaw, lawyer-journalist Kathryn Rubino updates us on hate crimes since Donald Trump was elected U.S. president.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there have been 867 incidents in real life. Here is that report (link provided by Rubino).
Oh, horrors, members of Generation Y and Z might think. We from the Baby Boomers and Generation X know that hate crimes will flourish wherever there is unequal power.
That's likely why the Roman Catholic Church created its own parishes in Jersey City, New Jersey during the 1950s. At the time, that blue-collar ethnic and machine-controlled urban area was the easy first stop for immigrants.
St. Boniface parish was the sanctuary for Germans.
St. Anthony's for Polish.
Our Lady of Sorrows for Italians.
Each had its own school (K through 8).
At the time the Irish had the power. They were fair-skinned. We children of immigrants from southern Italy weren't. You know the rest.
The ethos of Our Lady of Sorrows, which was across the street from our duplex, was to instill ethnic pride and solidarity. One priest was always from Italy and spoke more Italian than English. The teaching staff also had an Italian heritage.
My grandmother and aunts were part of the network which set up "our own" stores, restaurants, and saloons. That infrastructure was necessary until the invention of the ethnically neutral supermarket. Then startup A&P wanted business. No longer did we kids have to take a bus to the Italian section of Jersey City to shop for our extended family.
And, by that time the Catholic leadership knew to teach us to take on protective coloring. Several family members dyed their hair blond. My sister got a breast reduction. Eventually I left the very Catholic "Mary" off my first name.
Supposedly, all's well that ends well. This will never end well.
Tribes which dominate will likely always torment those with less power. In the wild west of Tucson, Arizona, I was taken for Jewish. "They" smirked when I denied that.
After 27 months, I high-tailed it back to where I could, well, blend in, at least a little better.
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