Over Lunar New Year, I pulled old photographs of my ancestors and brought back some old traditions that my parents used to do. I avoided it for so long because the memories were painful, but I got past it, as I wanted to engage the kids in being respectful to their elders and to their ancestors.
I got to thinking how stressed out I’d be if I had to protect my aging parents from racist violence.
People are hurting, and maybe that’s why they’re shoving Asian women to the ground and pushing over old Asian people until they die? The 84-year-old man who was killed would have been the same age as my father.
And the SF DA calls the assailant’s actions a “temper tantrum”?
My kids get temper tantrums and they look nothing like that.
I wish I could have had access to these perps before they committed their crimes. I wish I could have invited them into my home and shared a meal at my ancestor’s table. I wish I had access to them somehow before they decided to take their frustrations out on strangers. I would have shared that a little respect goes a long way. I don’t want to know what happened in their lives for them to be so far removed from rational behavior. I would not make a good jury member on these trials, this I know. My heart aches though for the families, the lives lost brutally and the misspent youth’s parents who must now go through their own hell of trying to figure out what went wrong.
Sigh.
