Embracing a Dream: The Legacy of Oumar Dia
I’m getting ready to go all bleeding-heart, drum circle, kumbaya, hopey-changey liberal here, so if you can’t stomach it…well, you’ve been warned.
A few hours ago Randall created a page about about a white supremacist who, along with an accomplice, shot to death a Senegalese immigrant named Oumar Dia as he sat at a bus stop waiting for his ride home from work. It was a random, brutal, race-based hate crime. Mr. Dia was guilty of nothing but having a skin color these murderous cretins despised. They also shot and paralyzed a female witness at the scene.
At the end of the article was a link to the video below, telling the story of how people responded to this senseless killing with a spontaneous outpouring of heartfelt kindness. Those acts built a bridge of ongoing friendship between the people of Denver & the residents of Mr. Dia’s tiny village in Senegal, and opened doors of understanding & mutual respect between two vastly different cultures, doors that people on both sides perhaps weren’t aware could exist.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.—Jelaluddin Rumi
These are the things that restore my faith in humanity when I begin to feel that all the negativity & evil in the world is winning. They demonstrate that when we refuse to answer hate with hate, we help each other move up the ladder of social/spiritual evolution a step, and that benefits everyone. Let those who choose to harden their hearts with malice & contempt for their fellow human beings rot in the putrid darkness of their ignorance—the rest of us have much hard work to do.
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