Adversity offers fantastic opportunities to learn and for progress
“Let’s make this an opportunity to unite and organize,” Sam Kanig said.
“Far too long have we been dormant in the city and it’s time to wake up again. We have been working for a few years now to bring back the pride that once flooded these streets and if we don’t use this moment as a lesson on how we have barriers intended for our failure, then we’ve lost the battle .... ”
Kanig, a community activist, civic organizer helped found Galeria Casa Cultura, the region’s first and only Latino gallery, offered his insight in March 2017.
His cause for concern surfaced after Thomas Tyler painted a swastika over a Puerto Rico flag mural produced by Kanig and other artists on the door of a long vacant house.
Tyler, who owned the property, had given the group permission to produce the mural. However, anger erupted when the project completed. Tyler, told Fox 29: “Yeah...I did that I was a little mad,” he said. “But then I sprayed it right over it again . ... I didn’t want no Puerto Rican flag. He said a mural...he didn’t say anything about a Puerto Rican flag.”
A swastika painted onto a Puerto Rican flag out-conundrums Sir Winston Churchill’s “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”.
Both Trenton newspapers covered the incident but a search found no reaction from state legislators, city government officials or any actors involved in the current mess regarding antiSemitism.
City Council members Kathy McBride, Robin Vaughn and George Muschal have apologized for their disregard for the distasteful anti-Semitic slur voiced by President McBride. Council members Marge Caldwell-Wilson and Santiago Rodriguez remain steadfastly silent.
Council members Joseph Harrison and Jerell Blakeley pressed colleagues for an apology.
A Facebook post in 2017 by Kanig talked about his emotions and state of mind during the incident. His offering included this “....... Our children will continue to be victims of poor education, crime, drugs and poverty. Our youth will be victims of the pipeline to jail and families will be broken because there are people who profit from keeping us down.”
Racism, bigotry, bias and prejudice appear in many forms. Look around Trenton and give an honest assessment about where your eyes fall or look at your lives and gauge your diversity levels.
See the blight, violence and burned out souls on a stretch of Walnut Ave.; observe the loss of hope and life-risk of brothers and sisters on Stuyvesant Ave. and understand fully the demise of Spring St. which once produced doctors and lawyers, even the first African American mayors of Trenton and New York City. Knowing the current severe conditions of these areas and others and doing next to nothing exhibits systemic impropriety — an abandonment of enormous proportion that included look away from African American leaders.
Observations of lives underscore the seared segregation that exists in the United States as religious houses, schools, weddings, etc. highlight homogeneity.
Bandwagons allow easy access and travel with no-brainer responses to a situation such as the McBride, Muschal and Vaughn episode. With such a enormous response from all parts of New Jersey and nation against their ignorance, we should show remarkable success with anti-Semitism and other biased behavior.
Fears of ostracism override many attempts for construction of prejudice-crossing bridges. Whites fear being voted off Caucasian Island as N-word lovers and blacks show similar emotions of being identified as Uncle Toms or Oreos.
Not sure what words Hispanics employ for similar interracial events. Do know that we should heed Kanig’s words immediately or miss out on another opportunity for social progress.