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Our country is experiencing a worrying increase in hatred directed against minority communities and individuals. Recent examples include the assault of a Jewish man in Times Square in New York City and the stabbing of two elderly Asian women while they were waiting for a bus in San Francisco.
The US Department of Justice cites other cases in Indiana and Michigan of more brutality against African Americans and a jury conviction in Illinois of a man who bombed an Islamic center.
Violence against Asian Americans increased dramatically overall during the COVID-19 pandemic; according to a study, with a peak of 164% in the first quarter of 2021 in the 16 largest cities in the United States. And as fighting in the Middle East has intensified this spring between Israel and the Palestinians, attacks against the Jewish population in the United States have also intensified. These attacks have increased dramatically in recent years.
This trend should affect us all, regardless of our religion, race, ethnicity or personal politics. Sadly and worryingly, the recent 2020 presidential election has only reinforced the deep political, racial, geographic, socio-economic divisions within our nation.
Some members of the pro-Trump mob who attacked our Capitol and beat up police in Washington, DC earlier this year wore MAGA: Civil War t-shirts on January 6, 2021, carried a Confederate flag in the marbled halls of the Congress, and at least one seditionist was pictured in an Auschwitz camp sweatshirt.
Political poison has also entered our own state, pitting Utahn against Utahn. Anti-Semitism is evident in our capital, where a synagogue was recently vandalized with a Nazi swastika. This symbol of hatred has also been graffiti in other parts of our state.
In 2020, Utah reported more than 800 violent crimes against residents of Asian or Pacific Islander descent. And while our state has made progress on LGBTQ + rights and equality, prejudice against these community members remains a concern, including during Pride Month.
One of us, a former Utah state legislator and member of the Jewish faith, writes from personal experience. Anti-Semitism manifested itself in the form of hateful comments expressed in local grocery stores and harassment in his home neighborhood.
The other of us, who represented the US State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan for seven consecutive years, saw firsthand what unchecked hatred and violence can do within and towards communities.
If any state is to have a visceral understanding of what hate can mean and the serious damage it can cause to families, it is Utah. Well over a century ago, many of our pioneer ancestors were forced into the remote mountains and dry deserts of the American West, in wagons and handcarts, hunted down by bigotry and anti-Mormon violence. Empathy has always been a strong value in Utah, but it is a quality that must be practiced to be enduring, not just preached from the pulpit.
We are more diverse than we think. About 120 languages are spoken in homes in Salt Lake County, with the top 10 (after English) being Spanish, Vietnamese, Tongan, Chinese, Samoan, German, Serbo-Croatian, French, Portuguese and Russian, according to the US Census Bureau.
Our quaint, industrious, globally-minded and rapidly growing Beehive State, the fastest in the country for the past decade, was discovered as many businesses and workers relocate here and the labor market prosperous. For Utah to be truly welcoming as our diversity deepens, each of us has a proactive role to play in uplifting our public discourse and helping to protect the most vulnerable among us.
All Utahns who care enough must take a firm stand against hate speech and acts of hate. If you hear him, call him. If you see it, report it. If a family member, neighbor, or church member is peddling this kind of poison, push back.
Write letters to the editor. Join groups fighting for civility. Pressure our all-Republican congressional delegation to be conscience-driven and solution-oriented while working for more balance and wisdom in our local politics as the critical redistribution process is debated and decided more late this year.
The silence of us the people is equivalent to complicity. And apathy to hateful behavior leads to more, not less, including a day when it might be directed at you or your own family, if it hasn’t already.
In the months and years to come, we must work together to ensure that the politics of empathy prevail over the politics of hate. This is the kind of Utah that will move us forward, together, stronger and as a more optimistic and safer place for all residents of our states.
Patrice Arent served for 20 years in the Utah Legislature and for a decade as co-chair of the National Association of Jewish Lawmakers, where she still sits on the board of directors. She also sits on numerous non-profit community boards.
Kael Weston, a former U.S. State Department official, teaches at the University of the Marine Corps, is the author of The Mirror Test: America at War in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was the Democratic Party candidate in the 2nd 2020 Utah Congressional District.
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