As a people, Black Americans have faced the indignity of enslavement, the horror of lynching, and the abomination of segregation. Because of these injustices committed against our people, we should, above all others, rise up against all forms of racism and cruelty. For this reason, I call upon young Blacks from across the country to take a stand against the rising tide of anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred. We must begin to recognize that the same bigotry that victimizes our community also victimizes our Jewish brothers and sisters.

The Anti-Defamation League's new report, The 1994 Anti-Defamation League Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, which chronicles acts of bigotry committed against the Jewish community, makes a convincing case that anti-Semitism is getting worse. The report, which was released in early 1995, tabulated 2,066 incidents of anti-Semitic violence, assault, arson, threats and harassment in 1994. This is the highest number of such incidents in the audit's 16-year-history. The shocking report cited a 17 percent increase of anti-Semitic campus incidents since 1993; 1,197 personal assault and harassment incidents; 869 acts of vandalism against Jewish institutions and Jewish-owned property; and 141 arrests for anti-Semitic crimes reported in 1994. The five states with the highest totals of anti-Jewish incidents are New York (440); New Jersey (237); California (232); Florida (158); and Massachusetts (134). However, the true tragedy of anti-Semitism can best be conveyed by stories of personal suffering, not by statistics.

In New York, for example, a Hasidic student was assaulted by two teens yelling anti-Semitic epithets. The victim was hit in the head with a wooden club by a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old. In Los Angeles, California, a self-proclaimed Skinhead attacked a yeshiva student with a three-foot pipe and screwdriver, while shouting, "I hate Jews! I'll kill you!" In Missouri, a woman was fired from her job after the owners found out she was Jewish. Her supervisor confirmed that her religion was the cause for her dismissal. In Michigan, a Jewish couple received a package in the mail containing a severed dog's head wrapped in a plastic bag; drawings of swastikas and the words "Dirty Jew" covered the dog's head. At San Francisco State University, a mural depicting Malcolm X included two Stars of David; one with skull and crossbones and the other with a "$" sign in the middle.

As a Black American, I am able to identify with the victims of anti-Jewish sentiments, because both racism and anti-Semitism are the sons of hatred. I remember being surrounded by several white students in the sandbox at Lowell Elementary School in Long Beach, California. Fear shot through my small brown-skinned body as the kids jeered at me and called me a "nigger" over and over again. Although I was one of the few black students attending the school, I had always felt a substantial degree of acceptance from my fellow pupils. This day, however, an argument in the sandbox during recess incited the racial epithets that hurt my feelings. At that moment, humiliation became my only companion. I felt as though I had done something wrong. I felt rejected by people I thought were my friends. I felt alone because I was Black.

This incident was my first encounter with racial hatred, but it certainly was not my last. As a young Black person, I constantly endure the slings and arrows of discrimination. For example, while I walk the streets at night, people often change direction when they see my thin Black frame approaching. Also, women sometimes clutch their purses when they find themselves alone with me in an elevator. And sometimes, when I tell people that I am a student at a prestigious law school, I get skeptical looks in return. These overt acts of racism constantly remind me that I cannot abandon the struggle for equality and justice. Fortunately, I have not allowed these negative experiences to turn me into a racist. Instead, I try to empathize with other people who feel the same sting of bigotry and intolerance. But more than empathy is needed. Those people who have suffered the effects of bigotry must do more than resist the temptation to become bigots themselves; they must join together with other victims of bigotry to fight hatred everywhere. "Not in my back yard" is a shortsighted and selfish attitude for fighting injustice. We must fight to end bigotry against all people everywhere. Injustice will not end until we begin to say, "Not in anybody's backyard."

As Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." The truth of Dr. King's concept as to the interrelationship of all people is undeniable. Pursuant to Dr. King's philosophy, the bigotry I face as a Black person is connected to the bigotry perpetrated against the Jewish community. In a larger sense, racism endured by Blacks is connected to the intolerance inflicted upon Jewish people. Therefore, I call upon young Blacks to fight against anti-Semitism and to heed the message of Dr. King, who stated, "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."


Mark Hardie is a member of the national Advisory Committee for the African-American leadership group Project 21.

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