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The Words on the Walls

4/23/2016

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"Go...back....to....Africa..." 

The boy read the words, quietly, to another child sitting next to him in the pews before Sunday mass at Curry Temple C.M.E. Church in Seattle.

The two were trying to decipher the sloppy handwriting on the back wall of the sanctuary. 

Did they understand the meaning of the swastika in the entrance? What about the large "N-word" that scarred one of the hallways? 

I felt like I was somewhere in Mississippi or perhaps Alabama in the 1960's.

But this was 2016. In Seattle.

Other members of the congregation soon arrived, unaware of the overnight vandalism, until they took off their coats, grabbed a bulletin, and looked up. What the hell is that?

Here they were, in their sacred place, slapped in the face by hate.

Usually burglars just take things. Whoever it was that broke into Curry Temple left something behind...slurs, scrawled in black spray paint.

A woman sobbed and shuffled to her seat. 

I tried to imagine what this was like for them. How would I feel if someone came into my home, to take my valuables and assault my identity?

More tears, hugs, prayers...

It was such a painful scene.

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