The Choice

I tried to silence that voice. I listed my many objections to the very
notion that I could be a bigot. I came to America penniless. I used the
“colored” bathroom in solidarity with my fellow African American
factory workers. I marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to end
segregation. But the voice insisted: Find the bigot in you. Find the part
in you that is judging, assigning labels, diminishing another’s
humanity, making others less than who they are.
e boy continued to rant about the blights to America’s purity. My
whole being trembled with unease, and I struggled with the
inclination to wag my ĕnger, shake my ĕst, make him accountable for
his hate—without being accountable for my own. is boy didn’t kill
my parents. Withholding my love wouldn’t conquer his prejudice.
I prayed for the ability to meet him with love. I summoned every
image I had of unconditional love. I thought of Corrie ten Boom, one
of the Righteous Gentiles. She and her family resisted Hitler by hiding
hundreds of Jews in their home, and she ended up in a concentration
camp herself. Her sister perished there—she died in Corrie’s arms.
Corrie was released due to a clerical error one day before all of the
inmates at Ravensbrück were executed. And a few years aer the war,
she met one of the most vicious guards at her camp, one of the men
who were responsible for her sister’s death. She could have spit on
him, wished him death, cursed his name. But she prayed for the
strength to forgive him, and she took his hands in her own. She says
that in that moment, the former prisoner clasping the hands of the
former guard, she felt the purest and most profound love. I tried to
ĕnd that embrace, that compassion, in my own heart, to ĕll my eyes
with that quality of kindness. I wondered if it was possible that this
racist boy had been sent to me so I could learn about unconditional
love. What opportunity did I have in this moment? What choice could
I make right then that could move me in the direction of love?
I had an opportunity to love this young person, just for him, for his