I am Black. I am Jewish. I work in the field of hate crimes not only as a professional who responds to incidents, builds coalitions and educates others but as someone who has lived their reality. I carry it in my skin. In my breath. In my children’s safety plans. I don’t need a white paper to define what I already feel in my blood and bones. I know what hate looks like.

When Black people are murdered in Buffalo while grocery shopping, we do not sit in circles wondering whether we can really call it racism. We do not write op-eds asking for nuance. We do not entertain long think-pieces parsing whether it might have been just a tragedy or mental health-related. No. We say: This was a racist, anti-Black hate crime. Because it was.

But as a Jew, I have learned that our community doesn’t always offer that same clarity or solidarity when the hate targets us.

In Washington, D.C., two people who attended a Jewish event, working for peace, were executed outside a Jewish building. It is clear to me and to so many others: This was a........

© The Jewish Week