On September 3 on my way to work I stopped to pick up my Carroll County Times from the paper box, and in the box was what at first glance appeared to be a solicitation for home improvements or something similar. Upon closer examination of the flyer, I was stunned - it was an "invitation" (albeit, a poorly crafted one) to a rally of the KKK scheduled for the coming weekend in Sharpsburg at the Antietam Battlefield. The related article about this event was in the September 4 edition of the Times.
At first I really couldn't believe it was real, but the longer I looked at it, the more it became apparent that it was indeed genuine.
My initial reaction was a churning in my stomach, coupled with a visceral anger and deep sense of violation. How dare this group spread their vile, hateful message in my community, and in such a cowardly way? My anger then turned to profound sorrow. How sad to find that 50 years after Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at our nation's capitol, we are still grappling with the same hatred so prevalent in the years leading up to and during the Civil Rights era.
After spending the bulk of the day being unsettled, I finally turned to consider "WWGD" - What Would Gandhi Do? By responding to the flyer with my own hatred and anger, I was in effect letting them win. I cannot change their misguided views by acting in the same fashion as they do, but rather true change must come from a place of tolerance, and creative non-violent resistance.
Rather than succumb to the darkness of their message by hating them back, I choose to use this message as an opportunity to redouble my own personal efforts toward building bridges to understanding, to accepting each person as an individual and to creating a community where those individual differences are celebrated, not persecuted.
Stacy Shaffer
Westminster
