Turning the Other Cheek

Today we left Rome in route for Tuscany. After I packed up my backpack contents I walked out the gates of the Peter Pan Hostel towards our car which we left parked on the street in eyeshot of the hostel. Still covered in a solid layer of red dust from Hvar, I walked up on her to find four 30ish looking men all with short haircuts checking her out. One was carefully drawing something on the trunk so I called out laughingly, “Ah, I caught you!” Thinking he had written some Italian version of “wash me” to accompany the “see you in Barcelona” note left by the Spanish girls upon their departure from Didier's place. Instead as the “artist” walked away I locked eyes on a perfectly executed swastika. I looked up at the cowards as they slowly rounded the corner with smirks on their faces. “Thanks, very nice, assholes,” I shouted after them. I then went about my usual routine of packing the trunk. I grabbed my canteen from the passenger seat and poured water over the trunk, and while I am overly tired of drinking the various waters from bathroom sinks across the EU, I was grateful for this fresh reserve that allowed us to avoid brandishing this polarizing symbol of hate. I wiped it clean with a napkin, its life on my trunk was less than a minute, however hours later, this image, the act, the upset was still fresh in my mind.

I went into the hostel to gather Ham and met him on the stairs carrying the last of his stuff from the room. After we made it out of the gates I relayed what had just occurred, and his first response was “were they Indian guys?” I quickly snapped, “No, this wasn't an ancient Hindu symbol they left, these were four dumb ass Neo-Nazi skinheads!” He seemed unfazed. While I decided at that moment that this wasn't going to ruin my day, I made no such commitment regarding my thoughts. I thought about the random spray painted swastikas I've noticed during our time in Europe. They have been few and random, on a road barrier in the mountains, a small handbill in Berlin, the words “white boys sprawled on a wall in Croatia. I had asked about the presence of hate groups when we were staying with the girls, the two doctors in Berlin. Their response was that they're not allowed to advertise or organize publicly, and that was that.

As we rounded the corner leaving the hostel, I fantasized about catching them at the bus stop, pointing them out to Ham and shouting yet another obscenity at them as I hurled a grapefruit that I planned on eating for breakfast. I also pictured them catching up to us at the light, kicking and denting our car or worse. Our Italian guidebook made mention of a hate crime just a few years ago where several Italian men killed an African immigrant in the streets. I thought about Susan Glisson and all that I had learned from her about racial reconciliation work. I thought about my mentors and friends in Philadelphia, MS and Tallahatchie County who had experienced real fear, hatred, and physical violence. I appreciate that on the scale of atrocities this is a minor violation, however overlooking acts such as these small ones almost endorses it, remaining silent implies acceptance and tolerance for racial hatred—this is never okay. My mind continued to race on, with the images of St. Peter's Cathedral still fresh from the day before I thought of the teachings of Jesus regarding turning the other cheek.

Turning the cheek is all about letting transgressions go, and forgiveness, not for the benefit of the transgressors per say, but to free the victim of the weight of life killing anger. I thought about the racial reconciliation work that must be occurring across Europe and how to ally with those folks should we choose to remain in the EU and the challenges of communicating about such a hard subject across languages and cultures. This strikes me as rewarding work.

We never saw those guys again, but I'm sure we'll continue to encounter them in various corners of the world. While I believe they were guests at our hostel I didn't know if they had seen me and Ham or how they could know this was our vehicle. Perhaps their motivation had nothing to do with us at all, and was merely due to the irresistible invitation a dusty car surface provides.