On Sunday morning I got up early to get ready for Sunday worship. Often it is my practice to check the news for a moment, to be aware of anything current happening before coming to the Fellowship building, rather than being surprised by the news after I’m there.
 
Checking the NPR news app on my phone, there was a big one: 9 People Dead in a Mass Shooting in California, the headline read. Shooting occurred at a Lunar New Year festival, was the subtitle. This is a breaking story.
 
I knew that this was Chinese New Year, more accurately called Lunar New Year. The horror of another mass shooting struck me—and the near-certainty in my mind that it was targeted: targeted against Asian Americans the way that nightclub shootings have been targeted against LGBTQ people. I imagined a white male shooter committing a hate crime.*
 
On my phone and I scrolled down a little farther. There was another story about the Lunar New Year, but this one was a video—a rap song, as the caption explained, created by elders in the Asian community in San Francisco. I clicked on it and watched the one-minute video.
 
The joy and spunk of these women in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, doing a rap that celebrates Chinese culture, and the Chinese-American experience in a real and light-hearted way, moved me to tears. Overwhelmed with emotion, I didn’t know if I was laughing or crying, and realized that it was both at the same time. My sadness and fear and anger, thinking of the families of victims of yet another shooting, brought tears of rage and despair. My joy, in seeing the hilarious video of elders celebrating a minority culture with pride and dignity and humor, brought tears of exhilaration and hope. Both types of tears were mixed and simultaneous.
 
And what was clear to me in that moment was this: the joy is a necessary answer to the violence. Joy and song and dancing and laughter give us resilience in a world of violence and hate crimes and mass shootings. It was then I knew that sharing the video during morning worship, as part of the children’s time in a worship service devoted to Elderhood, was the right thing to do. Joy is the message and joy is the way forward. A link to the video is here.
 
*As I learned (and we all learned) later, the shooter was a 72 year-old Asian American with personal ties to the dance hall where the shooting happened. Therefore the event is probably not characterized as a hate crime. The ultimate death toll was 11 dead and 9 wounded, and the gunman also killed himself when confronted by police.
 
PRAYER:
May God bless the families of those who died in the Los Angeles Lunar New Year shooting. May God smile warmth and radiance and healing on those wounded in the attack.
 
God, you are Chinese; you are Asian; you are American; you are a dragon and you are a rabbit.
 
God, I hear you in the voices of the Grant Avenue Follies and their sacred, joyful, funny rap song. God, you are alive in their dancing and in the traditions they celebrate.
 
May the Year of the Rabbit bring good luck and peace to all of God’s creatures, with no exceptions.
 
Blessed be.
 
Rev. Andrew (Drew) Frantz

On Monday I celebrated Martin Luther King Day with others from this Fellowship at two local events. In the morning, we attended the CommUNITY Peace Brunch at Central Michigan University which featured three student speakers reflecting on the meaning of the day. In the afternoon, we carried our UUFCM banner in the march from the university campus to downtown. We finished the day by warming up with hot chocolate in the UU building, sharing our take-aways from the day’s events.
 
My take-away was one of the student speeches from the morning brunch. He spoke about anti-Asian prejudice and violence, and his leadership on campus in the Asian-American community. As I was sharing this over hot chocolate after the march, I heard for the first time about the stabbing attack in Indiana last week. Looking up the news, I saw the horrific details: a 57 year old white woman stabbed an 18 year old Asian American college student on a city bus. A bystander followed the attacker off the bus and alerted the police to her whereabouts, leading to her arrest.
 
The most chilling aspect of the story is what the attacker said about her motivation. Here is the reporting from NPR:
The suspect told police she stabbed the victim because the victim was “Chinese,” adding that it “would be one less person to blow up our country,” according to an affidavit shared with NPR.
 
On Martin Luther King Day, we rightly reflect on the civil rights era, on anti-Black racism as it was manifest in those days, and on the nonviolent civil disobedience that Dr. King used to respond to that racism. And, on this occasion we should always reflect on what is happening in today’s world and how we can respond. For me, the student’s speech in the morning and the current events I became aware of in the afternoon reminded me of the presence of Asian hate in my country today. It inspires me to recommit myself to addressing all forms of hatred: anti-Black racism, Asian hate, antisemitism. These things and more are part of life today. Just as Dr. King responded in his day, I must do what I can in my time to stop hate and to spread love. This includes using my voice to denounce racism and violence whenever I can.
 
PRAYER:
Living spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., be with us now. May your words and intentions breathe through our living souls. May we be inspired to speak and act for justice, to confront the words and actions and policies of racism—and to awaken well-meaning but passive liberals to the urgency of this work.
In the name and faith of all people of good conscience,
Amen.
 
Rev. Andrew Frantz