Alka's Angle

On June 2nd, several local officials gathered near Belmont Rocks for the ground-breaking ceremony for the AIDS Garden in Lakeview. The garden has been in the plans for more than a decade but funding kept delaying the process until now.

One year ago today, George Floyd was killed by a police officer, and even though this was not the first incidence, it did bring national and international attention to the racial inequity in our country. That attention did not put a stop to the racial profiling and killing but it did cause some folk to believe what many of us BIPOC experience everyday.

As you know our state is slowly relaxing the restrictions and getting ready to open beaches, in-door dining, and changing limits for large gatherings where vaccinated people will not count towards the limit. While this is exciting, it also means that we keep working to get as many people vaccinated as possible.

As you know we have Anti-Racist Prayer Vigils scheduled for the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays at 6:00pm. Rev. Joy Strome of Lakeview Presbyterian Church and I felt we needed to hold that space in the wake of all the Racist killings we are experiencing around us, lately focused against us Asian American people. It saddens me to even think that we felt the need to hold the prayer vigils against racism, twice a month. Hatred against other humans, beliefs and ideologies seems to have taken over our world. The unrest in Israel/Palestine is the most recent reminder of this sad reality. Now, I know that this is a sensitive subject, especially because several mainline religions, including Christianity, find their roots in Israel. So, I am absolutely not speaking of religion here, but people -- the people of Israel and Palestine. The recent unrest and the strong sentiment expressed against the Palestinian people forces me to speak up and speak out.

Re-Imagine! That seems to have been the word for most of the world these past 12 months or so -- as we all have been learning to do things differently, because of the pandemic.

Interestingly, it even moved us to make changes that we never desired to make or thought we could.