I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. I grew up in a section of North Philadelphia that was predominantly black and Latino.

It bordered brewery town, which was predominantly white, particularly German, Polish, and Irish.

As a kid, my friends and I had to walk through brewery town

in order to get to Fairmount Park.

But often we ran. White kids yelled names, threatened harm, threw bottles

at us. Our older brothers crossed Girard Avenue to steal bikes from unsuspecting kids,

which fueled even more animosity. The racial tension ran high back then. Incidents of mass fights broke out.

Philadelphia, like the world, was a city of ethnic enclaves where each group suffered its fair share of extreme hate and abuse.

At a conference recently, I listened to an Ethiopian Jewish activist,

a Palestinian activist,

and an Israeli lawyer speak about their attempts to broker peace to help eradicate hate.

I found their passion moving.

They spoke of inherited stories and beliefs that cede fear and prevent us from seeing others as humans.

They spoke to the complicated idea of victimhood as a virtue rather than a condition.

They spoke of the necessity of listening, of hearing each other's stories.

What spoke loudest was that we cannot overcome hatred with hatred.

Today's poem begins from the idea that we yearn for connection and healing, but that our

conflicts feel irreconcilable to the point that we do not trust a future free of our trauma, grief, and suffering.

Here we are by last, meeting face to face like two heroes of opposing armies, looking each other in the eye, poised to shake hands.

Do you trust me?

Do I trust you? No. Trust died last century, along with truth. So we'll have to think of something else to shake on.

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