4 June 2020

Dear Readers,

Do you know the story of us?

I would like to share our Founding Story.

The very privileged truth I hold is that Migrants of the Mediterranean started because I took a vacation to the island of Lampedusa four years ago. When I was on the beach groups of African migrants trickled down to the shore over the afternoon. They weren’t allowed on the beach with me. I am white and I paid money for my lounger and for the access it afforded me to the little cafe nearby. The migrants are Black and were ushered to the rocks that lined the beach at its sides, by police, which some say were influenced by the hotel owners who didn’t want recently arrived migrants tarnishing the image of a pristine vacation spot. Cala Guitgia is a cove, a crystal inlet filled with some of the most beautiful water you could ever see. And in the beauty and isolation of the island, I found perspective being so far out. I saw tenacity and immediacy in the encounters I had with migrants who insisted you look at them––not with anger. They just said hello. They smiled.

I thought: This is what we are afraid of?

I’ll let you read the rest of the story yourself. But I will tell you that by the time I arrived home in New York, I was already being pulled back to that place. There was no distance that could bridge the gap in inequality, in the practice of racial segregation that I had actively taken part in, and in the unfounded fear that made the whole of Italy and Europe gasp at the people I had seen. The founding story from 2016 sometimes rang precious to me as the years past. And it would be if it weren’t true. I witnessed a grave moment of inequality four years ago and decided to amend for it. No one deserved to be treated less than for the color of their skin, for the place of their origin, for the way they had traveled, for what they were wrongfully depicted as in political rhetoric and in the media. There is nothing precious at all about standing up for what is right. There is nothing precious at all about standing up to use the privilege and power you have so others without it may be seen and heard with equal focus and pitch.

So in light of the violence, terrible sadness and horror––plain horror––the United States has seen over the past week for the death of George Floyd––a man who was murdered by a brutal police squad for no other reason than because he was Black––we are standing up. From all of us at Migrants of the Mediterranean, know we stand against injustice of any kind and we will not stop our fight to humanize the people in our world who we have been told are less-human. It is our job to understand our privilege if we have it, to use it to help others who need helping; to not feel shame and guilt about the privilege we have, but to confront it––march right up to it––and give it away, to use it right, to smile first, say hello first, to not scatter away afraid with our finger on a quick trigger. It’s our job here to look up and see what we’ve got. To look up and see who’s around us––Black and brown people who need to be seen, whether a migrant or not. We won’t look down. Nor will we look up to a pedestal. We’re going straight and level in the eye, equal. You give up your privilege when you look into the face of someone different than you and realize you are no better. You are just here together.

Sincerely,


Pamela Kerpius
Founder & Italy Correspondent