The Sisyphean Task
Myles Hubbard was a counselor at Bloomfield High School and a volunteer for the VNA Family Visitors Program and St. Justin’s Church. He is an advocate for children with the state’s Surrogate Parent Program, a trustee of Mercy Housing and Shelter Corp., and a member of the board of the Julie Education program. Hubbard worked at Upward Bound as an English teacher. and has led numerous trips to Europe and the Middle East for his church. He graduated high school in 1957.
I was born Black in a white racist society. My father, born in the Caribbean, came to this country in 1918 at 18 years old. He often shared with me his struggles with the systemic racism he experienced—in housing, employment, education and public accommodations. Jim Crow laws abounded. white people beat and lynched Black people who attempted to exercise their voting rights and those who challenged their hierarchy.
During my education formation, my parents instilled in me the value of my human worth and dignity; they supported me even when I had to fight for it, especially when faced with racial indignit
I am consciously aware of the ways living in a systemic racist system makes me who I am. It raises my consciousness, but not to the level of rage. Instead It motivates me to seek peaceful change through action.
The murder of George Floyd evoked empathy and actions on the parts of diverse groups of Americans and even around the world. My hope is that some of that action, as seen during those demonstrations, was carried back to their homes locally.
I support conversations on racism and action. I encourage and support the Black Lives Matter Movement’s call to bring justice to American oppression. It is a reminder that Black people have lived through the very worst this country has inflicted, that we have survived, and that we are just as human as white people.
“Deep Moral Divide”
I believe that systemic racism is the most important moral issue of the 21st century. I am hopeful and I still reach across the deep moral divide and find commonality with those on the other side.
Sometimes I think racism is too institutionalized and too entrenched in our culture and in our society, but I reason that man did it and man can fix it.
When I think about my own efforts to fight racism through conversations, the efforts of so many others, and the passing of laws and judicial decisions, the outcomes remind me of the mythical Sisyphus who on his death was condemned to roll uphill a huge marble rock. When, after seemingly endless and bitter toil, he reached the top with it, the stone rolled back to the bottom of the hill and Sisyphus had to begin all over again.
Unlike Sisyphus, we must prevail!
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