World Without Hate

The Hated and the Hater, Both Touched by Crime

Today the New York Times interviewed Rais Bhuiyan, a Muslim man born in Pakistan who was the sole survivor of three men shot in a hate crime against perpetrated against Arabic-looking men by a man in Dallas who claims he was seeking retribution for 9/11. Mr. Bhuiyan, despite being disfigured and blinded in one eye, created a website to support his petition to have his attacker, Mark Anthony Stroman, spared from being executed by lethal injection tomorrow.

I painted this tonight after spending the day in an art workshop with young offenders in a Newark high security detention center. As an atheist who believes in redemption, I was moved by Mr. Bhuiyan’s mission, as well as Mr. Stroman’s reaction to it.

These are some particularly harrowing excerpts from the Q&A session:

“I felt a million bee stings on my face at the same time. Then I heard an explosion. I saw images of my parents, my siblings and my fiancée and then a graveyard and I thought, “Am I dying today?” I looked down and saw blood was pouring from my head. I placed both my hands on my head to get my brains in and I screamed, “Mom!” I looked and he was still staring at me and I thought he might shoot me again if I don’t fall and he doesn’t think I’m dead.”

“We all make mistakes. He’s another human being, like me. Hate the sin, not the sinner. It’s very important that I meet him to tell him I feel for him and I strongly believe he should get a second chance. That I never hated the U.S. He could educate a lot of people. Thinking about what is going to happen makes me very emotional. I can’t sleep. Once I go to bed I feel there is another person that I know who is in his bed thinking about what is going to happen to him — that he is going to be tied to a bed and killed. It makes me very emotional and very sad and makes me want to do more.”