Learning From Our Racist History

If we make it through our trumpian crisis without a civil war or a nuclear blowout, perhaps we will learn from this mess.

On a good day, I have a half-written blog in my head about how we’re going to recognize and repent of what we’ve become; we’re going to see where greed and selfishness have brought us; we’re going to reign in corporate power and learn to care for and lift up our poor; we’re going to treasure this beautiful planet and begin to accept and even embrace our differences, etc., etc., etc.

Today is not a good day, though, so I can’t write about that. I am too sad. The man-child’s behavior since the racist rally and murder in Charlottesville has shocked and shaken me, which is, in itself, shocking. How can I still be shocked?

I suppose it’s just the degree of ugliness that flattens me. I honestly did not know that a human being could get like that. If he was a main character in a novel, you would put down the book halfway through because it wouldn’t be believable.

“Very Fine” Neo-Nazis

I won’t dwell on his remarks yesterday calling neo-nazis “very fine people” and comparing our nation’s founder George Washington to confederate generals who committed treason and waged war on the United States. You probably saw that highly alarming press conference.

 

The worst of that spectacle was the backstory, which I also won’t dwell on because it’s all over the news. Basically, after not clearly denouncing the neo-nazis and white supremacists on Sunday, his advisors all but forced him to do so on Monday. But then he just couldn’t stand not getting his way so he reneged on the renunciation and dug deeper into his racist trench on Tuesday while his aides tried to melt through the floor.

His ego is so twisted and poisonous that even with his polling numbers and political career at stake (not to mention our country’s stability), he had to spew that, that . . .  whatever it was he spewed yesterday. Which does not bode well for the moment when the Vice President is telling him not to push the nuclear button. “Don’t tell me what to do!!” the man-child will wail.

Remembering — Not Honoring — the Confederacy

Anyway, my purpose for this blog today is not to dump more negativity into the world, although I will confess that I succumb to that temptation far too often. Writing is therapy for me, and I’m afraid I must vent and rage and grieve for my country from time to time. 

Today though, I want to make a constructive suggestion. When I was in Budapest some years ago, I visited a statuary park where they had moved all of the old statues of Marx, Lenin, and other Communist leaders — sort of an outdoor museum. It is a haunting place.

Photo attribution Yelkrokoyade

I think we should do something similar with all these confederate statues that are coming down one way or another. While it’s tempting to destroy them, we should not erase our history but rather learn from it. There’s a reason they did not tear down Auschwitz.

Here’s a link to a short and powerful video about a slavery museum in Louisiana that sounds like a great place to process some of our collective pain and shame. I’ll bet they would take a few statues.

I Want To Write About Charlottesville

I want to write about Charlottesville. About watching my Twitter feed in horror as scene after scene scrolled by — swastikas, confederate flags, t-shirts emblazoned with Hitler slogans, torches of hate surrounding a church full of peaceful praying people, a black boy being beaten with poles, and finally the car — the car crashing into living, breathing, beautiful human beings.

I want to say Heather Heyer’s name.

But I can’t seem to gather the words.

I want to write about how I wonder if even just a few trump voters are thinking, “Oops.”

If they might see the teensiest connection between the largest gathering of white supremacists in modern history and the election of a man who encouraged his supporters to commit violence and pledged to pay their legal bills, expressed regret that he couldn’t punch a protester in the face, yearned for the good old days when people were carried out on stretchers, and just the other day advised the police to rough up people in their custody.

But there simply aren’t words.

I want to write about the nameless fear and deep sickness and vast emptiness that must be devouring those raging white men who chant “We will not be replaced.” What is that? Whatever happens with healthcare, can we at least get these people some therapy?

I want to write about how I smirked at the images of the little boys with their tiki-torches and the fact that the Tiki-Torch company actually had to disavow nazism — I mean, it’s all so ridiculous — but then I remembered how much evil a bunch of “boys” with a simple loop of rope can do.

There aren’t words.

I want to write about the feeling of solidarity at the rally yesterday, thousands and thousands of us marching purposefully, signs aloft, our chants booming off the hulking federal buildings that line the roads in the nation’s capitol and then rising to a thunderous crescendo of “SHAME, SHAME, SHAME, SHAME” as we passed the trump hotel.

And my further feelings of love and gratitude when I got home and found dozens of Twitter photos of demonstrations and vigils in Philly, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Orlando, Atlanta, Durham, Vancouver . . . and virtually all of my Facebook friends expressing grief, determination, love, and commitment to fighting for justice in whatever ways they can.

My friends didn’t post pictures of their cats and appetizers this weekend.

But all of these feelings are too much. There aren’t the words.

So although I want to write about Charlottesville but am unable, I will instead leave you with a quote from Anne Frank, which I must believe or I would perish.

“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

Coming to Terms with the Hate

The pickup tailgates me for a minute, then swerves into the left lane and pulls alongside my car. A big hairy arm emerges, fat middle finger extended like a pale sausage. I am not alarmed, not even surprised. In the time of trump, anything can and does happen.

It’s hard to know which bumper sticker set him off. Beauty will save the world? Love the Creator, care for creation? God is not a Republican? Most likely, Obama 2012. That black man has more dignity and grace in his pinky finger than both of those white guys in the pickup put together. They know this and they hate it. So much resentment and hatred.

Am I making assumptions about the guy with the fat middle finger and his buddy? Stereotyping? You bet.

Abuse as Patriotism

Online I’ve been called a witch, a moron, a fat hag, and of course a snowflake. The latter is my favorite “insult,” a very common one on Twitter, meaning weak and prone to melting into tears. Personally, I love being likened to a sparkling crystal that dances and plays in the air before settling in place among other snowflakes which, in community and over time, can shut down a city and stop the federal government in its tracks.

My least favorite insult is “f%$king libtard,” not because it hurts my feelings, but because it flaunts “political incorrectness” by playing off a long-abandoned, derogatory term for people with mental impairments. The guy with the sausage finger and his ilk are egged on by their favorite president, who said:

“I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t, frankly, have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time, either.”

So although I’ve been driving around w/ liberal bumper stickers on my car for decades and haven’t experienced anything like this before, I’m not surprised at the random rage. Things are different now. President Tweet has purposefully brought out the very worst in this country. I don’t have to tell you that.

I’ve got a list of books and articles theorizing about who these trump people are, and why they seem incapable of recognizing how sick he is or how he is manipulating them. It’s textbook demagoguery. But I don’t need to read about it, I know in my gut what’s going on.

Spiritual Sickness

It seems clear to me that America is suffering from a deep spiritual sickness. When you live in a society that worships ego and competition and glorifies wealth, weaponry, and war, you’re bound to run into serious problems eventually. Especially when so many “religious” people buy into this lust for power and wealth. I know one Christian guy who says that while we should have compassion, we have to be pragmatic about it. Where in the Bible did Jesus say that?? I don’t even want to hear his views on North Korea. Bombs away, no doubt.

For a time, after the shock and surprise of all the hate wore off and I realized it was here to stay — being stoked daily by abusive, threatening tweets from the President of the United States — I was just sad. Deeply sad.

Now, even the sadness is beginning to wear off. I wouldn’t say I have accepted this as “the new norm” —we must never, ever accept this behavior or view it as anything but the pathological brokenness that it is. But I’m learning to live with the hatred without letting it consume me.

Survival

I pray that our country’s institutions and the world can withstand what looks more and more like an actual take-over of our democracy by an authoritarian demagogue. I will march, write, call, organize, and raise holy hell. But I am also choosing to go on with my life, enjoying my garden, looking for the good in people, and reading and writing healing words.

So some big hairy white guy gave me the finger. That’s his problem; it doesn’t need to affect me. Easy for me to say, white snowflake that I am. I hate to think what might have happened had there been more melanin in my skin or had I been wearing a burka.

Praying.

Saturation

Nine hours of interstate and my car sloshes into the two muddy ruts that pass for a driveway. I step out into the rain expecting the usual scent of pine, but am instead blessed by a breeze saturated with lilac and lily of the valley.

I am early this year — I’ve never seen the lilacs bloom; never seen the lily fronds petaled with fallen apple and quince blossoms.

Birdbath with apple blossoms

It must have been raining for days. The bushes and trees hang heavily, and the ground is soggy beneath my bare feet as I traipse back and forth, back and forth through the wet grass, blue jeans rolled to my knees, carrying my cats, my books, my cooler, my clothes.

Unpacked, I return to the car and head to the spring in the glistening dusk. I drive slowly, windows open, and breathe.

And breathe.

Every small hollow is full of water and bursting with song. I’ve never heard the spring peepers here, either, and I swerve drunkenly to miss the scores of sex-crazed frogs leaping wildly across the road.

Across from the spring, bits of mist drift down the dark mountain and promise a heavy morning fog. Below, the Ashuelot River dances giddily along its banks dressed in decorative white foam, as if rushing to a rendezvous downstream.

I fill my bottles with fresh water and nature fills my soul with springtime scents and songs.

I am here.