Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Politics, Posturing, and death
I'm feeling a little overwhelmed lately. Yesterday I taught class and then went home and went to bed. In large part, I felt physically sick. But I had a soul injury, too. I am floored by the ginned-up hatred in this country-- and struck by the fact that most of the violent acts seem to be committed by a relatively small group of people of which I am a part: 50-something white men. As part of that group, I'm baffled by the threat they seem to feel from immigrants, Jews, and people of color.
Right now, part of the dynamic is driving by President Trump. For political gain, he has seized on a caravan of political refugees headed across Mexico with the hope to find asylum in the United States. Most recently, he announced that he is moving over 5,000 troops to the border next week-- the week of the midterm election.
That's idiotic. The caravan is 1,000 miles from the border, and they are on foot. They won't get to the border for a few months. And even at that, what are soldiers going to do-- shoot the refugees, who are legally required to present themselves at the border to claim asylum? It's a show, and it is a dangerous one.
Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people, shot police officers, and terrorized a synagogue in Pittsburgh last Saturday, criticized Trump for being insufficiently anti-semitic, and was not the kind of avid Trump supporter we saw in Cesar Sayoc, who sent pipe bombs to Trump enemies last week. Still, it seems clear that the "Caravan" myth of invasion was a motive for his murders, according to CBS News:
On Friday, Bowers posted a link to a page from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a Jewish nonprofit that aids refugees. The HIAS link listed congregations across the country that held Shabbat services this month for refugees — including several synagogues in Pittsburgh.
"Why hello there HIAS! You like to bring in hostile invaders to dwell among us? We appreciate the list of friends you have provided," Bowers wrote.
In a post on Saturday morning, about two hours before the shooting, Bowers wrote: "HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in."
In the weeks before the shooting, Bowers posted constantly about Jews, including denials of the Holocaust and conspiracy theories about Jews destroying the planet and secretly supporting the migrant caravan heading toward the U.S. border.
Here's the thing... Trump defenders may say that he did not know that the anti-immigrant political narrative would fuel violence. Even accepting that, there can be no doubt that now they know that it does-- the proof is in the actions of Sayoc and Bowers.
Perhaps before those incidents, complicity in the crimes is arguable. Now that they have occurred, though, we know what happens-- we know what the effect is on people like Sayoc and Bowers, who live among us. If this administration continues to press a fear-mongering approach to these refugees, and further violence occurs, they will not have that defense.
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Know you are not alone in the physical and mental sadness. The hate is taking its toll on all of us.
Teaching through overwhelming clouds of tragedy. Me too. I too have been in a funk really since the Kavanaugh imbroglio finished and the Saudi murder mystery began. Yesterday seemed to mark a physical culmination in a way, as I woke up with a pretty serious head cold and chest congestion (with four lectures to get through). I knew I was not going to lose my voice--because I never lose my voice--but I also knew I would need to fight through the stabbing discomfort in my throat that comes at the end of such days. Fortunately, I had some great material: finishing up the Constitutional Moment and GW Farewell Address in one class and an overview of Frederick Douglass and American slavery in another. And a funny thing happened. I seemed to gain strength as the day developed (my first class started at 7:30 and my last class finished at 3:55). By the afternoon I was feeling horrible in one way but also in a strange sense better than I had felt in a long time. This morning same thing. Croaky voice but incredible energy (more Constitution in one class and finishing up the New Deal in another). There is great curative power in the American story. There is great energy in sharing that story with my people. There is great solace in grieving with your community and wishing nothing but good for others in your larger community on the other side of the country.
And we haven't even gotten to Lincoln yet: "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
We will not be defined by the worst among us.
And we haven't even gotten to Lincoln yet: "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
We will not be defined by the worst among us.
I wish that we could think of immigrants differently. I recall seeing Ray Suarez on TV years ago. He had seen film coverage of two children, a brother and sister, swimming as fast as they could to cross the Rio Grande. He said, “Aren’t these the people we should WANT in our country?”
# posted by 
: 3:30 PM
: 3:30 PM
I'm exhausted by it all, too. Before the horrible tragedy in Pittsburgh on Saturday, I was disoriented to find out that I attended college (Brevard College in Western NC) at the same time as the would-be bomber, Cesar Sayoc. We overlapped for a whole year on a small campus of 700 students, but I didn't know him at all. He was on the soccer team, a group of guys usually recruited from other states for a sport which wasn't common to rural North Carolina. Often from immigrant backgrounds--Hispanic, Latino, Catholic--the soccer players didn't have much in common with the other students so I, at least, didn't venture to interact with them. Sayoc looks like a regular 19-year-old in the yearbook photos; he apparently was an excellent soccer player.
There's nothing to be done about all that, I suppose, except realize that we are all human and vulnerable; we have problems that may be inevitable (such as Sayoc's mental illness); we mustn't assume we have nothing in common with people unlike us, or that our lives couldn't touch each other's for good in some small way. It makes me very sad, knowing that there was a young person with talents who would end up in such an awful state.
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There's nothing to be done about all that, I suppose, except realize that we are all human and vulnerable; we have problems that may be inevitable (such as Sayoc's mental illness); we mustn't assume we have nothing in common with people unlike us, or that our lives couldn't touch each other's for good in some small way. It makes me very sad, knowing that there was a young person with talents who would end up in such an awful state.
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