Weeks 29/30: Good People
This blog started when a group of students inspired me. A presidential candidate called their families “drug dealers, criminals, rapists.” He promised to build a wall separating them from their families, and to accelerate putting many of them behind that wall. Then he won.
They had already invested time and money into attending the inauguration. They refused to back down. They marched through the capital wearing hats that read “upstander” across the top. They had no idea what the reaction of Trump supporters would be to their presence. They feared violence, but they went anyway.
They were upstanders.
The upstanders in DC two days before the inauguration
Their presence mattered. Them, along with so many others that day, sent a clear message to the president that this is their country, too. Since then, people have flooded airports protesting the president’s travel ban (which judges later ruled unconstitutional), officials within the government have leaked classified material to expose lies, and congress has refused to pass legislation that would leave millions of Americans without health care.
The American people have stood up to this president. His agenda has suffered from the actions of everyday Americans. A few people have lost their jobs, but no one had lost their life.
Until Saturday.
On Saturday, a young woman named Heather Heyer was killed when a White Supremacist adapted ISIS tactics and purposely drove his car into a crowd during a counter protest of what was called the “Unite the Right” rally. These alt-right groups support our president, and he has never denounced their support. In fact, one of his main advisors, White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, is the former head of Breitbart News who, in 2016, declared Breitbart the “platform of the alt-right.”
Heather Heyer: Upstander. Source
When we look at this tragedy, it’s easy to wish it didn’t happen. If Heather was my wife, sister, daughter or friend, that is undoubtedly how I would feel. I would wish that she stayed home from that counter protest. But, what if everyone stayed home? What if there was no counter protest? Let’s go back to day one… What if minorities were too scared and they didn’t go to the inauguration? What if no one protested the travel ban and the judges were too afraid to rule it unconstitutional? What if there were no leaks from the White House or the media was too afraid to publish things like Donald Trump Jr.’s excited email about meeting with the Russians? What if congress passed the health care bill out of fear and millions lost their health care?
My friends, it’s only been 30 weeks but without upstanders, it is crystal clear to me that we would be living in a very different country right now.
I find historical comparisons troublesome for various reasons but when people in the present invoke the past, I think they beg for a comparison. The White Supremacist that killed Heather Heyer is claimed to have a “fondness for Hitler.” At the “Unite the Right” rally, protesters chanted the Nazi slogan “Blood and Soil!”
“Unite the Right” rally Source
If these folks want to be comapred to Nazi’s, then I can oblidge.
One of the biggest questions of modern history is how the Holocaust happened. The answer, in a nutshell is… slowly. One step at a time. Hitler gained power in 1933 and the Final Solution was not enacted until 1942. That’s nine years.
This president has been in power for eight months. So what do we have to do to stop the slow roll towards fascism? Who knows where this is going? I don’t, and I don’t think Trump does either. No one predicted that the Germans were headed in that direction, either. But it happened. How?
My favorite quote from the time period comes from a survivor: Simon Wiesenthal. He said:
For evil to flourish, it only requires good people to do nothing.
I love this quote because it puts the power (and the blame) on ordinary Germans. I’m not here to blame Germans, but rather to summon the good people of the world.
What are we doing to stop evil from flourishing?
I will leave us with a quote that my friend Ami shared with me. Apparently it was upstander, Heather Heyer’s final Facebook post. She wrote:
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
Pay attention and do something.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
ReplyDeleteBecause I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
MARTIN NIEMÖLLER
Well said my friend! We must somehow strike the tone that engages the ignorant with love and respect, and yet which never allows for acquiescence or moral relativism. The burden of privilege is absolute integrity. It is a privilege to read your words my friend.
They took down the 3 confederate monuments in Baltimore in the dead of darkest night yesterday. Mayor Pugh knows that if the scenes of Charlottesville were played out in Baltimore there would be terrible repercussions. May God bless this country.
When I moved to the USA in 2000, to teach at an Urban Magnet School in Chicago, my heart burned with excitement. I was 22 and the first Americans I ever really spent time with were kids from every background imaginable. Walter Payton College Prep High School was in between the Cabrini Green Housing Projects and the Gold Coast (one of Chicago's fanciest neighborhoods), it was about 30% "white" (all kinds of people I'd never met before; Jewish kids, working class American white kids, wealthy ones, children and grand-children of immigrants from all over), 30% African American (of all social classes- many whose grand-parents had come up from Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana- so different to the East Coast), Nigerians, Ghanaians, Jamaicans and Haitians and 30% Latino- mostly Mexican from Guadalajara and Michoacan, but Puerto Ricans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans and South Americans, and also Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese and Korean and Native Americans too. It was the last few months of the Bill Clinton Years. I thought that all of the USA was going to be like that, like I'd landed in some kind of mini United Nations. After 9-11 they took a photo of me in my classroom for Newsweek magazine... with a story called E Pluribus Unum, all about the multicultural reality of American that I'd been imported to be part of. When I moved to Baltimore I had a lot of unlearning to do, and re-learning to do... I was so lost. I was told that I was white (I knew that I had privilege, but I felt like a total alien, culturally I felt more at home at Walter Payton than I had for years- College had been quite an alienating experience because I'd led a sheltered life growing up as an Irish Catholic kid with other immigrants in Catholic England) In suburban Baltimore I have spent years learning about my wealthy white neighbors, studying what motivates them, how their roots are usually in working class ethnic neighborhoods in cities like Baltimore, Philly, Buffalo and Long Island, how the riots of the 60s and white flight, and private schools and suburban planning has led them from the city. I taught in the North and South West of Baltimore County and got to see poorer white Americans, some of whom have their roots in Appalachia, and how they feel marginalized, and wow I learned so much at Cristo Rey all those years- of a complex and diverse set of African American stories, that sometimes seem like the "other side" of those other stories, many of our students seemed so resilient in the face of the many obstacles that Baltimore presents to young people of color. And then there were the immigrants from my time at the Esperanza Center and teaching ESOL, people who have survived more trauma than I can imagine, who persist in spite of grueling alienation. I have listened to bachata, merengue, mariachi, Baltimore Club, Drake, Lor Scooter, Lil Wayne, Kenny Chesney, Vicente Fernandez, Soca, Mariam et Amadou, Taylor Swift, Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Public Enemy, DeadMaus, Skrillex, Daddy Yankee, Kid Rock, Jay Z, NPR, Ted Talks, Rush Limbaugh, Jorge Drexler, Silvio Rodriguez, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Telemundo-
ReplyDeleteNone of which I'd ever heard of. I've read books, journals and watched documentaries, and yet... I still feel that all I really know is that it's hard to be this awake in America... but in the words of Thomas Jefferson... "the price of privilege is absolute integrity" and that will probably take a lifetime of carefully lived days to achieve. Jeesh it's tiring making sense of it all, sometimes I wanna go home, watch Liverpool FC and eat some Irish Food, but then I realize that if I'd stayed home I'd have missed out on the greatest and most beautiful show in the world... God displaying himself in the wonderful diversity of his creation- even, maybe especially in the ones that sometimes feel like the most different from me. I have learned so much with so many of you, about the people of this great land. I think we all need to keep challenging ourselves to read, and listen to the experiences of those who feel unfamiliar to us. If you ever hear me whining about how people are bad, or crazy or that this country is "terrible" please remind me that I wrote this, and remind me of all the kind and imperfect people of this country who have taught me so much.
ReplyDeleteDominic, I am so very glad that you are part of our country.
DeleteWe need open-minded people to share their thoughts about all of our countrymen. Thanks
Thanks for sharing Dom. Your perspective is unique and insightful. After all that you've seen and done you still have hope for America and that's what I call the American dream. Keep living it. Hope in the future and ourselves is what we need right now.
ReplyDelete