Friday, August 2, 2019

THE LINE

by Ruth A. Sheets

I just finished reading the novel Resistance by Jennifer A. Nielsen.  It is  about the holocaust in Poland.  As I read, I could not help but think we now have concentration camps here in America.  We permit our president to malign people of color, to drag children away from parents for indefinite periods, just because.  And, Mr. Trump’s (that president)  followers accept this as well.

It is not that I can't believe it is happening here, I do.  I have watched the fear mongering by Republican candidates and government operatives since 9/11 and beyond.  This has caused many conservatives to jump into fear in ways that can set aside their humanity.  It is that I don’t want  it to be happening here.

Ms. Nielsen’s book describes some of the atrocities perpetrated on Polish Jews and others during WWII.   They were done by people who were racists but would not have tortured and shot children in the streets before the flood of fear overtook them.  We know now that what  happened to them is the fear part of the brain, the amygdala took over and they saw only animals, cockroaches needing to be stepped on before they were destroyed.  These fear-drowned people would then go with their kids to ride the merry-go-round while people down the street were being massacred. 

When and how did the crossover happen for those Germans and Poles?  When will the crossover happen to conservatives here? 

It was not a wide line they had to cross.  It began slowly with shunning Jews, just not talking to or doing business with them anymore.  The next steps were also rather small, but inevitable for a lot of people, turning their backs on cruelties done by others, stealing Jewish property, tossing rocks through windows, gossiping to neighbors about some imagined action one of them did.  Ultimately, they "got off on" the hurting and killing through a steady escalation. 

What about here?  Well, there are already many who would prefer dead migrants in the desert to living ones asking for refuge or asylum.  That is a first line.  A worker will face another trial in Arizona because he helped 2 migrants with some water and a temporary place to sleep.  The first trial ended in a hung jury, so instead of dismissing these ridiculous charges, they are going to go through it again, hoping to find enough conservatives at the line, willing to cross it to make a point.  A man faces jail time for living his CHRISTIAN faith while people who CLAIM to be Christian, refuse to do the things asked of Christians according to scripture.  That moves us just a bit closer to the line of no return, where excuses are made “we were just following the law/orders, he shouldn’t have done that/been here anyway.”  These folks, someone’s neighbors, will still think themselves righteous as the numbers of dead and lives destroyed mount. 

Mr. Trump regularly uses racial insults, and he and his tight group of cronies defend his comments as OK, what those people deserve  because they dared to challenge his appalling behavior.  Now instead of just 4 congresswomen of color, refugees and asylum seekers on the border, and immigrants of color, he is targeting other legislators of color and their entire districts too.  He throws in a few general Democrat insults so he thinks he can claim that this really isn't racism.   This resonates with his cult followers.  They don't want to be called out for the racists they are.  I don’t understand why.  It would seem their actions and inactions would indicate their pride in the positions they have taken and will continue to take.  Why not be called racist or xenophobic?   

Some of the susceptible  conservatives have crossed the line already, sending fake bombs to Democrats, actors and others he had been told to hate.  Shooters enter a variety of venues and open fire.  The survivors are told they should have no  voice in any analysis of what happened.  That might let some truth encroach on the story.  Consider how the Parkland students and Sandy Hook parents were treated by conservatives. 

We must keep as many people as we can from crossing the line into inhumanity.  This will not be easy because the media desperately wants to report every detail of everything these line walkers do and say with the statement that they think people ought to know.

Every detail?  Is that what we need to know?  Perhaps, we need to know that this person will not be permitted to spread more lies and that racism and white supremacy as well as the lies will be called out for what each is without quibbling over whether this was just a little racist or maybe not really white supremacy (even though all involved were white and the actions were against people of color).
Inciting violence against a targeted group is not free speech.  It is hate speech, troubling speech and needs to be called what it is, every time. 

This nation has already used a lot of “legal” means to keep people of color isolated from white people, often forcing people of color to live in neglected buildings with absentee landlords, to receive inferior services, to attend schools with limited resources.  Then, these people are blamed because they are poor, which means, they must be inferior people, you know, not worthy.

Sound familiar.  This is similar to the way Jews were forced into ghettos in many European nations, given access to few of the opportunities of the Christian population.  They too, were blamed for their poverty and lies were regularly told about them. 

Were the survivors of the holocaust correct when they cried “never again?”  If so, they and those of us who don’t want the hatred anywhere need to stand up all the time and shout it from the highest and lowest places, NEVER AGAIN  and NOT HERE!  Instead of blaming the conservatives specifically, we need to find ways as a society to keep them and others away from that line, the line no one should ever cross.

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