Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

There are two Americas. I live in one. It is the white one. My family and many of my friends live in the same white America. I have friends who live in another America, black America. They tell me it is not the same America that I live in. These friends are forced in many ways to be bi-cultural, that is, to live in both Americas, the white one and the black one. 

The idea of bi-culturalism fits for my American Indian friends.  The research there says that the healthiest of outcomes for AI people is to live comfortably by going back and forth between the two and to have a strong identity with their AI heritage.

Perhaps we can talk about those things later.

For now, we live in a post-election era unlike any other. Sure, when President Obama was elected there was the obligatory protesting with offensive signs and behaviors and all. The signs of these times are written all about us, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, to borrow a phrase or two from Jesus of Nazareth.

While these opinions on this page are my own, and not that of anyone else, I have asked a few questions. White friends have told me that Obama is a race-baiter and has made things worse for race relations. That is a phrase that comes from a lot of folk, family and friends. I have asked other white friends and they have said that they think the election has made things more polarized and painful to watch for all people, particularly for people of color and other marginalized groups.

More specifically, I have asked friends who are African American how they see things. I trust their perspectives. They unanimously said that discrimination and racism have always existed, something they feel, and that it is now more frequent and intensified. Nobody would ever explain these friend to friend conversations as any kind of social science, survey, valid and reliable sort of thing.  Will save that for the real social scientists.  However, when my friends tell stories of their "friends" coming at them with hateful, vitriolic notions, and when they see and feel people they care about being called "N****r" and other insulting things, it all sounds pretty real to me. When the parents have to have "the talk" with their adolescents, it is a sign of the times multiplied.

Just this week the Washington Post published a summary of episodes of violence in the post-election aftermath. You can see that here.  "Ten Days After: Harassment and Intimidation in the Aftermath of the Election" by the Southern Poverty Law Center is also compelling.  You can read that here. The dominant themes of anti-immigrant, Black, Muslim, LGBT, woman, and Semitism, as well as white nationalism and anti-Trump  rhetoric are disturbing. Nearly 900 incidents have been chronicled as to what, by whom, toward whom, and location.

When the president-elect campaigned by using vitriolic, offensive language and has refused to acknowledge such, that is just beyond believability. Read this piece about his rhetorical style and its impact on audiences.  It seems to me that people have now found validation of harmful attitudes and actions.

Without much hesitancy, I can say that most people who will review this post are not in the category of offenders.  We are, however, in the category of defenders or in the category of the silent.

So, I ask you to speak out against hate speech and actions.  Speak to your representatives in congress at both the state and national level. Lobby with the president-elect and the vice-president elect to speak out against peoples' inhumanity to people. Bring these issues up wherever you hang out with people, church, civic groups, or wherever.

At another level, it seems to me that we can speak out for people.  Sometimes they are in the words of the man from Nazareth, the "least of these," and at all times, the victims of these heinous things are people for whom Christ died. Those who are on the receiving end of these acts of verbal and physical violence also have families. Surely the pain of the one traumatized reaches out to the family and loved ones of the traumatized.

Those words, "the least of these," popped out at me in my early morning reading and reflection time this morning. The words are inescapably on the lips of the man from Nazareth as He approached His own death.

I think we have an obligation to speak up and speak out in actions loud and in actions quiet. After all, we are all people for whom Christ died, and as such, we are all obligated to treat people with dignity and respect. Let us not meet aggression with silence. That would be wrong. Very wrong.