In Harm's Way

 

Friends, I have been trying to write this blog post for a week. It’s been in my head, but somehow, I couldn’t make my fingers dance across the keys and tap it out. In fact, with the exception of two rather lengthy journal entries, I haven’t been able to write at all this week. (Apologies to my beloved characters in the middle-grade novel I’m working on.)

No doubt we’ve all been processing what took place in Washington D.C. last Wednesday. There’s been a lot to discover, sort out, process, discuss… even, perhaps, argue over just a bit, as I have done with my neighbor.

I had thought about opting out, not writing about this event at all, just skipping over it. There’s another topic that’s been in my head for weeks, and I really need to divest myself of those thoughts… but it will have to wait. My reluctance has been mostly my reticence at sounding like a broken record. I’ve said these things before. Do I want to say them again? I guess… yes. Yes, I do. Maybe it’s true that if we keep saying the same thing over and over (“The election was rigged!”), people will begin to believe us.

When the chaos had cleared in the Capitol, I told someone close to me that I was sad about the death of Ashli Babbitt, the young woman who was shot while storming the building. His response was, “I’m not. She put herself in harm’s way. It’s her own fault.” And then I was doubly sad. Because, while what he is saying is correct, it is wholly lacking in empathy. I am sad for the loss of her life, for the grief this has imposed on her family members.

Am I sympathetic to the insurgents? Well… yes and no. This is where the repetition begins.

What made Ashli Babbitt react so strongly to the result of an election that she, an Air Force veteran, would use force to attack her own nation’s capitol in order to overturn that vote?

Fear.

I know, I know. You’re going to say she wasn’t frightened at all. She was “angry” or “radicalized” or “batshit crazy.” Of those three speculations, I believe anger comes closest. Because when we’re frightened, we often lash out in what looks like anger. (A quick scroll through Babbitt's Twitter feed, which is still active, may validate my point for you--if you can stomach it.)

Look, just let me say this again and get it off my chest. Then I’ll go on to post a nice blog about my dog, with lovely pictures attached.

Here it is: Trump’s base has followed him so loyally because he has unleashed the hounds of hell. He has acknowledged, legitimized, and promoted the worst racist factions in our country. There came a time, after the Civil Rights Movement, in which it was seen as ignorant or backward or rude to display a Confederate flag. Most nice folks just didn’t do that anymore. But Mr. Trump made doing so not only acceptable, he made it fashionable. And those who have kept a low profile, who previously only expressed their true feelings about non-white races to others who were like-minded, have now crept out of the darkness. Their rallying cries have been echoing across the country for four long, dreary years now.

I don’t know much, but I do know about racists. Truth is, I am far too familiar with them. They share one thing in common. Talk to any racist long enough and bluntly enough and eventually you’ll hear his story, the defining moment that made him begin to fear those who are different, some incident in which he was harmed in some way or cheated or stolen from. Believe me, I’ve heard far more stories than I care to remember.

Or in some cases, you’ll hear about their parents. “My Daddy always told me….”

Fear is often an unconscious response. After Trump was elected, and he instituted the Muslim ban by executive order, I heard many of my white conservative friends express relief at no longer having to fear terrorist attacks. (Little did they suspect, I’m sure, that they would watch a terrorist attack carried out by their own countrymen.)

Sadly, there has been too much fuel dumped on this fire of fear, this kindling of ‘what will happen if.’

Just before the election, my neighbor, a devout Christian and avid Trump supporter, told me, “I’m afraid of what will happen if the election doesn’t go the way the Democrats want. I’m afraid we’re going to see more rioting.” (The rioting he referred to was related to the protests against the public lynching of George Floyd—“public lynching” being my words, not his.) When I tried to reassure him that Democrats might be profoundly disappointed but certainly not violent, his response was, “I hope you’re right. But if you’re wrong, I will bring my guns and defend your home.”

Let me insert here, I don’t live anywhere near a major, diverse metropolis. I am blessed to live in Southern California, but Los Angeles is over 70 miles away, as the crow flies. My little, semi-rural town has a densely white demographic, the majority of whom follow conservative party lines. If left-wing individuals wanted to plan some sort of violence, they’d have to do some pretty serious recruiting from places far, far from where we live.

But my neighbor’s fear is very real to him. He feels it viscerally. He sees the violence on TV, and the news outlets he prefers amplify that sense of threat and menace and urgency.

This is not the first time we’ve experienced this in our country. I was 11 years old in August of 1965. We lived in Lakewood, a suburb of Los Angeles. I remember a neighbor coming over to warn my siblings and I as we worked on some project in the garage that we needed to go inside the house and lock all the doors because the “negroes” were rioting.

I was living with my children far from L.A. during the riots of April, 1992, but a neighbor stopped by with a similar warning even then, saying that “blacks” were “getting on the freeway and driving this way.” That neighbor was a retired law enforcement officer. He was certain that he had “solid intel” from his sources in Los Angeles.

Psychologists long ago documented our innate fear or at least mistrust of anyone our brains characterize as “other,” anyone who looks or speaks or perhaps worships differently than we do. And we have known for countless generations that the most powerful weapon that can be used to control others is fear. Create terror in the hearts of the masses, then offer yourself as the one chosen to deliver them from that evil, and you will have their abject loyalty and devotion. Sadly, we have seen this play out in history over and over again, most recently with the president who told us we needed to close the borders and build a wall so that terrorists, murderers, drug lords, and rapists could no longer threaten us. Oh, and also those from “shit-hole countries” who might come here and take all the jobs.

I say all this to simply reiterate what I have said before: What happened at the Capitol was absolutely heartbreaking, yet no surprise at all. When you spend years fomenting violence by inundating the human psyche with warnings of unspeakable things to come, constantly stimulating that ‘fight or flight’ response, eventually, humans will explode.

We saw that mass explosion on January 6, 2021. Tragically, until we stop the hate speech, the lying and the threats, until we silence the fear-mongering, we will continue to witness similar events. Until we all work to find common ground, to be willing to lean in to hear the voices of others who may be far from us on the political spectrum but still close enough to reach out to if we stretch ourselves, we will continue to be profoundly polarized, and that is heartbreaking indeed.