Understanding America

I do not understand this country I thought I knew.

Yes, there is and has always been racism, and sexism and in fact, all kinds of oppression meted out to a lot of people and groups. The history of racial and sexual oppression of people in this country is not pretty. People want to deny it, or ignore it, but it is there.

Even though I read this history and am knowing it better and better, even though I knew the history of domestic terrorism which white mobs have engaged in, most times with the help and support of law enforcement, I always thought that deep down, underneath the racial hatred, there was the possibility of hatred passing away or at least diminishing so that all God’s children could live together.

I believed that.

I do not believe that all white people are bad, nor do I believe that all white people are racist.

But this election has shown me that too many white people are racist and are unable to rise above their racism for the common good.

During the presidential election, I truly thought that the masses of Americans, white and black, would be disappointed, angered and repulsed by the hateful rhetoric spewed by the incoming president. I thought they would reject hatred, reject racism and sexism and all the other “isms” that we heard over the past year and a half.

But the masses didn’t care. The incoming president tapped into something in them – an anger based on economic woes, for sure, but also based on something else more sinister. They did not care what he said, who he said it about, how true or false it was, how crass it was, or whose feelings it would hurt.

He was going to “make America great again,” which seemed, in the end, to mean that he was going to give a lot of Americans permission to openly …hate …again.

I was sure the masses of Americans would be dismayed that he used people from Breitbart News as close advisors. I was wrong. I was sure people who called themselves patriotic would be appalled at this would-be president delegitimizing the heroism of Sen. John McCain. He was speaking to a certain group of people – mostly white – and he was clear about it.

I was sure the masses of Americans would reject that. I thought we had come further than that.

I was sure Americans would be disgusted by this man making fun of journalist who had a disability. He said he didn’t do that; his surrogates say he didn’t, either. No, it was the “dishonest media” that spread that story. He completely ignored the fact that people saw him, saw what he did and said.

His supporters were ready for a change; how it came about didn’t matter. They loved it that he was “not a politician” and that he “said it like it was.”

But “like it was” for whom?

Time will tell what this man’s policies will be. It is not my opinion of his shortcomings which is the big deal here. The big deal is that the masses of Americans supported his hateful rhetoric. They applauded and ignored his name-calling and bullying people They ignored his obviously thin skin and his lack of impulse control. Even now, they do not care that he is buddying up to Vladimir Putin.

It is troubling to me because I thought I knew America, fundamentally. I thought there were more people who despised racial hatred than there were people who still live in it.

I was wrong.

A candid observation…

The Complexity of Hope

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As this country winds down from the Obama administration and readies itself for the incoming administration, nothing feels secure. Nobody quite knows what the new president will do or not do. His refusal to show his tax returns has maddened some to the point that they say they are not going to pay their taxes. His arrogance shows itself daily; his rants on Twitter seem so immature and, frankly, inappropriate for a head of state.

His antics, actions, and words, are, quite honestly, troubling and frightening. His refusal to severely admonish Russia for whatever role it had in hacking American cyberspace feels …like treason. His treatment of the press is an assault on one of the basic freedoms guaranteed to Americans; one wonders what the press will be able to do under his leadership – if they will be able to practice responsible journalism, though, to be honest, the press has for a while slipped from being a truth-seeking entity to being merely entertainment. Cable news programs are not really news; they are all-day talk shows.

This man who will be inaugurated president has insulted almost everyone who can be insulted – from women, to blacks, to immigrants to people with disabilities. Because of his rhetoric, little children feel free to hurl racist epithets at their classmates, and reports indicate that, since the campaign, hate crimes have been on the rise. (http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/hate-on-the-rise-after-trumps-election) Immigrants – legal and illegal – including children of immigrants who were born here are afraid of being deported. Muslims are afraid of being assaulted.

The cold war between Russia and the United States ended years ago, and the threat of a nuclear war felt like it was really a thing of the past, but now, not so much. The new president is buddying up with Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom he apparently likes because Putin likes him, but both the incoming president and Putin seem to be of the same ilk: arrogant men in pursuit of power at any cost. They are “getting along” now but one has to wonder how long the warm fuzzies between them will last. When one or both of them get angry at the other, when the quest for ultimate power by one or both of them takes precedence over civility, what will happen? Who will suffer? And it’s not like the two of them are the only hot-heads in power; Kim Jung-un of North Korea seems to be just as volatile as Putin and the president-elect, and China has already been riled by actions the president-elect took when he accepted a call from Taiwan, in violation of the One China policy which has been respected for decades.

This country does not feel as safe as it has felt before now, and it’s not just because of the threat of terrorism. It’s largely because the incoming president has ushered in a spirit of hatred and bigotry – or maybe he has just unearthed it from the underground – and he has done so arrogantly.

And yet…today comedian Steve Harvey, loved and respected by so many people, black and white – visited the president-elect in Trump Tower. He said after the meeting that he did so because “President Obama called me and told me I should meet” with the incoming president. Harvey said that the talk was good; that his host seemed “sincere” and that he seemed like a nice person. He repeated that President Obama “said we should talk.” Harvey talked not only to the president-elect but to members of the transition team and to Dr. Ben Carson, who will head up the Department of Housing and Urban Development. (HUD) Harvey said the incoming administration wants to address the problems of the inner cities, something about which Harvey and others have long been concerned about and worked to improve.

He also said that President Obama said that “we have to come from behind our computers”and work, so “I came from behind my microphone” because, he said, we have work to do.

For a moment I couldn’t believe that Steve Harvey was in Trump Tower. I hardly knew what to think. But he kept on saying, “President Obama said I needed to talk with…” and Harvey did it. If the president can do something for the inner cities, then, said Harvey, he’s good with it. Political commentator Ana Navarro, who said again that she thinks the incoming president is a “despicable human being” said she respects the office of president. If he can get people jobs and do all that that he said he would do, then she will respect that.

It seems that Steve Harvey has decided to hope. To hope, says Rebecca Solnit in her book Hope in the Dark, ” is to gamble. It’s to bet on the future, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than gloom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet it is because the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk.” (p. 4)

Watching all that has been happening has been difficult and disconcerting; it has certainly widened the lake of uncertainty in which Americans are swimming. And yet, Steve Harvey reminded me of this thing called “hope,” daring to talk to someone whom you do not trust or like, for the sake of a transformation for the betterment of someone other than ourselves.

It may be that this time is a time in which we all…learn to hope and thus, learn to live in a new way.

A candid observation …

Poor Kids and Mental Illness

I was at a program a couple of weeks ago where children with autism and/or who were on the spectrum were performing in a holiday recital.

The atmosphere was a mixture of excitement and poorly controlled chaos. Some of the children were wide-eyed and expectant. Others had no life in their eyes at all. Some ran around the venue, parents chasing them, others sat stone-still or rocked back and forth making quiet noises.

On stage, some performed so well that one would not know they had a developmental issue. Others merely stood and made noises. My daughter, a music therapist, was the organizer of the recital, and she literally worked wonders with the children, both those who were high functioning and with those who were more challenged.

What I noticed, though, is that most of the children in this school and therefore in this recital were white; there were only three African American children. The sight stopped me cold, because surely, there are kids of all ethnicities who are born with autism and other developmental issues, but they were not represented this evening.

The observation took me to my belief that there are many children in poor, urban and rural areas, who have autism but whose parents either cannot afford the specialized care they need or are too young or too fraught with their own issues to recognize that there is something physically wrong with their children. Instead of getting care, they get yelled at, whipped, called names and are put down by their families. Then, they go to school and still, nobody recognizes that they have a developmental problem, and again, get chastised, criticized, put down, are ostracized, called names, labeled behavior problems …and they live lives of utter despair.

I imagine it must be like a person who has had a stroke and whose cognitive abilities are still intact but who cannot talk or communicate. He or she is at the liberty of people who do not understand and, unfortunately, often do not care.

These children enter the cradle to prison pipeline. They have a hard time in school; they must find themselves by themselves and many never do. Once they are pubescent, they are on the streets where they find some relief from feeling inadequate and stupid and bad. They find friends who like them and seem to respect them and they do what they can do to stay connected to what becomes their family.

That family, however, too often leads them deeper and deeper into the streets and the lure of excitement and danger offered by the streets. Too often, little kids with autism or other ailments grow up totally untreated; they are miserable children who grow up to be adults in despair. They push and fight and claw their way to try to find light and normalcy in this life but often fail.

They are killed, or they kill. They are arrested. They are convicted and put into prison, and they die.

As I watched these little children, my heart ached. There must be something we can do. There must be a way to form a foundation or something so that these children can get the same love, care and attention other, more privileged children receive. All children need that, no matter their color, ethnicity or class. If humans do not get care and love, they disintegrate, inside, spiritually and emotionally.

My guess is that there are more children than not being labeled bad who are really sick.

We who are able need to care about them and somehow, do something to help them.

A candid observation …

Despair and Depression Follows Trump Victory

The victory of Donald Trump was credited to his campaign hearing the pain of white working men. That demographic was not the only group to vote for Trump, but their supposed pain over their economic situation is not hard to believe or understand.

Since the election, however, there has been a serious lack of desire and willingness to understand the feelings of “the losers.” Yes, there has been and is great disappointment; that always happens when one loses, but bigger than that, there is a general feeling of despair, depression and hopelessness.

Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign was hate-filled. He railed against immigrants (his supporters will say it was only illegal immigrants, but many immigrants in general were offended by his words), he revealed his sexism, he berated and made fun of a man with a physical handicap, he called people names, and more. He was a bully, a proud, arrogant, privileged, white, male bully and his people loved it.

Others, though, did not like it. They did not attribute it to mere politics. To many, Trump’s verbiage revealed the soul, the spirit and the ugliness of America. He made it clear that he wanted to “make America great again.” He did not care that when he asked Stephen Bannon, for example, to head his campaign that the selection of a man who represented the so-called “alt-right” was threatening and troubling to people who feel that the alt-right is racist to its core.

When Trump won, the “other masses,” not white working class men, but women, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, immigrants …felt like they had been hit – not by Trump but by the American masses – with a steel ball. They felt like all of the work they had done to get marginalized people fairer representation in this country was for nothing. If they were reading and hearing Trump correctly, they understood that what he intended to do was take America “back” to a place when they were kept in their place as wealthy, white men grabbed again to the horns of power.

While “the other masses” have mourned, racial violence has spiked. White victors, including Richard Spencer, an avowed white supremacist, have gloated, saying that “white America,” “white men,” won.

Those words are like knives cutting into the souls of people who have been fighting white supremacy all their lives.

To this day, the prevalent feeling of many is not “sour grapes” because Trump won, but ta familiar feeling of hopelessness. Many people are clinically depressed. The victories gotten have been hard-fought and hard-won, and to think that those changes will possibly be wiped out by this man and his administration is daunting.

Some people have sunk into their despair. “Why even try anymore,” asked a young man at a candlelight vigil for environmental justice. Another person distressed about the suppression of voting rights by the Republicans before and during the campaign, said that the suppression will only continue under the new administration.

“All that fighting and suffering to get black people the right to vote …and now, this,” she said. “I…am tired.”

The Rev. William Barber has said, as have a slew of Progressive preachers and pastors, that “standing down” in light of this new president is not an option. Mourning at the thought of what seems like useless efforts is normal, but just giving up is not the answer.

Those who have been fighting must continue to fight …and must bring others along with them.

It is ironic that the new administration can identify with the pain of white working men, but has said basically nothing about all of the other groups who are not only hurting now but who have been hurting because of America’s racism, sexism and economic policies which benefit only a small few. It is troubling that his new cabinet seems to be made up of white men who have done well in this capitalistic country without much regard for the poor and struggling.

The message that many hear is that it only the struggling of the white working class that matters.

Time will tell what this president will to for the masses of suffering who are not white. Time will tell how immigrants will fare, how urban children will fare with a person heading up his education department who doesn’t seem to much care for public education. Time will tell how black and brown people will fare as they are continually affected by state-sanctioned violence, and how women will fare if the U.S. Supreme Court is stacked with justices who care little for the rights of women, even as they bleed for the rights of unborn babies.

So much is on the line; so many are standing on that line, and this administration seems not to notice or care.

Whenever a group or an individual feels unaffirmed, unimportant, disposable – they grow within them a deep pain that often turns to resentment and sometimes to violence. That is the pain Trump picked up in the white working men. What he and his administration do not see or care to think about is that that same pain is brewing in the souls of a lot of people who are not white but who, like their white brothers and sisters, are not working, either.

Pain is not black or white; it is not Republican or Democrat; it is not Right or Left; it is not Conservative or Liberal.

It is simply human pain, and pain, unattended, causes problems.

It would be nice if some of the Trump people would acknowledge that there is a lot more at stake than the bruised feelings of working white men, but I don’t suppose they ever will.

And it is because so many of them won’t acknowledge that that the predominant pain of those who did not want Trump (and many did not want Hillary, either) is pain, depression, hopelessness and despair.

Can a nation truly be great if so many are in despair? I think not.

A candid observation ….

God, Waiting

In spite of the vitriol of the president-elect, and the bubbling anger and rage that can be felt in our land, it is a fact that we as people are not wired to hate.

We are wired to care for others; we are wired for compassion; we are wired to be in community with each other.

Inside all of us is a place I call the “God-spot.” It is that place where we love each other, where we lose hatred and the desire for vengeance. It is that place that God put in all of us.

The problem is, we hide it and run from it. In our society, there is pressure to give into hatred and prejudice in the quest for power and popularity. We see it early, as in elementary schools, bullies taunt classmates and too many people remain bystanders, in agony over what they are seeing, but afraid to say anything, because they want to belong.

I said in a presentation that I gave recently that I was appalled not at Donald Trump; he has shown us who he is and that is just the reality.

What has bothered me is that so many people have gravitated toward him, even those who are embarrassed and bothered by what he has said. Politicians have lost all semblance of honesty and morals and self-respect because they want to “belong.”

As much as that bothers me, I still think that God has wired us all to care for each other. The “God-spot” can move people from hatred to agape love, from racism and sexism to a spirit of inclusion. The “God-spot” is a power within us that few acknowledge or perhaps even know is there, and it is a power that we stifle because it is frightening.

It is frightening because acknowledging and employing the “God-spot” sets us up to attacks from those who would rather sit in hatred, bigotry and worse. It sets us up to be called “weak,” and “loser,” and worse.

In a seminary where I spoke last week, a woman said that the election of Donald Trump might be good for the country. Perhaps. If he gets people jobs, that will be good for the country.

The issue is that he has moved people so far from the “God-spot,” including and especially Christian Evangelicals, who seemingly rejected the principles of God and chose instead to act on …other feelings.

I leave you, the reader, to define and examine and admit what those “feelings” are and were.

But in the midst of this turbulent time, a time when racists and sexists are coming out boldly to “make America great again,” something special is being ignored.

It is that “God-spot,” being replaced and pushed back by anger based on race, sex, class and economics.

America is in for some rough times, as people rely on their ideologies and leave the theology of a God who seeks justice behind.

But sooner or later, my hope is that those who acknowledge the “God-spot” within themselves, weeping as God’s people tear each other apart, will step forward and desire to “belong” to a beloved community, rather than a community so fractured that it threatens to implode before our very eyes.

God is waiting, I think.

A candid observation …