Recently I had a conversation with my barber. It began when I asked her which channel was broadcasting the news I heard coming from the TV behind me on the wall out of my view. I expressed my theory that the style of certain networks was to hype the news with raised voices, great enthusiasm, and extreme adjectives projecting their opinions; whether the subject was a local tragedy or a description of an international incident. Based upon my theory, I speculated that the program we were hearing was from one of two networks.
My barber acknowledged that I was correct. However, she didn’t stop there. With her sharp scissors rapidly clicking dangerously near my ear she confessed her anxiety and distress over the mean-spiritedness she encounters daily in the media. She did not know where to turn. “In fact,” she said, “I can’t listen or watch the news any more. It freaks me out. I can’t get the terrible way people treat each other out of my head.”
She continued, expressing dismay over President Trump’s meanspirited tweets and speeches. “No American president should mix truth with lies and say the contemptuous things he does about people. It is not presidential. He’s done some good things for our country but I can’t support his attitude.” Now in her mid-twenties she has not yet voted in an election. She felt she had not been informed enough to make a reasoned decision. However, seeking to relieve her present anxiety, she was ready to vote in the next election. “But first,” she said, “I need to learn how the government works, how elections are conducted, and how to get to know the candidates for president.”
I write to tell my barber there are many others who are stressed out over the trends toward labeling, fear of others, racism, homophobia, and white male privilege. You are not alone. There are people speaking out and advocating for a better way.
I write to support my friend Robert Azzi, photo journalist, who is both angry and sad, crying out on the Opinion page of the Monitor, “What have we become? What is this world we inhabit?… Racism is not a policy or a political position. It’s a moral failure on the part of those who believe some people are more worthy, more human, than others, who believe people of color must be grateful for the noblesse oblige that tolerates their presence.”
I write to thank the U.S. House of Representatives for passing H.Res.486 – Condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at Members of Congress. The resolution says in part, Congress“strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color by saying that our fellow Americans who are immigrants, and those who may look to the President like immigrants, should ‘go back’ to other countries, by referring to immigrants and asylum seekers as ‘invaders,’ and by saying that Members of Congress who are immigrants (or those of our colleagues who are wrongly assumed to be immigrants) do not belong in Congress or in the United States of America.”
I write to support all of those who are embarrassed and dismayed by the appalling attitude of the President toward people who disagree with him. Some have chosen to disregard the President’s temperament in order to preserve a political agenda that they think will benefit the country. They live by the old chestnut, “The end justifies the means.” Literature is filled with scenarios of individuals tempted to give a pass to immorality, twisted ethics, or sacrifice of neighbor in order to accomplish something perceived to be of benefit to the greater good. It is a deception and a trap that corrupts a person’s the integrity, consistency, and wellbeing. In fact, one of the fears Trump raises among many people is that his means will bethe end goal: a country and society of exclusion, racism, white privilege, abusive power, and an erosion of democracy.
Faithful relationships, truth-telling, and a democratic society depend upon compatibility between means and goals. Therefore, it makes sense to look for consistency among the attitudes, methods and the goals espoused by politicians and candidates. I would suggest to my barber that this approach will serve her well as a start in her preparation to vote in the 2020 elections.
Finally, I write to say we have companions in the struggle for a kinder more empathetic society. David Brooks, an Op Ed columnist for the New York Times, said recently on NPR that he was sure that the majority of Americans do not support the meanspirited language and attitudes of the people at the Trump North Carolina rally who shouted “send them back.” This majority only has to speak out.
onthefringe2015 