This is not going to be fun. I'm not really sure where to start, nor where this will go, other than I know it will involve fewer cute cat stories and more swearing about Nazis. I'll probably have to write this three times over, for all of the self-editing I'm going to have to do. But I can't pretend everything is okay tonight. There was a domestic terrorist attack this morning, technically the second one this month, and I'm having a hard time coming to terms with it.
I am not sure I understood the simmering hatred that was brewing on the fringes, at least not until the last ten years or so. I naively thought that we as a nation were evolving past the horrible racist attitudes that lingered through our first few hundred years as a colony and then country. Oh, how wrong I was. Some of us grew up and grew out of the casual racism that was insidiously sprinkled throughout the polite society where I walked for the first twenty plus years of my life, but obviously not everyone did. Just because the Sambo's restaurant chain ceased having an acceptable marketing scheme sometime in the 1980s (1) didn't mean that equality had won. I am ashamed to admit that it would be years longer for it to filter through my consciousness how offensive other imagery was, like wearing feathered headdresses as Halloween costumes, or using Cinco de Mayo and St Patrick's Day as excuses for college kids to be drunken walking ethnic slurs. But these things are more on par with ignorance than abject hatred. It was hatred that clashed in the streets this morning.
Several years ago, what were once fringe groups on the political far right were identified as one of the biggest domestic terror threats, and the mainstream political right went nuts. They took great umbrage to the suggestion that they might be identified with a terror threat, when they were insisting loudly that all terror was ipso facto perpetrated by Islamic radicals, because they made such a point of linking the two. Yet since September 12, 2001, 73% of all fatalities resulting from extremist terror attacks were from right-wing individuals or groups, versus 27% from radical Islamist extremist groups.(2)
I watched the drumbeat of anger brew throughout the Obama presidency, but I tried to tell myself that these ugly voices only represented a tiny minority, and that the vast majority of people who voted right of center were adults who just approached the issues differently than I do. I wanted to believe the bulk of them were just wired a little differently in the problem-solving centers of their brains. I flinched whenever my friends, acquaintances, or loved ones slipped racist or sexist comments into conversation, but I tried hard to compartmentalize it, and tell myself I still cared about them as human beings. It's very difficult to process when a family member that you have adored since you were old enough to toddle over to them professes the belief that only "the right people" should be allowed to vote. (That part of my heart still aches, even after a year or more.) Half of my family and probably three quarters of the people I went to high school with voted for the current president. I am crushed inside every time I think of it, but again, compartmentalization is strong with me. Or perhaps it's denial. I love these people, and I don't know how to reconcile who they are telling me that they are with who I always wanted them to be.
The last year has been terrifying. Almost a year ago, Hillary Clinton laid it out in a speech in Reno (3) about the white supremacist groups masquerading under the less-threatening name "Alt-Right" who had thrown their support to Donald Trump, whom he embraced with open arms. He has a long history, as did his family, of walking that walk, even if he pretended not to talk that talk. She warned us about the "deplorables," and his supporters wore the name like a badge of honor.
After the election, anecdotal evidence poured in about an increase in bullying in schools, workplace racism and threats of violence, of people acting out in checkout lines--story after story of bad behavior that often carried the punchline "This is Trump's America now." As actual fucking Nazis (4) were employed in the White House, an outspoken Resistance has formed. The rhetoric has ratcheted up, along with the blood pressure of most of the citizenry. It was just a matter of time before The Great American Melting Pot boiled over.
Which brings us to this weekend. Friday night the mob was mocked, for cosplaying as Trump in white polo shirts and khakis, carrying citronella tiki torches from Home Depot. But they merited national attention for using Actual Fucking Nazi Slogans (e.g. "blood and soil" from the original German "Blut und Bloden" (5)) and for being creepy AF.
By Saturday morning mockery was not enough. The opening shots of war have been fired. The first blood has been spilled.
The white supremacists made their intentions quite clear when they showed up with helmets and shields, with armed militia alongside them, to announce their hateful message to the world. Their demonstration was publicly planned, with protesters coming from all over the country to join their orgy of hate. A counter protest came to answer their vileness. It wasn't enough for one 20 year old neo-Nazi, who left the march (where he was photographed) to get his car, in order to drive it headlong into a crowd, the new favorite method of terrorist attack. The entire thing was filmed from multiple angles, including one photo that will live forever, in which you can see at least four people in the air, with their feet above their heads, and others already down, knocked out of their shoes. (6) (As an aside, the Mr was carefully studying some of the video this afternoon, and wondered why it appeared that the terrorist's air bags did not deploy when he ran down the pedestrians. I asked, were they intentionally disabled so he could keep driving after impact, implying a level of premeditation that leaves my blood cold?)
And now, with one person dead (as of this writing) from the terrorist attack, and two policemen who were monitoring the clash killed when their helicopter went down, where are we as a nation?
The vast majority of the country's leaders, past and present, condemned the f'ing Nazis and their murderous act. Several were conspicuously neutral, and as others have quoted, "The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."(7) But what upset me most, as we listened in shock on the drive down to visit a sick friend, was how the president turned a national crisis into an opportunity to pat himself on the back (talking about efforts to change policy at the VA) and essentially shrug and say "both sides do it."
That, friends, is deplorable.
(Since the election, Keith Olbermann has been making video comments of increasing alarm, ending each and every one with the words "Resist. Peace." If I had a single bloom on my peace rose, I would use that to illustrate my own comment, as I always try to include at least one photograph. I did the best I could, and got a picture of the next rose over from the peace. Maybe there is a symbolic message there. Choose your own adventure.)
1. http://www.thedailybeast.com/pancakes-and-pickaninnies-the-saga-of-sambos-the-racist-restaurant-chain-america-once-loved
2. http://www.gao.gov/assets/690/683984.pdf
3. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/0 8/transcript-hillary-clinton-alt-right-reno-227419
4. Sorry for the language, but I refuse to be polite when there are badge-wearing Fucking Nazis In Our Government! Why is Sebastian Gorka there in the first place? What does he do?
5. http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/12/us/charlottesville-unite-the-right-rally/index.html
6. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-unite-the-right-charlottesville-20170812-story.html -- Sorry, this one seems to be chock-full of ads and cookies, but it has the photo I referenced.
7. Dante Alighieri
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