Up out of the Trenches

In 2012 I visited Verdun, a World War I battlefield site in France. It was a bitter cold day, the kind when the damp and chill cut right through your layers. We hopped out of the car, walked a few feet into the woods, and found shallow scars still outlining the trenches where nearly 100 years previously, young boys and men huddled, trying to get warm, to stay dry and alive.

I shivered until I couldn’t take the cold anymore (a whole five minutes maybe), and then we climbed back into our car, turned up the heat, and drove away, something those boys, many barely older than my son, couldn’t do. Many died in those bone-cold, wet holes in the ground.

I was reminded of Verdun on Christmas Eve, when the guitarist at my church played and sang a moving song by John McCutcheon called Christmas in the Trenches. According to the stories, on Christmas of 1914, German and English soldiers called a unofficial truce. They came up out of the trenches to play football, sing carols, share treats, show family photos, and hang out. The next day they had to return to killing each other. Wikipedia says this wasn’t even a singular event. During the first two years of the war, enemy soldiers called ceasefires and fraternized regularly. After that, what with poison gas and all, the war became too bitter, enmities too, er, entrenched.

However, after the Christmas ceasefire, Francis Tolliver, McCutcheon’s young soldier, has to ask himself, “Whose family have I fixed within my sights?” But he can’t help that. He’s a soldier in wartime, and that’s his tragedy. He has to remain in the trench to stay alive.

“Lest we forget” has become not much more than a cliche. A lot of people say it meaning, let’s honor the sacrifices of our soldiers. I’m all for that. But to me, McCutcheon’s song reveals the more important meaning: Lest we forget the essential humanity of our enemy.

We seem to be doing a lot of that these days.The list of horrifying daily events is endless and heartbreaking. And so much of it stems from the facile vilifying of those who vote/think//pray/dress/love differently than we do.

We don’t just have big Enemies of the WWI kind. We have casual enemies, many and sundry. I can list some of mine: Climate change deniers. Those guys who carry assault weapons into stores and restaurants. Anyone who uses the word feminazi seriously. Westboro Baptist Church. Rush Limbaugh.

And that’s fine, I suppose. Or is it?

It’s my prerogative to disagree vehemently with people for whatever I choose. But is it fine to vilify them? Ever? Unless someone has acted heinously, done something far beyond posting things I find despicable on Facebook, no.

No, it’s not fine at all.

Because “enemy” implies a lot of things. It screams “less worthy”. Less worthy of what? Of respect? Of rights? Where does that stop? What does it lead to?

It leads to turning a casual enemy into a capital E Enemy. To forgetting that those who watch the “wrong” news channel, who voted for the “wrong” candidates, who pray differently or don’t pray at all, who march for causes we don’t like, are just us in different skin.

It leads to blindness. To not looking all the way down the rifle sights, past the religious garb/uniform/protest sign/bumper sticker to the humanity behind it. To not seeing our own selves reflected back in every single face, including those with whom we disagree.

It leads both to terrorist killings of cartoonists and to deciding all Muslims are terrorists. It leads to shooting a 12-year-old for carrying a toy gun and to killing cops point blank.

The Washington Post recently published an article called Top 10 Reasons American Politics are so Broken. I think we all know this country is more polarized and less accepting of the other side than it’s been since probably the Civil War. We don’t just disagree with our neighbor’s politics. We dislike our neighbor for holding those views. And in fact, we may not even be neighbors with those who hold opposing views because so many of us live in trenches where we don’t even meet “the other.”

But unlike Francis Tolliver, we have a choice. We can come up out of our trenches any old time we like.

And we must. Because, you know, hate is too easy down there.

It’s a whole lot easier to vilify Rush Limbaugh, whom I’ve never met, than to hate my Rush-quoting next door neighbor who helped fix my flat tire in the cold. When you stay in your trench, whomever your flavor of enemy – the racist, gay-bashing Fox newscaster, the hippy Occupy protester, the uniformed cop, the black kid in the hoodie, the CEO, the mom on foodstamps, the hijab-wearing Muslim, the atheist – can all too easily become your Enemy. When you have never come up out of the trench to share a pack of gum.

Lest we forget. Lest we forget to see the essential humanity of those in our rifle sights. Lest we forget that “on each end of the rife, we’re the same.”

On the Shooting Death of Tamir, Part Two

Back in 2000, I was a young military wife living in Tempe, Arizona. My husband had been assigned to an ROTC position on the ASU campus, which meant I got to take classes tuition-free at the university. (Cushy life, but somebody’s got to live it.) I used to meet my husband on campus frequently. He’d be in uniform, of course. Every so often, I noticed looks of scorn focused our way. Once or twice someone gave him the finger. They judged him solely by his uniform, his career choice, and I felt judged in turn. It hurt my feelings a lot.

A year later, everything changed. Military appreciation discounts abounded. ROTC enrolment soared. No more fingers on campus. Small children were encouraged to approach my husband, tug on his uniform, and thank him for his service.The military and the people in it became heroes again, overnight.

Once again, my husband was judged solely by his uniform. This time it happened to work to our favor. Damn right I’ll take that 10% off. Free entry to National Parks? Great!

But guess what? He was the same guy, pre-9-11, post-9-11. The hero worship irked me nearly as much as the fingers, because I knew he was just a fallible human being like the rest of us. If he deserved respect, it wasn’t for donning that uniform in the morning; it was for upholding the highest standards of what that uniform represents. And the military is still the military. A flawed system like every other institution. As such it requires careful watch-dogging, constant checks and balances, addressing of problems as they arise (or at least as they are noticed).

That post 9-11 hero-worship did no one any real favors (aside from that free trip to Legoland. My kids appreciated that.). Instead it helped create a climate in which dissent from political/military decisions were read as unpatriotic, even as traitorous. And that led in turn to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I think there are few people left who see that decision as anything but disastrous, based on flawed information that wasn’t given the scrutiny it deserved.

Then and now I believe real patriotism means taking off the rose-coloured glasses. Seeing beyond the uniform to the person. Acknowledging that our institutions, our leaders, and we ourselves are all made of humanness, therefore essentially, forever, flawed. Thomas Jefferson knew this. He said, “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”

Part of the cultural dialogue lately has suggested that white liberals are engaging in a type of racism. That by iconicizing Michael Brown or Eric Garner we are actually saying this is the best of black humanity or something. We’re being prejudiced. I disagree. I think instead Michael Brown’s death was a catalyst for something that had long been brewing.

However, I’m hearing that criticism of any actions of the police involved in these shootings, or dissent with the grand jury decisions equals scorn of law enforcement institutions. Isn’t that prejudice? Saying that the police who have made bad decisions, who have shot unarmed people, who have gone in to situations trigger happy, are still up among the best we have? That’s the best they can do? That police are too fragile to tolerate scrutiny? That to me, is not respect. That’s coddling.

And I call bullshit on it. I can respect the law and officers of the law without thinking they’re perfect. Respect for police, to my mind, means insisting all are held to the same very high standard of behavior (and yes I think they should be paid way better too).

On Saturday I took part in a local black lives matter rally. I didn’t see any scorn expressed on the part of the ralliers. I saw people demanding parity of treatment by the law. I saw people demanding justice. I saw people suggesting a need for enhanced surveillance and accountability of police activity. None of this, to my mind, suggests lack of respect or scorn. Instead this will reveal both the many officers who are doing fine, wonderful work and the ones who are not. It will reveal the flaws in the system that exist and need to be fixed. Because, like I said, there are flaws in every system.

The police are people. They should be highly trained, and they’re doing one hell of a hard job. For that they earn and deserve my respect. But do I owe them my blindness? No way. The opposite. I owe them my scrutiny.

Blind respect for systems and uniforms, rose-colored glasses and hero worship. None of these are truly respectful. They help no one. They don’t better society. Instead they lead to disaster. We need only look back as far as Iraq to see that.

On the Shooting Death of Tamir

We all live inside various circles on a huge Venn diagram. I’m at the intersection of a white circle, a suburban circle, a straight circle, a North American circle, a middle class circle, and a female circle, which mostly puts me in quite the cushiony spot on the world diagram.

So I’ve felt my role these days is to listen thoughtfully and respectfully to people outside my tiny privileged circle. To read words written by people of color AND by people in law enforcement. To do my best to suspend my judgments and hear from those inhabiting other circles, and thereby weaken the walls between us just a little. But there comes a point when quiet might be construed instead of intense listening as complacence or complicity. And I’m feeling anything but complacent about a boy named Tamir.

Last week I flew with my kids to Georgia to celebrate Thanksgiving with relatives there. On Thanksgiving Day, as we prepared to eat our meal, my 13-year-old son approached with a realistic toy gun in his hands and made shooting gestures at me. I was annoyed, told him to stop, and shooed him away. And then I forgot about the incident.

We don’t have realistic toy guns in our house. We haven’t progressed past Nerf guns and the occasional paintball outing. This isn’t so much because of a parenting philosophy (I gave up on my no-violent toys-ever ideal the day my then 2-year-old son built a gun out of Lego) but simply because I don’t like them. I hate that clicking sound, and I hate seeing a gun, even a fake one, waved around. But kids are kids. They will play with all concepts and facts of the adult world, including violence, and as long as it remains play, I believe it’s best to leave them to it, even when I find it distasteful.

But back to the important point from above: I forgot about the incident. Because it was only an incident. Because all those Venn circles – suburban, middle-class, white – mean I got to forget. At least until I heard about Tamir Rice.

Tamir Rice, a year younger than my son, was acting just like him: ie, being a jackass. Because adolescent boys are excellent jackasses, one and all. My son takes obvious pleasure in getting my goat. After I told him to quit with the clicking, he got off a couple more potshots at me before disappearing. No doubt Tamir was enjoying bugging people with that toy gun. Or maybe not. Because adolescent boys are also precious, caught right at the fragile cusp of childhood’s end. Maybe he was just a kid lost in a kids’ world, playing some imaginary game that involved waving that thing around. Regardless, he made the tragic mistake of waving it outside, around people who didn’t know him. But more importantly, he did it as a black boy. (An aside: I’m still struggling with how anyone mistook him for a 20-year-old. I’ve walked the middle school hallways. I couldn’t mistake a one of them, not even the biggest and hairiest, for 20.)

My relative’s house on Thanksgiving was stuffed with people, food, and conversation. My son and his cousin, also 13, also white, could have slipped out with that gun, and had I noticed, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to stop them. I would have watched them walk out with relief. “Get outside with that outside toy,” I can hear myself saying. I might have thought to add, “Don’t wave that thing at people.” I might have forgotten to say that because it simply doesn’t occur to me that anyone could perceive my little 13-year-old, barely pubescent, son as threatening, with or without a toy gun in his hand. Is that because I’m his mother? Probably in part. It’s also because I have the luxury of that innocence regarding him. His white skin protects him – as it does me – from assumptions of him as dangerous. 

Now I’ve had to have some painful conversations with my sons over the years. When kids join Cub Scouts it’s required that parents discuss child molestation with them. I had to hold back tears as I did so. I didn’t want to take away my six-year-old darling’s sweet innocence with ugly knowledge of sexual violence against children. And more recently I’ve had conversations with them about their role and responsibility as young men towards girls and women. But I’ve never had to have The Conversation. I haven’t had to tell them that, by virtue of the color of their skin, they are in danger and will be perceived as dangerous by some people. Always, all the time, no matter what, so don’t act in this list of ways, and for the love of God, never be seen with a something that might be mistaken as a weapon in your hands. 

Instead I have taught them since they were small that if they’re ever in trouble, the police will help them, because that is our truth. Had my white son gone outside with that toy gun, waved it about in front of some jumpy neighbor who then called the police, I fully expect they would have driven up and seen the situation for what it was: Not dangerous. Had it gone differently, had the police perceived my son as threatening and shot him dead for holding a toy gun, I can’t even comprehend the level of shock and outrage I would feel. Had that happened, though, it would be a grievous but freakishly rare event. Tamir, on the other hand, has joined a long, tragic list of young black boys shot to death. The outrage and shock over his shooting death are there, but so are the people blaming him for waving that toy gun. For doing exactly what my son did.

I believe most police are well-meaning people doing a very hard job, but the fact is there is no equivalent long list of whites shot by the police to that of people of color. I’ll never forget something my high school history teacher, who had been a cop before becoming a teacher, said. He told us that he had never thought of himself as a racist, and then he became a cop, and his job made him racist. I get this. It’s easy to be compassionate when you’re not dealing with criminals. When your life is not at risk by the nature of your job. When you’re a suburban white person at the centre of all these cushiony circles.

As a former military wife, I know that every time there was a spate of some unwanted behavior – or negative publicity about said behavior – in the military community, it would lead to a self-reckoning within the hierarchy, which in turn meant my husband would soon attend several hours of mandatory training. Suicide prevention, anti-sexual harrassment training, domestic violence prevention, and so on. New rules would be put in place and attempts to enforce them made. I sincerely hope the same self-reckoning and retraining is now going on within police forces across the country.

I did have The Conversation with my son, but it went very differently than it must for black parents. I talked to him about that incident with the toy gun at Thanksgiving and how it’s best that he never plays in public with such a toy. But I also talked about his white skin and what it gains him in terms of safety, innocence, and privilege. And I told him about Tamir, kid being a kid, who will never have the chance to turn 13.

I’m not a conspiracy nut, but….

A couple of days ago we all learned that Wendy Davis, the Texas senator who filibustered to prevent the passage of a restrictive anti-abortion bill, fudged a fact or two in her personal bio. She was twenty-one when she divorced, not nineteen. Things like that.

Who cares? I don’t.

I care about how she votes in the senate.

When the Koch brothers are able to put up $12.3 million dollars IN ONE YEAR lobbying against environmental groups, opposing efforts to reduce human impact on climate change and fighting the development of alternative energy sources, why would I care about nineteen or twenty-one?

When the fracking industry has the money to buy primetime ad space aimed at convincing us that fracking is environmentally harmless, perfectly safe, and good for long-term job creation (none of which are true), why would Wendy’s nineteen or twenty-one matter?

And, when in 2010, the Supreme Court essentially gave corporations First Amendment rights by saying it is unconstitutional for the government to restrict corporate contributions to political groups, how can anyone care about Wendy’s age at the time of her divorce?

Problem is, Wendy Davis’ personal bio makes for a whole lot easier reading than does an article about environment or law-making or the economy. It’s a whole lot easier to track down the facts of one woman’s life and say, “There! See, she lied. Right there!” than it is to pinpoint the fact fudging and lies that go on every single day in the corporations determined to take control of the political future of this country.

It’s a lot easier to jump on the bandwagon of condemnation when you’re condemning one lone woman, and not an entire powerful political ethic.

So like I said, I’m not a conspiracy theorist but…

Aw, hell. Maybe I am. Because the more I pay attention, the more I picture this guy

and this guy

locked together in a room, plotting. Gleefully plotting.