SoCS: white words

When the horrific alt-right rallies and violence came down in Charlottesville, there were a lot of interviews with various alt-right leaders.

They were difficult to comprehend.

As anyone who has visited my about page knows, I am white. I am also an American. But I don’t understand terms that the alt-right uses, such as “white culture.”

I know that I belong to American civic culture, but that includes people of all races, ethnicities, faiths (or not, because atheists and agnostics are included, too), philosophies, etc. Everyone who embraces the rights and responsibilities outlined in our Constitution and laws. We all join together in working for the common good.

I don’t know what “white culture” is meant to mean. When my grandparents came from Italy and my great-grandparents came from Ireland, they were not seen as part of an American “white culture.” They were seen as “other”; their children and grandchildren were able to join in the American civic culture into which they were born. That still, though, does not define a “white culture” in the United States, as we participate in that culture with a diverse group of millions.

I also heard alt-right people speaking about “white genocide.” Genocide means the killing of large numbers of people because of the group that they belong to. Rwanda had a horrible genocide between the Hutu and Tutsi, with many men, women, and children slaughtered. Sadly, there are numerous other examples of genocide, but there is certainly no mass killing of white people in the United States for being white.

I did hear one alt-right leader explain “white genocide” as whites no longer being the majority of Americans, ostensibly due to immigration and interracial relationships. To be clear, this is not genocide. Genocide is about hate and death. Children being born is about love and life. My granddaughter is not part of any “genocide”; she is a beautiful expression of love.

Okay. Time to get this published before we have another power bump or internet outage. (So no one is concerned, we are just having some system problems locally. We are far away from the Hurricane Harvey area, to which we send our thoughts and prayers as they brace for up to 40 inches (1 meter) of rain over the next several days.)
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Linda’s prompt this week for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is to being with the word “When.” Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/08/25/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-2617/

 

 

Charlottesville

On Saturday, my son-in-law L headed back to the UK to comply with the terms of his visa which only allowed 90 days to be here for ABC’s birth and early weeks. We all miss him and have been adjusting to the household without him, while, of course, responding to the changing needs and sleep patterns of a two-month-old. That and helping out my parents are quite enough to occupy me, but I felt that I had to post about the current state of affairs in the US, which is adding stress, fear, and sadness to our lives.

Donald Trump is exposing our country to danger with his saber-rattling. I hope that Congress will make clear that war declarations are their province, not the president’s. There should be no first strike against North Korea, Venezuela, or any other country without action from Congress, as the US Constitution requires.

I have long believed that Donald Trump has neither the intellect nor the temperament nor the judgment to be an effective, just, and moral president. Sadly, his reactions to Charlottesville have only reinforced this. His press conference yesterday was wrong on the facts and unconscionably upheld the alt-right/neo-nazi/white supremacist lies about their own history, motivations, and current aspirations. (I do not intend to go over this in detail or to engage in comment exchanges about this, but check out the reporting from Vice to hear the alt-right views directly from their leaders.)

This is a time when all members of Congress should clearly denounce the president for his statements and redouble their efforts to uphold civil rights and religious freedom. (The footage of torch-bearing men chanting against Jews was especially chilling.) They should also offer support to the family and friends of Heather Heyer, to all those who were injured, and to Charlottesville, which is not forthcoming from the White House as we expect in times of tragedy.

Vice-president Pence and the Cabinet should convene to discuss invoking the 25th Amendment, which was added to the Constitution to defend against an unfit president.

I do want to remind people that this is not just about some Confederate statues. These statues were not erected in the 1860s to commemorate those who fought and died. They are not battlefield monuments or historic sites. Most were placed in the 1920s, when the Ku Klux Klan was so strong that it staged marches in Washington, DC, or during the 1950s-60s, at the height of the civil rights marches. They were put in public places in order to intimidate African-Americans and anyone who supported civil rights for all. No one is proposing that we forget about the Civil War, but we need to learn about the complexities of its causes and aftermath, an endeavor which is not served by a statue of a general on a horse at a courthouse or pubic square that was erected to scare people of color.

Violence and bigotry are unacceptable. Love trumps hate.

As Nelson Mandela wrote in Long Walk to Freedom,  “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”