Troubling thoughts

A lazy Saturday. That’s what I thought when I woke up this morning, and it was true for the day. I stayed in bed as long as Sophie would let me, dozing and thinking about what I’d do once I got up. Like fix myself corned beef hash—a favorite breakfast—and make the pasta salad I’ve been thinking about for a week. And, of course, write my thousand words for the day. I did all that and had a good, hard nap. I hadn’t slept well during the night, and I dreamt during my nap of my nephew and his kids and then of running a coffee house—my, how the sixties sometimes come back to haunt us. Or maybe the domestic violence of the sixties was talking to me.

Highlight of the day came when neighbors said they were coming for happy hour. They even brought the wine and some really good cheese, and we had a lovely visit, a happy hour that was truly happy.

But all day troubling thoughts were beneath the surface of my activities. While Europe suffers through terrorist attacks which unite countries in a determination not to be beaten, we are a divided country with Nazi sympathizers and white supremacists marching through our streets. And our president makes their hate okay to display in pubic. In seven short months, America has gone from being the leading world power to being dismissed as a joke….and a bad one at that.

What kind of animals honor the Third Reich? They must see the pictures of skeleton-like people, humiliated and demoralized to the point they lack humanity, lined up waiting to be shot. Of holocaust camp victims. I have read the theories about fears of white genocide, men feeling disenfranchised and wanting to return to the day “when blacks knew their place,” all the excuses for this current white supremacist behavior. None merit a moment’s thought.

Equally as bad to me are the people who claim the counter-protestors are anarchists and communists. Many are people of faith, religious leaders who fight violence by silent protest, and others, everyday citizens who, quaking with fear, feel called upon to do protest evil. Lord protest them.

I am troubled also by the frenzy to erase all signs of the Civil War. I’ve read those theories too—the symbols are offensive, they weren’t erected to honor Confederate heroes but to frighten blacks. When Six Flags amusement park forgets history and takes down not only the Confederate flag—it was the battle flag and not the official flag of the Confederacy—but also the flags of Spain, Mexico, France, and the revered Republic of Texas, the madness has gone too far.

What matters is not how things were in the past but how we treat people today—and we’re doing a damn poor job of that, with racism, immigration laws that tear families apart and target innocent citizens, gender bias that would govern our bathroom behavior, laws that cut funding for the least able among us.  There is an evil force at work, dividing us, making us less than we are.  Please. Let’s recognize evil and terrorism where they are, here today, on our streets and in our laws, and fight those forces, not tilt at statues that are no more than windmills.