Enemies....
The one thing that I have noticed, for as long as I can remember, is that the human condition thrives on enemies. I remember being absolutely petrified of Russians. To me, it was a dark country behind an " iron curtain" where everyone wore gray or black, wore heavy wool coats, ate cabbage, were in a continuous state of frozen and no one smiled. That was the extent of my knowledge. Except that they were really really bad. Really. They were God-less. No one could say “God” or they were sent to Siberia, which is like the deep freeze as opposed to the freezer…much worse. Labor camps were plentiful and they had something similar to the Gestapo…gee what was that? Oh well, some secret organization that was relentless, heartless and cruel. I used to have horrible nightmares. One was that the Russians would invade our country and somehow win. Then they would take everything we owned and make us wear burlap. Then they would have a huge bonfire and they made everyone throw themselves into the fire. Shudder. Growing up, that was a recurring nightmare. I also had Nazi-mares where I would be chased by some big black car with nazi flags all over it and men in full length leather coats, high boots and officer hats. I would run into the woods and climb a tree. Slowly they would wind down the path, stop and get one of those prison type searchlights to creep up the length of the tree I was balanced upon.

I see it everywhere. At work, there’s one person – a worker or manager – that everyone dislikes. At recess, at lunch, in the halls in the elementary, middle and high schools there are always targets of negativity. Opponents. Pariah. Real or imaginary, we see them everywhere. People or groups of people that we hate or really dislike. But why? Why did I fear an entire country of people that I did not know? Fear is based usually on a lack of knowledge. I did not know anything about these people. But from the information that I got from my right-leaning parents and school was that they were a threat to us, physically as well as socially, mentally, psychologically, financially and any other –allys you can think of. They were the great unknown whose language contained too many consonants to be a real language. They were going to take over the world and we would all have to start speaking that? No freakin’ way! But the cold war ended and we found that Russians, surprisingly, weren’t all that different than us. Their government may have stood for one thing, but for the most part their country is as diversely opinionated as ours. We don’t hate Russians anymore. So we need a new enemy.

Let’s see…there’s always the classic groups that never go out of style – black people, Mexicans or South Americans in general. That never gets old! When faced with one of the most catastrophic natural disasters on our soil in our history, the people affected by Katrina, especially those in New Orleans got the added bonus of racial hatred. I was over at my mom’s house when she was emailed a song. A song that people had gone to the trouble of writing, recording and distributing. It was a song that basically said that the people of NO did exactly as they always do – rape, steal, murder, pillage, etc. It was nauseating, to both my mom and myself. How easy it is to sit in the comfort of your home and watch as people’s lives are devastated. How fun it is to laugh and point at the “showboating” of celebrities who just had to get down there to show what great people they are for the cameras. How simple to digest all the information that we were getting from people near but not on the scene. How noble to stand in righteous indignation in the cool surroundings of all our possessions while others tread water.

Then there are the Mexicans. Streaming across our borders illegally by cover of darkness to come and parasite off our society. Disgusting. They are sucking our brilliant health care system dry and our schools are being taxed beyond their capabilities. Build the wall! People coming here trying to get a piece of our pie? Sorry, no vacancies and no habla espanol, you are S.O.L. Go back to where you came from. There are Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai, Chinese, and who knows how many other people here taking advantage of our system. They displace us and our children. They….fill in the blank.

Why do we do this? Is it the “step on others to feel bigger” mentality that compels us to minimize others’ worthiness to share our air, water and space? What possible gain is there to demonizing entire groups of people? I understand why corporations do it and why governments do it, but individuals? Why do individuals do it? If I look at a black woman working out in the same gym with me, am I supposed to feel something other than camaraderie? Kinship? We are both trying to better our health and appearance. Should I feel threatened by her? By the black man? By the Asian woman? The Pakistani man? Am I missing something? If I talk to that man, am I a race traitor? What’s the criteria for that, by the way?

I dated a jazz drummer, many moons ago. A small, spry guy whose smile was a magnet. I adored him. We moved to San Francisco together, and for the most part did pretty well. Until St. Patrick’s Day. I was working, so Darryl went over to my sister’s house for dinner. He was walking to the train station afterwards and had to pass a bar called the Dubliner. The crowd was loud and spilling out onto the sidewalk. Walking with a book about Martin Luther King, Darryl tried to get by on the sidewalk. He was attacked. 5’7”, 120lbs generously, and he was punched and kicked by a mob of drunk guys. The police were called, and he was arrested. He was thrown into the back of a squad car with cuffs cutting off the circulation of his hands. He regained total feeling in his hands about a year later. We put up info request sheets for anyone who saw anything, but they were ripped down immediately. We were contacted by one woman, who saw everything but she had been threatened by the police when she came forward, so she frightened. Something changed in Darryl that night. The spark was gone. He had been through a life of poverty growing up, but for the most part he had not allowed the horrors of racism to permeate his façade. It permeated. He was angry. He was frustrated. He was devastated. It tore our relationship apart.

Racism is not just about comments or jokes between buddies, but those are proliferators. Racism is a multi-leveled, complicated system that is so entwined and ingrained in our society and culture that I wonder if it can ever be undone. It’s like the strong branches and roots of a vine that twists and turns and drives under the foundation of your house, without you ever knowing. Driving through Alabama a couple of summers ago with my boys on a camping expedition, we saw repeatedly – the confederate flag and the saying “heritage not hate”. On bumper stickers, plates, t-shirts, flags anything printable. Heritage not hate. Can we say that about the swastika? Dinner plate sets with swastikas, beneath claiming heritage not hate. Sorry. Some things are soiled by association, as crappy as that might be sometimes. No black person has said, you know they burned crosses in my parent’s yard. I think the cross should be removed because of the humiliation my people have had to endure because of the klan. No. They don’t say that. But they do say, you know what? That flag represents slavery and cruelty and we would really appreciate it if you could show some kindness and remove it whenever possible. What happens? Heritage not hate gets stamped on the flag and it’s good to go. Screw you, this is my heritage, man! Well, bud, if that’s your heritage, that sucks because your heritage is about the victimization and torture of an entire group of people for personal gain and profit. That’s a sucky heritage. Surely you’re composed of more than that?

Over and over again, we demonize people that we believe are against us. Hugo Chavez. Bad guy. Likes Castro. We don’t like Castro. We keep a bunch of our “enemy combatants” in Cuba but we don’t like it. Hugo is a bad man. Sure he offered us millions to help out with Katrina victims….he’s just trying to make gwb look bad. Cheap heating oil for our poor? Asshole. Osama? We liked him for a while. But now we hate him. Well, kinda. No! Wait, got it! We don’t care about him. How’s that? Opposite of love..not hate…indifference! Saddam? Yeah, we hung out with him for a while, but he doesn’t play the way we want him to play, so we don’t like him. Kim Jon-il? That boy is crazy! It seems the number one criteria for being our enemy is – do you do what we want and what we say? If you don’t “play ball” (isn’t that a nice image? All these guys on the field playing baseball, except the ones that won’t. What are they doing? Selling concessions? Watching? Playing (shudder) cricket? What if you aren’t good at baseball? Does that count?) with the US then you are bad. If you don’t allow our corporations and values into your country and adopt our style of capitalism and a free market then you are bad. And being bad on our list is not where you want to be. Does this mean that I think we all should form a circle, holding hands and join in a rousing round of "kumb-ya"? Sure that would be nice, but no. There are hostile people in the world. There are people that mean others harm for whatever reasons they feel are worthy in their heads. But why does the minority take up the majority of our time? Why do we focus on the bad guys? You just make the other bad guys jealous. They want to be in the news too. They want everyone to know their name and think they're "bad" by golly. They want a rep and street cred. Yo.

Demonizing is the way of the human. And I find that I have been doing it without really thinking. Republicans. Yep. Republicans. They don’t care about people, they care about profit. They don’t care about others' religion, they have a Christianity agenda. They want to cut social programs, give money to the rich, get rid of the safety nets and let all these people dragging our system down go. They want to build walls on the borders. But what is this but negative, demonizing stereotyping? All encompassing with no room for individuality or dissent. Not all republicans are this way, just the ones in the news. Just like all democrats are not the way they are portrayed in the news. And Dallas is nothing like the show. We all want to believe that the image presented is the image that applies. To everyone. But it doesn’t ever. Never. People are multifaceted complicated creatures. Not all carnivores are insensitive. Not all conservatives are Christian. Not liberals are pro-abortion. That’s the absolute beauty of humankind. We are so incredibly and puzzlingly diverse. We all have completely different frames of reference – life experiences – even within the same family. We all have different gifts and failings. We all have perspectives that are wonderfully unique. That is not a bad thing. That is a great thing. But it is difficult to deal with. We like our categories. We like to assess quickly, so that a person can be put into a particular group and dealt with in a standard way. Blonde =bimbo. Vegan=militant. Liberal=baby killer. Conservative=fascist. Every time we resort to stereotyping, minimizing the unique attributes of the individual, I believe, we spit the face of our Creator. We essentially say, you know, I don’t care if you made us all different, I cannot be bothered to invest the time to see the beauty in this person. I cannot muster the strength to delve into anything more than the superficial. Sorry, but I’m busy. Jesus said that love was the most important thing of all. And I bet you in every other religion or philosophy, there was someone who said something very similar. Isn’t that hard enough? Loving people that really annoy you? Treating your neighbor as you would like to be treated yourself? Isn’t that a tall enough order? Do we really need to tack on the additional duties of judging people? Haven’t we discovered that we really aren’t very good at that, at all?