Meet Virginia
“Engrave this upon your heart – there isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story.” – Sr. Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB
Oh, the lessons we could learn from these wise words.
Three men had moments this week where they proved that humanity still has much to learn about how to treat ‘the other.’
The most publicized “man turned boob” this week was Senator George Allen, who referred to an Indian-American man as a ‘macaca,’ as most everyone knows by now. Sen. Allen’s love for the confederate flag not withstanding, this certainly isn’t the type of language one would expect from someone itching to run for President in 2008. His awkward apology made it even worse, and reminded me of something Rabbi Simmons wrote about on self-forgiveness: If we don’t authentically admit our wrong-doing in the first place, how can we expect to be forgiven? (“Did you eat the apple?” “No, the woman made me do it!” “Did you eat the apple?” “No, the snake made me do it!” “Well, somebody ate the fucking apple!” Or for those who think, like I do, that the creation story is something crazy Kansas School Board members use to justify removing evolution from school-wide science curriculums, “Did you blow up Iraqis?” “The terrorists blew us up first.” “Terrorists, did you blow up Americans?” “They’ve been selling weapons to our enemies for years.” “Hello, would you all stop blowing people up!”)
Oddly enough, there was another case of “Politicians Gone Racially Intolerant” this week, this time from the Democratic side of the aisle. Andrew Young, who co-chairs the campaign of Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor in Georgia, recorded his thoughts on why Wal-Mart is justified in taking over small mom-and-pop stores. Young’s own words:
"Well, I think [Wal-Mart] should; they ran the `mom and pop' stores out of my neighborhood," the paper quoted Young as saying. "But you see, those are the people who have been overcharging us, selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables. And they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they've ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs; very few black people own these stores."
Young says his comments were taken out of context, but I’m not sure there’s a context that these comments could be deemed acceptable. You know, outside of the, “If I were a big jerk, I’d say ‘well, I think the Jews, Arabs and Koreans sold us stale bread and bad meat…” Nice try, Mr. Young.
And in Connecticut, rookie Ned Lamont’s campaign manager, Tom Swan, managed to defile an entire town (Waterbury), by saying that the town was a place “Where the forces of slime meet the forces of evil.” For some reason that sounds more like a slogan for “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” as opposed to campaign fodder. I like the image of Donatello smacking Joe Lieberman with some bamboo sticks. Still, Tom Swan should have used better judgment. As many good people live in Waterbury as they do in whatever rich, gated community Ned Lamont probably lives in (and don’t get me wrong…I’d vote for Lamont vs. Lieberman, 1,000 times over). Besides, should Lamont win in November, I’m sure he’ll realize soon enough that the place where the forces of slime meet the forces of evil isn’t in Connecticut….it’s in the chambers of the U.S. Senate!
So it’s been a week of intolerance, and I’m not even including Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s “tar baby” comments two weeks ago.
What’s the lesson in all of this?
Well, it could just be that politics is a bad business to get into, because it makes one creepy and weird (Tom Tancredo, anyone?). Or it could be that people still harbor a shitload of racist baggage, and given time it will manifest itself in all sorts of different capacities.
But the other lesson is for consumers – those who read the articles, the blogs, the press releases about these incidents, and shake their heads in disapproval. It’s easy to cast judgment, but then again, people who live in glass houses….
We still owe it to ourselves to label all of these incidents as wrong, whether they involve Republicans or Democrats. Racist language is racist language, whether it comes from the dude wearing the white sheet, or the activist protesting the Iraq war. But then there’s the call from Thomas Merton, which seems ever more fitting this week. Thomas, chime in:
“We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of men and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us.”
Maybe that’s the key…reminding ourselves that the words of these pols are irrational, but that deep, patient compassion converts the broken person. After all, if we really knew these people outside of the few paragraphs that the Associated Press wrote, we’d probably find it really hard not to love them.
Oh, the lessons we could learn from these wise words.
Three men had moments this week where they proved that humanity still has much to learn about how to treat ‘the other.’
The most publicized “man turned boob” this week was Senator George Allen, who referred to an Indian-American man as a ‘macaca,’ as most everyone knows by now. Sen. Allen’s love for the confederate flag not withstanding, this certainly isn’t the type of language one would expect from someone itching to run for President in 2008. His awkward apology made it even worse, and reminded me of something Rabbi Simmons wrote about on self-forgiveness: If we don’t authentically admit our wrong-doing in the first place, how can we expect to be forgiven? (“Did you eat the apple?” “No, the woman made me do it!” “Did you eat the apple?” “No, the snake made me do it!” “Well, somebody ate the fucking apple!” Or for those who think, like I do, that the creation story is something crazy Kansas School Board members use to justify removing evolution from school-wide science curriculums, “Did you blow up Iraqis?” “The terrorists blew us up first.” “Terrorists, did you blow up Americans?” “They’ve been selling weapons to our enemies for years.” “Hello, would you all stop blowing people up!”)
Oddly enough, there was another case of “Politicians Gone Racially Intolerant” this week, this time from the Democratic side of the aisle. Andrew Young, who co-chairs the campaign of Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor in Georgia, recorded his thoughts on why Wal-Mart is justified in taking over small mom-and-pop stores. Young’s own words:
"Well, I think [Wal-Mart] should; they ran the `mom and pop' stores out of my neighborhood," the paper quoted Young as saying. "But you see, those are the people who have been overcharging us, selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables. And they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they've ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs; very few black people own these stores."
Young says his comments were taken out of context, but I’m not sure there’s a context that these comments could be deemed acceptable. You know, outside of the, “If I were a big jerk, I’d say ‘well, I think the Jews, Arabs and Koreans sold us stale bread and bad meat…” Nice try, Mr. Young.
And in Connecticut, rookie Ned Lamont’s campaign manager, Tom Swan, managed to defile an entire town (Waterbury), by saying that the town was a place “Where the forces of slime meet the forces of evil.” For some reason that sounds more like a slogan for “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” as opposed to campaign fodder. I like the image of Donatello smacking Joe Lieberman with some bamboo sticks. Still, Tom Swan should have used better judgment. As many good people live in Waterbury as they do in whatever rich, gated community Ned Lamont probably lives in (and don’t get me wrong…I’d vote for Lamont vs. Lieberman, 1,000 times over). Besides, should Lamont win in November, I’m sure he’ll realize soon enough that the place where the forces of slime meet the forces of evil isn’t in Connecticut….it’s in the chambers of the U.S. Senate!
So it’s been a week of intolerance, and I’m not even including Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s “tar baby” comments two weeks ago.
What’s the lesson in all of this?
Well, it could just be that politics is a bad business to get into, because it makes one creepy and weird (Tom Tancredo, anyone?). Or it could be that people still harbor a shitload of racist baggage, and given time it will manifest itself in all sorts of different capacities.
But the other lesson is for consumers – those who read the articles, the blogs, the press releases about these incidents, and shake their heads in disapproval. It’s easy to cast judgment, but then again, people who live in glass houses….
We still owe it to ourselves to label all of these incidents as wrong, whether they involve Republicans or Democrats. Racist language is racist language, whether it comes from the dude wearing the white sheet, or the activist protesting the Iraq war. But then there’s the call from Thomas Merton, which seems ever more fitting this week. Thomas, chime in:
“We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of men and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us.”
Maybe that’s the key…reminding ourselves that the words of these pols are irrational, but that deep, patient compassion converts the broken person. After all, if we really knew these people outside of the few paragraphs that the Associated Press wrote, we’d probably find it really hard not to love them.
posted by MikeJ at
12:31 PM
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