Sadness, Outrage, Action

Sadness, Outrage, Action

I’m having a difficult time focusing this evening.  I intended to leave the office hours ago.  I move from sadness to outrage and back to sadness again.  It began today with the realization that I knew the young man arrested in Massachusetts for plotting a terrorist attack.  ‘Knew him’ as in met him once as a young man studying at Northeastern.  I don’t remember him at all but was reminded by someone we have in common.  As the story unfolded it became clear that rather than a young man bent on damage this may well be a young man who was courted to see if he could be led down a path to damage.  And we did the courting. Surely he followed and must be accountable for his decisions.  And, perhaps this young man had already lost his way.  We can’t know.   But there are things I know to be true.  I wish I didn’t.  His family will suffer terribly.  His brother will be bullied, his parents harassed.  At best, travel will become difficult and relocation or isolation necessary.  At worst, some other misguided young men will puff their chests up full of what they have been taught is patriotism and strike out at this family’s home or heads.  Sadness, outrage, sadness. 

There is this other truth.  I don’t believe for a minute that any of my children, or that I in my youth, would ever have been tested in this way.  Surely many a young person, struggling with any number of challenges, loses their way and we hope they do not encounter forces of authority that will lead them astray.  I recall with worry learning of a friend who had been courted by a cult many years ago.  I was worried and sad.  To learn that ‘we’ are doing that sort of courting takes me to a deeper place of sadness and outrage.  The story may reveal things we have yet to know and perhaps we’ll learn that the process was full of integrity, that the young man was determined to do damage for reasons other than our authoring --- perhaps.

To have encountered this line of thought on the same day an Alabama court ruled on the SB1070-like bill allowing racial and cultural targeting in that state increased the sadness.  And to see Massachusetts republican leaders lining up in support of the so-called Secure Communities Program allowing for the continued targeting of Latino/a and other people of color here in my home State made it worse.  I fear the wave of ‘othering’ that is trying to batter our people like a Tsunami.  This wave of scapegoating and criminalizing entire communities is loathsome.  That it is being led by a people who arrived here and stole land is not lost on the indigenous of this land, many of whom are now asked for identification in their once-and-always native lands.   Sadness, outrage, more sadness ~

There is so much more that I begin to write, and erase because it brings on too much to manage in my head.  Too much sadness, outrage and more sadness.   I turn on NPR and hear the ‘good’ news is that the bill in Alabama won’t require all school children to have their immigration status checked but the bad news is that it’s now legal to target people who ‘might’ be undocumented and if I understood properly, illegal to give them water.  That what we have to ‘celebrate’ is that only some children will be hurt reveals much about who we have become. To believe that our compassion in the presence of someone needing water can be legislated is hideous.  Sadness, outrage, more sadness.

What worries me most is how easily we as a people are manipulated by fear.  People are quick  to hold up examples of people who have harmed others and who would indeed be deported by the Secure Communities Program.  And we are quick to look at this misguided and perhaps harmful young man.  But at what cost that solution?  In terms of $$ surely all the effort we’ve put into entrapment and chasing the Secure Communities is $$$ we are not putting into anti-bullying programs in our schools, community strengthening programs and classes in non-violent communication and multicultural collaborations. (things btw that perhaps would make us stronger, more secure, knowledgeable and appreciative of each ‘other’). But the question, ‘At what cost’ is directed at our souls.  And we know the answer.  While ultimate costs paid during any genocide or war are counted in the lost lives of victims and loved ones who remain, those who lead the effort pay a price too.  The price of one’s own soul is paid in order to so dehumanize another human being that you can do harm or deliver them to harm’s way.  But there is an even greater price that is paid.  For a soul so damaged no longer feels the pain.  Those paying the largest price are those who watched.  Those who watched and failed to act. 

Sadness

Outrage

Action

Truth leads me to sadness

Morality yanks me to outrage

Faith calls me to action