Injustice

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

~ Cheryle Gardiner ~ Leave a comment

It’s taken me almost two weeks, but I think it’s time. More importantly, I think I’m finally ready.

Before the 2016 election, I wrote a rather cynical post advocating that we should all vote for trump so we could learn our lesson. Some agreed with me, but some of my clearer-headed friends decried my cynicism for the damage it would do to the nation; other of my friends declared that they didn’t have the luxury to be cynical.

Well, it came to pass: we elected the most unqualified person in the history of this country and he did all of the awful things we imagined, plus some no one ever dreamed could happen. In the next election, he was defeated and we thought that sanity had been restored.

Boy, were we wrong.

We’ve now elected him again and he’s doubling down on all the things he promised. His supporters cult is ever more strident and the racism, misogyny, bigotry, and intolerance are out in full force. It’s really easy to get discouraged, throw our hands up in despair, and start making plans to leave the country for some place where sanity reigns. I’m not going to do that; I’m going to do something very different:

I’m going to love them.

I’m going to love Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., and, yes, even Matt Gaetz. Please note that I did not say I’m going to like them or approve of them.

How am I going to love people whose whole raison d’être is to destroy this country, to turn us into a dictatorship, and whose supporters cult members want a theocracy – as long as it’s compatible with their beliefs, of course – how will I do that?

I’m going to keep reminding myself that love – despite popular culture and starry-eyed lovers – is a verb. Love is action, not emotion. What’s more, I’m going to keep reminding myself of what I promised in my baptismal vows: to respect the dignity of every human being. And after reminding myself of these two important things, I’m going to pray for them (love) and I’m going to try very, very hard to remember that they are human and are children of God (respect their dignity).

I want to issue a couple of caveats here:
1. I will protest, publicly as I’m able, their acts that harm people and our nation. This could include marching in the streets, writing treatises, even opening my home to those who need a safe shelter. I will not stand idly by if it’s possible to protest.
2. I will always defend those who are defenseless or who are most in danger. I will continue to support LGBTQIA+ causes; marriage between committed couples regardless of gender; Black Lives Matter efforts; and provide shelter for anyone needing reproductive care.
3. I’m going to speak up when I encounter prejudice in any of its forms.
4. I’m going to fail spectacularly and often at doing these things because I’m human.

Finally, I want to say this: my way is not the way for everyone, not even everyone who identifies as Christian, as I do. We each have to find our way through this morass of an administration; this is mine. Seek a way to be positive. Find like-minded people to get you through the hard times. Reach out to those who are targeted. Be a force for good.

(For clarification, the God I worship is not the god that promotes the idea that Trump was “chosen;” not the god who rejects the immigrant, the person of color, the gay, trans, bi, nonbinary; not the god who allows people in power to exercise control over the lives of women. My God is loving and forgiving, accepts each of us as we are, sees each of us as Beloved. My God is the God of hope, of possibility. It doesn’t mean we won’t undergo trials and dark times, but Hope is the flame that we must keep burning even as we seek a better future.)

 

Nuclear War, Nazis, Racists, and Grandchildren

~ Cheryle Gardiner ~ Leave a comment

This post has been a week in coming. It’s taken so long because every time I thought it couldn’t get worse, it got worse. And just as I had something composed in my head, a new atrocity rose up to overshadow the previous one.

A week ago, my grandson spent the night with me. He’s a smart, precocious rising fifth-grader who enjoys babies and small children, Jeopardy, CNN, most of the shows on HGTV, and is a walking encyclopedia of baseball statistics. He reads the Farmers’ Almanac, trivia (or did-you-know) books with the same intensity I used to read Nancy Drew. He’s also a lot of fun to spend time with, and we talk about almost everything.

Last week we discussed Trump’s words and actions relative to North Korea, and any fears he might have or what he thought might happen. I told him about growing up in during the Cold War, and living just a mile from the base headquarters of the Strategic Air Command in Tampa. I explained how scary that could feel, and how we had “bomb drills” in the same way he has fire drills or lock-down drills. Although we obviously came to no resolution, I tried to assure him that it was unlikely we would actually have war, since, pragmatically, our threat to North Korea was much greater in terms of lives and damage than their threat to us. We agreed that war is bad, that any loss of life would be horrible, and I think it helped him to talk about it.

That conversation was on Friday, and I thought it was probably the most serious conversation we would have for a while. Then came Saturday in Charlottesville.

This grandson wrote a paper on WWII last year for class, so he has some knowledge of who Hitler was and about the Nazis. And, like the rest of us, he likely thought it was an evil that had been put to rest. Oh, he knows about racism and discrimination. He has a virtual rainbow of friends, both at school and in his neighborhood. He has a gay uncle and great-uncle, and a couple of gay cousins, knows people who are in same-sex marriages and committed relationships, and his parents don’t put any questions – from him or his sister – off-bounds. So he’s aware, but it’s not a big deal. His greatest concern following the November election was for his friends who are Mexican and those whose religion is Islam. It probably isn’t necessary to mention that he’s no fan of Donald Trump, and takes every opportunity to mention it!

So, how do we talk about Trump’s recent remarks about the events in Charlottesville? How do I explain that there are people who would hate him because he’s one-quarter Puerto Rican? And how does that work with the fact that he’s descended on my side of the family from people who owned human beings and who fought to dissolve this union of states, so that they might continue to profit from slavery? How do I explain that the word “n***er” was used freely within my extended family when I was growing up. What will he think when he’s old enough to be interested in my grandfather’s memoirs, which are filled with epithets against people of color, Jewish people, and a host of others who weren’t White, Southern, and Episcopalian?

What do I say about the people who voted for Trump? Do I say they aren’t bad people? Or that they aren’t all racist or bigoted? Do I say that somehow they were able to ignore Trump’s words and vote for him anyway? Do I fall back on my mother’s old saw that politics makes strange bedfellows? Do I tell him that there are people who are genuinely concerned about the economy and hoped Trump would make it better, and that they were angry enough to vote for him? How, then, do I explain that a race of people who have suffered from a depressed economy for generations don’t have the same right, according to some, to be angry?

What words do I use to tell him that Donald Trump has a son-in-law and two grandchildren who are descended from Holocaust survivors, yet he defended Nazis, surely knowing, and just as surely not caring, about the pain that must cause them? My grandchildren – all of them – think of grandparents as protecters and defenders, as people who love them and would never choose to hurt them in word or deed. How can he understand that there are grandparents who put their own selfishness above the emotional well-being of their grandchildren?

How do I explain that the person who occupies the highest elected office in this land has defended and provided excuses for Nazis and white supremacists, and those who would divide us by race and religion? How can this even be a current events discussion in the 21st Century?

And how will Donald Trump explain his angry words and his support for Nazis and bigots to Arabella, Joseph, and Theodore?

Why I #RESIST

~ Cheryle Gardiner ~ Leave a comment

In late summer of 2015, my sister, niece, and I made our second genealogical Southern tour. This time it was precipitated by the news that one of our forebears, John Justus Grovenstein, was to be honored by the DAR at Oak Grove Cemetery in St. Marys, GA.

St. Marys is a lovely little seaside town just across the Florida/Georgia state line, and is where my grandfather was born and grew up, and where many of his family (including his mother) are buried. While there, we also planned to visit some other family gravesites, as well as the town of Ebenezer where our ancestors first settled in the mid- to late-18th Century. We also planned to finally meet up with a long-time Facebook friend and attend services at his church, have dinner with a cousin, and – one of the highlights – actually have a tour of the house that my great-great-grandfather lived in after the Civil War.

We were able to do all of these things and more, and had a wonderful time. One thing I had hoped to do, but didn’t know if we could, was to visit Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston. This was just a few months after nine people were murdered by a White Supremacist as they met for prayer and Bible study. Since my great-great-grandfather’s old home was also in Charleston, I had high hopes.

In fact, we did visit Mother Emanuel, and as we gathered, there were a large number of other people arriving as well. The gates were locked and we weren’t able to go inside, and there were obvious signs of construction and repair following that hateful and horrendous act. There was a man there who had created great signs with sheets of plywood, and he invited each of us to sign our name, leave a few words, to honor the memory of the victims. I can’t remember how many hundreds of thousands of signatures he told us were there, but it was impressive.

As we stood there on a hot southern summer day, I began to weep. Looking back, it was similar to the spontaneous and uncontrollable weeping I had experienced at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC several years before. A weeping not just for the awful loss of life, but for a society that allows such things to occur, that at times seems to foster the very hatred that is represented. An African-American woman who was there saw me and opened her arms to me. We embraced, and through my tears all I could say was, “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.” But I felt her consolation even though I should have been consoling her. It was a sacred moment in a sacred space.

This week I am watching “O.J.: Made in America,” a documentary film that won an Academy Award this year. It’s long – five episodes, each about an hour-and-a-half long. I’ve just finished the second episode, and it’s gut-wrenching. You see, it isn’t just about O.J. Simpson. It’s about the Watts Riots and Eulia May Love and Rodney King. It’s about all the things I was too busy to pay close attention to when they were happening, but that were telling people of color over and over and over and over again, “You’re not important to us. Your lives aren’t as valuable as ours. You are disposable.”

It’s about Mark Fuhrman (remember him?) saying, “What do they think they’re proving by burning their own businesses? I don’t understand it.” It’s about Police Chief Daryl Gates defending the indefensible, and blaming King for the excessive force that was used against him. It’s about all the ways we as a nation have failed the most vulnerable among us. Perhaps if Mark Fuhrman had read history, had seen that generations of our fellow citizens had tried every method available to them to achieve parity, only to be spurned at every turn, perhaps then he could have understood the anger and frustration that leads people to set fire to their own neighborhoods, to break and destroy, to loot and to crush. Perhaps he would have understood that when the wall of injustice is falling on you, you do whatever it takes to get someone’s attention, even if it seems unreasonable and counterproductive to passers-by.

I can see that. I don’t like it and I don’t condone it, but I can understand it. I’m just sorry it took me so long.

And now we are living in a time when people are being banned because they’re Muslim or Mexican, when cemeteries are being vandalized because they hold the mortal remains of Jews, when a White Supremacist sits in the highest halls of power in this country. I may have been busy working and raising children in the ’70s and ’80s and ’90s and not paying close attention, but I’m paying attention now. And I’m using my voice in whatever way I can – postcards and rallies and marches and town halls. Tweets and emails and Facebook posts. Learning how to be not just an advocate, but an ally. Learning to put aside my natural inclination to speak in favor of listening and learning – and then speaking the truth of what I’ve learned. That’s why I #RESIST.

And I think often of that kind, embracing woman in whose arms I wept on a hot summer southern day. And I wonder if she ever thinks of me.