I read the news that a gunman killed two Jewish people in an act of barbarism and terrorism. In the intentional chaos and cruelty that is the style and substance of the current regime, I titrate my news intake. I want to be informed but not swallowed by a tidal wave of overwhelm and anger. When I got the news, I had reactions and analysis but neither shock nor anguish.
Then I read Julian Chender’s post and was chagrined to see the difference in our responses. I was disappointed where he was close to despair. I had political analysis while he was also experiencing persecution. I saw starkly the difference in feeling when events are taken personally. As the mowing down of our Jewish citizens happened near enough the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, I recalled and felt again the outrage, wondered and worried about my nephews and others who fit the description. It had been so visceral then.
I am purposefully skipping the different contexts as I don’t want the distractions of reasons and rationale. I am looking neither for exoneration nor vilification. Rather, I want to notice, have us notice a difference, if there is one, between the reaction when it happens to one of “us” versus when it happens to “them.” Even when “them” is nearby, fellow traveler, friend. Is there analysis to explain without heart to feel? What is the relief that “at least” it wasn’t “one of us this time”? To imagine, as I have in other instances, what it is to know that membership in a group — race, religion, sexual orientation, gender expression — is enough to make one a target? That any day could be interrupted by a lethal or “only” injuring gunshot, bomb, car as weapon, not because of what you did but the group you belong to? I feel and imagine the fear that pierces peace when bombs fall or “law enforcement” stops the car or raids the house or workplace. But I didn’t this time.
Thank you, Julian, for posting from your sadness. I take in anew the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller, written during the reign of Nazis in Germany:
- First they came for the Communists/And I did not speak out/Because I was not a Communist
- Then they came for the Socialists/And I did not speak out/Because I was not a Socialist
- Then they came for the trade unionists/And I did not speak out/Because I was not a trade unionist
- Then they came for the Jews/And I did not speak out/Because I was not a Jew
- Then they came for me/And there was no one left/To speak out for me.
Join me as I recommit to seeing and feeling not just my pain, but THE pain wielded as a weapon in a war it cannot win.