Charlottesville and the racists we know--Microblog Mondays

Like everyone else I'm horrified by what went on in Charlottesville this weekend.

Note, I'm not saying I'm shocked. Racism is as endemic to this country as corn--and just as prolific. I'm reading my friends lists and everyone is shocked--shocked that this is what America looks like now. They're blaming Trump.

Now look, I'm for blaming Trump for anything but people aren't getting this. Trump is now in the Oval Office because of people like this. He didn't create it--he took advantage of it. People are surprised that Trump didn't denounce them harder. It always bewilders me when people are jolted by the fact that a racist was elected to the presidency. Did people really think that when Trump walked into the White House he'd suddenly become a decent human being? Did people think that he would suddenly be an adult? This is a man who has to get two scoops of ice cream while everyone else gets one. He's not going to change.

But other people can. The people you interact with every day--they have changed since you met them. Maybe they've changed for better or for worse but likely they are not the same people you met at the beginning.

Take my in-laws for example. They are majorly homophobic. They think that gays and lesbians are against God and the bible. Don't even get them started on transexuals which they just don't understand--and they admit that. Their church has splintered because of the gay and lesbian issue and my in-laws proudly attend the "non-welcoming" one.

This has understandably led to friction. But I wasn't going to cut off contact with my in-laws. I certainly wasn't going to stop associating with my LBGTQ friends to make my inlaws more comfortable. I kept throwing people together. All of a sudden my mother in law would ask me. "That friend of yours--is she gay?" I said "Yes." and went on with whatever. I kept telling them funny stories about my friends. All of them. Little by little the phobia went away. Little by little they realized that gay marriage didn't hurt their marriage. Little by little they realized they were wrong.

I see a lot of people on my Facebook feed saying "if you think such and such is right, then just de-friend me."  Unlike the hate--I see this on both sides. I'm not de-friending anyone. I will engage when I feel it is called for. I will discuss.

I don't feel that I am helping my friends who are being hurt most by the current situation by closing off my friends who have different views. We won't learn from each other that way. We have to start listening to others before the screaming starts.

I close with my favorite quote from The American President.  It is still so true.

You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free."