Amendment One: I See Hateful People

Hateful. Ma called me that when I was little. The word summoned the image of darkness oozing out of my pores, crawling along my scalp, sliding down the strands of my snarled hair, until it filled the room like a black void. My hatefulness was the manifestation of wanting to be loved, demanding it, and wanting to destroy the world if I couldn’t have it. I felt the unfairness of Ma’s inability, probably due to postpartum depression, to bond with me. I emitted a mountain of emotion for so small a child, and my memories of it are still crisp. I know hateful when I see it.

North Carolinians, not every single one, but a majority, have shown their hatefulness, and it feels like a black void blotting out the Carolina blue sky and sunshine. Amendment One, a constitutional modification that states a marriage is between a man and a woman, was overwhelmingly passed on May 8^th. The next day the rain poured down, thunder rumbled, lightening cracked open the sky, and the darkness at ground level caused me to switch on lights. “God must be crying,” I mused.

I thought that because God was plopped right into the middle of the debate. Both sides were quoting the Old Testament.

 As a vocal liberal, I’m sure most people don’t know that I am a born again Christian, as in I accepted Jesus as my savior in a private moment of epiphany. I live in contentment because of my choice. Until I wrote this post, I did not share that fact with many other people. I don’t shout it in the streets, thump my Bible, practice religion, go to church, and attempt to convert others, or tell people that God has spoken to me and that I am delivering a message. I also don’t tell people they are wrong if they do any of that. Everyone has a right to worship, or not, in the way they choose.

I try not to judge others, though I think we can all admit that can be difficult at times given our own imperfectness. I try to show compassion and love, as Jesus did, for all of mankind, maybe because I felt so unloved as a child.

So I am not condemning the people of North Carolina for their decision to pass this amendment. I condemn the amendment itself. I am deeply saddened and frightened by its passage and by the opinions and judgments expressed about the people this amendment targets, the GLBT population.

I saw the hatefulness in the remarks of a Fayetteville pastor who encouraged his parishioners to beat their children if they displayed behaviors, attitudes, or dress that veered from traditional gender roles. I saw hatefulness in the words spoken by a state senator’s wife who said the amendment was important to pass because the white race was diminishing and that “white people founded this country” and “it should be the country they founded.”

When the civil rights of one group are taken away, we are all diminished by the action. It has nothing to do with God. It has everything to do with discrimination, oppression, and hatred. It has to do with treating peers as unequal, as less than. 

Once it is socially acceptable to forcefully take the civil rights of one group away, it becomes easier and easier to target other groups.

Read my post “On Being a Creative Maladjusted” to learn how quickly Hitler rose to power and targeted groups for oppression, imprisonment, and death:

http://aboutracewriter.blogspot.com/2012/04/on-being-creative-maladjusted.html

Look how Jim Crow laws gave permission to supposedly good people to torture and lynch blacks and prevent interracial couples from marrying. Look how government supported involuntary sterilization took away the reproductive rights of thousands of citizens. The darkness, the hatefulness, the fear, and the anger grow and grow inside people that might otherwise be fine citizens. A mob mentality takes over and erases all personal thoughts and actions.

The Southern cultural heritage is complicated and unresolved in my opinion. I’ve told people from down here that I am offended by the Confederate flag and what it symbolizes, and they’ve answered, “But that’s my heritage.” What does that mean, though? Do they acknowledge that their history is one of slavery, oppression, violence, and secession? Do they still cling to those beliefs? No one has ever given me a straight answer, so I can only go by what I see.

I see hatefulness. I see fear. I see aggression. I see the Southern stare.

Ronald and I coined the phrase “Southern stare” to describe what we often experience (and what I have often written about in my blog). The Southern stare is the way some people look at us. They bore their eyes into us, turn their heads, slow their pace, twist their bodies to get a better view, veer their cars across lanes, drop whatever else they are engaged in such as conversation or eating, and stare. They don’t speak to us or acknowledge us in any way. They just stare.

That leads me to believe, despite seeing quite a few interracial couples walking around besides us, that it still is not accepted. The amendment that made interracial marriages illegal in North Carolina was codified in 1875 and not removed from the state constitution until 1971, four years after the Supreme Court ruled anti-miscegenation laws illegal.  Is anti-miscegenation considered part of the Southern heritage?

Another thing we discovered is insularity. We are called Yankees. We are considered outsiders. We’ve been told we don’t belong here. It is apparent that since we don’t go to church, we are considered unworthy of friendship, and that’s been our experience with people of all races. It’s been difficult to make friends and acquaintances.

“Why stay there?” you ask. We aren’t sure that we will. We’ve asked ourselves that question a lot lately, because we feel that we’ve given it enough time but things haven’t gone as we had hoped. We’ve grown tired of conversations that are racist and one-sided, like people calling President Obama “your president” or telling my husband that they hate Tiger Woods, challenging him to disagree. We’ve grown wary of people who talk about carrying guns and shooting others or who veer their car in our direction as if they mean to hit us. (See my posts “Profiling Fatality”:

 http://aboutracewriter.blogspot.com/2012/04/profiling-fatality-3-demonization-of.html

and “Do the Right Thing”:

 http://aboutracewriter.blogspot.com/2011/10/do-right-thing.html

to read about those two experiences).

Then we remember that we experienced racism in our old town up north, too.

One thing we both believe in is that we have a right to choose where we want to live. It is one of our civil rights and we exercise them with the belief that they are inalienable. We believe in them so strongly that we will fight for our right to exercise them. See my post “The Legacy of Racism” that talks about our housing discrimination suit: http://aboutracewriter.blogspot.com/2011/08/legacy-of-racism.html

However, we have been disturbed by the passage of Amendment One. It is a sign that civil rights can be taken away at will, with ill intent, and with the purpose of discriminating against targeted groups.

I don’t expect every person to like me or for me to like every person. That’s how humans are – some people have interests or circumstances in common that draw them together. Oftentimes relationships are formed based on cultural and racial commonality or similar values. Dislike is often caused by dissimilarity. But just because you don’t like someone or how someone lives, doesn’t mean you should act against him, especially if he does not cause harm to others.

Hate is different. Hate is a strong emotion. It takes energy to hate another human being. Hatred has the power to harm. Like in the case of taking away civil rights from groups who are different from the majority.

A lot of North Carolinians are upset about the bad press the state has gotten in the media. They are proud of the state, and I can see why. We wanted to claim this state as our new home. It is physically beautiful. And there is that whole thing about heritage, which, as a recent migrant, I am still trying to understand.

I watched comments fly back and forth on Facebook. People expressed offense over the meanness of certain comments that belittled all citizens of North Carolina, and I agree, there were some over-the-top ones and some terribly offensive generalizations made. There are very strong emotions on both sides of the fence.

People are shocked by the passage of this amendment now, at this time in our history.  The amendment has consequences for more than just the group of people it targets, and it diminishes our social ethos. Why would anyone deny another person the right to a mutual, consensual, loving, committed, stable relationship that protects both partners? In my mind, there was never a reason to put it out for a vote, other than to use hatred against a group and to wield power to keep them oppressed.

But then another thought entered my mind as the comments continued to fly back and forth. It isn’t the nicest thing I could think of to say, but it just seems right: When you bare your ass in public, don’t get upset when people talk about how big it is.

Amendment One is North Carolina’s ass hanging out for everyone to see and comment on. That isn’t said in hate. It is said with disappointment, sadness, fear, and wonder if we should stay in a state that can take away civil rights and use God and the Bible as the excuse to do it. This is not the first time and probably not the last time. There is a proud heritage of taking people’s civil rights away in this state.

I see hateful people. I’d like to think God had a really good cry after Amendment One was passed.

On Being a Creative Maladjusted

This week George Zimmerman was released on bail.  His family had to come up with about $15,000 to get him bonded out on $150,000, and he was responsible for his own security. He did not tell the court that he had over $200,000 in a Pay Pal account donated by supporters of his fatal action. I so wanted to believe this man was a good man who made a terrible, irrevocable error, even knowing that he continued to trail Trayvon Martin after the police told him not to. I wanted to believe he was truly remorseful when he publicly apologized in court to Trayvon’s parents. But sometimes I give people too much credit. Then the disappointment I wear like a shroud smothers me in reality.

Wake Forest University announced the 50^th anniversary of its integration on April 27, 1962. It was the first private Southern university to allow integration of students. Prior to the integration effort many (all white) Wake Forest students had joined a lunch counter protest, similar to the historically famous one staged in Greensboro, by students of the historic black college Winston Salem State University. The timing and the environment were right for university officials to open Wake Forest to integration before the federal government forced them to. Martin Luther King would deliver a speech on campus just months later on October 12^th, nine months before he organized the March on Washington in 1963, an event that propelled him to national prominence.

The Charlotte Observer published a short AP wire story on October 13, 1962.

“Maladjustment is Needed – King.” 

Rev. Martin Luther King, 35-year-old Negro integrationist, told 2,200 white and Negro persons here Thursday night that the biblical prophets, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Jesus were all “maladjusted to the evils around them.”  The Baptist minister said the hope of the world lies in the emergence of “a society of the creative maladjusted.”  King received a standing ovation after his talk in Wake Forest College’s Wait Chapel.

I was about to turn five in April 1962 in a suburb of Albany, NY, and I had no idea that there were places some people weren’t allowed to be. My father’s best friend, Harold VanZandt, was a black man, and I loved him and he me. I had no reason to think he would be treated differently than my father. It wouldn’t occur to me, that fall when I entered kindergarten, that there was not a single black child in my class. Nor would there be for my entire school career, although there were a few black children in the district – about forty in my high school of 3000 students. I also never had a black teacher. Was Wake Forest progressive and caring or were they simply bending under the tide of change?

I read a great post, A Complete Guide to 'Hipster Racism', by Lindy West on Jezebel.com. It’s over the top, comical, honest, well written, and a must read. I wish I could find my humor about this shit. But I can’t, not in public at any rate because I worry that the people who need to won’t get the joke. Besides, I’ve lived this, and most incidents weren’t funny; they were scary. In private is another story – we joke about it all the time.

I read about Peter Keller in the news, a survivalist who lives in the state of Washington and who killed his wife and daughter, set the house on fire to cover up the murders, and headed to the underground bunker he spent eight years constructing and stockpiling with food, supplies, and arms.  What is an American trying to survive? And why didn’t he include his wife and daughter? Perhaps it is the perceived war being waged against his socio-political beliefs and status as a white man. I find it confusing and irrational, since we are a country rich in resources, enough for everyone and more, if we were of a generous collective mind, a be like Jesus collective mind. In some ways it makes more sense for the have-nots to be in survivalist mode – but I guess they don’t stand to lose what the haves stand to lose – wealth, power, and the ability to oppress others. But survivalists often feel disenfranchised and excluded from the elite. It’s tough to be white and not feel the privilege that one expects will go with whiteness. Disenfranchisement creates angry white men, although those same men cannot understand the anger of disenfranchised minorities.

Amendment One is up for vote in North Carolina on May 8^th. If it passes it will change the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Same sex marriages are already illegal in this state, but this is a last holdout state in the South as far as amendment changes, and some people don’t care to be different about it. They want the power of the Bible in their constitution, to forget the necessary and legal separation of church and state, so they can say they’ve saved sinners from themselves. But we are all sinners and we could all use saving when you look at us from the Old Testament point of view, which is the section of the Bible many proponents of this amendment are quoting from. Forget the good news of the New Testament.

I remember my Catholic upbringing. I imagined my soul like a glass bottle of milk, white with dark spots like rot or cancer or the floaters that now obscure my vision sometimes when I awaken in the gray of dusk. Those spots represented the sins tarnishing my spiritual pureness. In the Catholic religion there are different kinds of sins.

Mortal sins are grave sins, they destroy a person’s charity, and they were listed as follows up until 2008: lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride. In 2008 Bishop Girotti redefined them as follows: polluting, genetic engineering, being obscenely rich, drug dealing, abortion, pedophilia, and social injustice.

For a sin to be considered mortal, three conditions must exist: it is a grave matter; it is committed with full knowledge that it is a mortal sin; and that it is committed with full consent.

Venial sins are less serious. While mortal sins destroy a person’s charity, venial sins merely weaken it. Both can be forgiven, as well as original sin (which is forgiven through Baptism), but not blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. That is considered an eternal sin.

Those that blaspheme the Holy Spirit, for example, by claiming God wants them to be elected or that they are speaking for God against others, are facing certain damnation. Legislate that.

This past week while Ronald and I were out, we saw a truck with its grill decorated with a Confederate flag and a car with a Confederate flag vanity plate just a few minutes later. A photograph of a lynching in Marion, IN, popularly used as a postcard in the 1930s, popped up on my computer screen as I was doing a search. The burned bodies of two black men hanging from a tree, surrounded by a mob of white men, women, and children, some of whom smile at the camera, inspired the poem and song Strange Fruit penned by Abel Meeropol and sung by Billie Holiday. Every time I see the photograph my stomach turns and my disappointment in humanity turns to horror.

Last night I watched a show on the history channel, Third Reich. The first world leader to use “the communist threat” to strike fear in the masses was Adolf Hitler in 1933. He systematically eradicated communists, then Jews (six million by the end of the war), from Germany. He ordered the involuntary sterilization of over 400,000 people in 1934 alone for reasons such as blindness, deafness, homosexuality, promiscuity, alcoholism, and physical deformity in the quest to eradicate genetically inferior humans. Aryan couples were encouraged to have as many children as possible. Germany needed “better Germans [and] more of them.” Teenage Aryan girls were placed in camps where they were impregnated. The unwed girls were known as “the Fuehrer’s brides.”

I learned the interesting fact that Hitler rose to power with only 37% of the people’s support of the Nazi party. Take note. Sounds like conservative right numbers here in America. The Moral Majority that is really the Moral Minority shouts louder and more vehemently to deliver its subliminal message of hate and oppression.

Within fifty-two days of Hitler coming to power, the government suspended freedom of the presses, tapped telephones, and opened and read mail. People supported the effort because they believed it was for the greater good, and they turned in neighbors and even family members in their vehemence to be accepted into the Reich. Time Magazine named Hitler Man of the Year in 1935. By 1938 he planned to conquer the world. Many people around the world, including many Americans, were philosophically in agreement with him. The US also engaged in involuntary sterilization and human subject experiments.

Today is my twin daughters’ birthday. I had hoped for a better world when I gave birth to them. Someone showed me a book soon after Ronald and I started dating in 1976 titled The Browning of America. I remember telling the person that showed it to me that Ron and I were doing our part. I thought that trend would stop racism and further the civil rights movement. I thought feminism would rid the world of gender oppression. But both movements have only brought out how very racist and misogynistic the fabric of our society is, and in many ways our progress has created a nasty backlash.

I realize I spend a lot of time feeling like I’m from some other planet, wishing for it, perhaps, as I witness this world that appears like a science experiment gone terribly wrong. In his speech at Wake Forest, King said he was maladjusted to “some things in our social order . . . and would hope that men of goodwill all over would be maladjusted to these things until the good society is realized.” I am one of the creative maladjusted.

George Zimmerman Held the Gun, but America Pulled the Trigger

On the website that he created against the advice of his counselors (who have since dropped their representation), http://therealgeorgezimmerman.com/, George Zimmerman said the following:

“I was involved in a life altering event which led me to become the subject of intense media coverage. As a result of the incident and subsequent media coverage, I have been forced to leave my home, my school, my employer, my family and ultimately, my entire life.”

It was a life-altering event, particularly for Trayvon Martin, who lost his life, but also for everyone directly connected and all of us who aren’t. He calls Trayvon’s death “the incident” which diminishes the tragedy. He’s been charged with second-degree murder and is in custody.

Being charged 46 days after Trayvon’s death is a late first step toward justice, accountability, and responsibility. But it is time that we all were held accountable. Americans have not been good stewards of positive race relations. We are not persistent in breaking down stereotypes that hurt our collective identity.

We never had an honest dialog about how black boys and black men are relentlessly demonized in America. They are portrayed as violent and sexually driven predators, based on an historical fear that white society held about their black slaves hundreds of years ago. This perception gives credence to the paranoia demonstrated by George Zimmerman. He was acting based on perceptions widely accepted by white Americans.

Of course, white men have historically been predators. They repeatedly raped slave women without remorse, resulting in the birth of light skinned babies that became house slaves because they were deemed trustworthy compared to the darker field hands.  After all, they worked in close proximity with the white women and children.

The fear whites had of black men lead to lynching, the One Drop rule, Jim Crow laws including anti-miscegenation laws, housing discrimination, and unequal educational and job opportunities. Civil Rights may have theoretically changed our collective ethical stance on equality between the races, demanding that we strive toward an ideal America, but little has changed. How is shooting less violent than lynching? How was Trayvon walking back to his father’s house any more criminal than a black man looking at a white woman?

We are unable to embrace a post-racial America. Rather, since the election of President Obama, there has been an increased expression of racist ideals and actions, not just from fringe groups, but in mainstream America, too. We have left our best selves behind while allowing old racial paradigms to thrive.

I know this because I’ve lived it for thirty-six years as the white spouse in an interracial relationship. I see how insidious racism is. I see how often whites unconsciously express racist sentiments and get defensive if they are called on it. I see how hopeless black members of my family feel because it is soul depleting to be treated as a skin color, not as a person, with the full weight of having dark skin in a white world bearing down on them every hour of every day. I am not exaggerating. I have to say this, and I hope you will listen. I hope you will ask yourself what stereotypes you harbor about people who are a different race than you are.  I hope you will question your perceptions and ask if they are factual or emotional. Then I hope you will strive to change those perceptions so that we can all live in a safer world.

It breaks my heart when I see people who don’t bother to get to know my husband. They’ve already decided who he is from the moment they lay eyes on him. They will never know his quirky, random sense of humor, his creative and artistic spirit, his deep sensitivity and empathy, his ability to study, focus, and excel in his profession as a fire lieutenant, as a musician, an artist, and a golfer, and his driving need to be of service to others and his community.  They won’t believe that he is a dedicated, loving husband and father. They will never know how their fear, or even worse, contempt, has burned a searing scar in his soul.

They will also never know how they disappointed and frightened me, because they feel entitled and righteous in their feelings, perceptions, and actions. They will never understand that I am afraid of the violence they may perpetrate against my family.  I don’t want some strange white man to feel possessive and protective of me. I chose my life partner, my soul mate, because I love him deeply, so far beyond the color of his skin or mine, that I willingly gave up whatever whiteness to which I felt connected. Not that I ever felt white in the sense it is portrayed and perpetuated here in America as a non-ethnic, non-racial, middle class persona, the imitation vanilla in the spice cabinet, but in the sense that I am of European descent. I gave up family, friends, privilege and entitlement for my relationship, and I don’t regret it.

What I regret is how we Americans ignore our racially divided society and depend on perceptions based on emotions and stereotypes, and how our willful ignorance abetted George Zimmerman the night he shot and killed Trayvon Martin. He held the gun, but America pulled the trigger.