See it - Fix it

If you were watching a race and a spectator tripped one of the runners, what would you do? If you are like me, your first thought would be the runner. Then, if the runner wasn’t gravely injured and if the tripper was still present, I would light into the tripper. “What the hell did you do that for? What is wrong with you?” My psychotic rampage might prevent a future incident or it might just make the tripper more cautious about committing that crime in front of witnesses, but it is too late to prevent the damage in this instance. Helping the runner to their feet might make them feel a little better because someone cares, but concern won’t heal the scrapes on their skin or restore their confident stride. This is what racial and sexual harassment is like. Even if someone steps in and defends you or helps you clean up graffiti or picks you up from the ground, there is still a mark on your soul from what the harasser has done.

                In the week plus since the election I have read story after story of people being harassed. These are small, first hand stories, such as a clerk who has worked with a woman for four years, thought they were friends, and is gutted when the co-worker says she can’t wait until she is sent back to Mexico. Or of a waitress harassed for the color of her skin, harassed because she wouldn’t confess her voting preference and then given no tip for her honest work. At any given moment I can go on this group page and read half a dozen first hand stories and these are the fraction I happen to see,

of the fraction that make it through the moderator,

of the fraction that are even written about,

of the fraction that happen to belong to this group,

out of all the minorities in this country.

                It gives me, for the first time in my life, a real scope of how many racist people there are in this country. I really had no idea. I was living in my bubble. If someone said something racist, I simply didn’t include them in my circle. I shunned them. And they, not receiving any kind of green light from me, moved on to their own circles. I believed minorities when they said they’d been harassed, but somehow I viewed this as a few super harassers going around harassing multiple people a day or something. Naïve, yes, but how was I to know?

                A few months ago, I read an assertion that jarred me. The writer suggested America had never healed after the Civil war because the white slave owners had never apologized to the black slaves. I really couldn’t reconcile this idea with my world view. I would never have expected them to apologize. They were defeated in the war and any apology would have been mere words. A true apology is an acknowledgement of wrong doing, but the South never thought they were wrong. They were simply forced to conform to the northern laws. But I naively thought since that was over 150 years ago, it would have simply faded into a history lesson. Modern America does not live in its past or so I thought. I certainly don’t know what factors drove my ancestors to immigrate to America and it is not a driving force in my life. But I failed to realize that hatred can be passed down from parent to child. My ancestors might have had some hatred in their heart, but they never spoke of it since they probably left the source behind in their native countries. But in the south, there was never a separation. The objects of hatred, on both sides, were always present and the feud could never die out and be forgotten. So when the writer said white America never apologized, he meant that not only did they never apologize, but they never let the hatred die out and taught it to their children.

In my family, we’ve made this excuse for grandparents: at least they weren’t as bad as their parents were. Each generation has been a little better. Each parent sees themselves as a buffer between generations. And so our family is improving over time, with every generation. And I thought that was the mission of every parent. To be a little better than their parents. But so many people in this country have failed! They’ve raised their children with this awful burden of hate and make no mistake, it is a burden. Anger takes energy. Imagine carrying all that anger. It would sap your life away. If I wasn’t so afraid of what they are going to do our country and the people in it, I would feel so sorry for them. But they have been nursing this hatred in the dark for so long, I’m not sure what force would make them break the cycle.

                If we can survive this hateful regime of Trump without being torn apart, there is one good thing that has come of it. Trump is the sleazy racist light that has allowed all the cockroaches to scuttle out from under their rocks where the rest of us can see them. We didn’t know we had a problem, an infestation in this country, but now we are no longer blind. It is time to stop the roaches before they spread their disease.

                In the beginning of this post, I spoke of the runner. If only we could anticipate the trip and stop the damage. If only we could stop the slur before it polluted the air. If only we could see the future. But we can’t. We are only left to pick up the runner. However, graffiti is one of many ways the haters trip people up. It is one place we can prevent the trip and save the runner. If you see graffiti, can you fix it? Can you scrub it away before more people see it? Can you transform it into something else? Here are a few suggestions in case you have the chance to be the hero, anticipate the trip, save the runner and change the future.

Transform a Swastika #SeeitFixit

Or Turn it into a window and write love inside.

Transform a clan sign #SeeitFixit

Transform Words #SeeitFixit

For your closing visual, imagine, just imagine, if every time there was a klan march, someone accidentally scheduled a Color Run (http://thecolorrun.com/about/) at the same time. All those sterile white sheets…. they would be so improved afterwards.

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Best Day Ever!