There’s a quote that I like that’s attributed to Shirley MacLaine: “The more I traveled, the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” This thought is especially timely today, where our nation is literally being torn apart by fear. We are faced with a pandemic and the highest number of cases and fatalities of COVID-19 in the world, the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, White Supremacism, law enforcement’s chronic targeting of people of color, Islamophobia, xenophobia, the election of right-wing conspiracy theorists to local governments, the dismantling of the USPS, Russian meddling in our elections, the demonization of the free press, and an administration that consistently lies to the American people and fans the flames of fear and hate.
Trump, Stephen Miller, far-right conservatives, talk-show hosts, and other members of the Trump administration and their GOP supporters continually pound us with messages intended to drive fear into the hearts of Americans. For example, when Trump was campaigning in 2015, he said “when Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.” And he added, “They’re sending people that have a lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people (1).” The Muslim ban, the brain-child of Steve Bannon. In a 2014 talk via Skype to a meeting of the conservative Catholic group called the Institute for Human Dignity, Bannon stated: “It’s a very unpleasant topic. But we are in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism. And this war is, is, I think metastasizing, almost far quicker than governments can handle it … We have Boko Haram and other groups that will eventually partner with Isis in this global war. And it is unfortunately something that we’re going to have to face, and we’re going to have to face very quickly (2).” Bannon is also known for other comments condemning Muslims and the Islamic faith.
Trump’s response to the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of peaceful counter-protesters, hitting and killing Heather Heyer, failed to condem racism. Trump stated that there were “very fine people on both sides.” On June 25, Trump tweeted: “Black Lives Matter leader states, ‘If US. doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. This is Treason, Sedition, Insurrection!’” Then Trump’s comments on protests in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd: He called the protesters “thugs,” and tweeted, “The ANTIFA led anarchists, among others, were shut down quickly,” and he later tweeted, “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization (3).” Then back in March, a CBS News White House correspondent, who happens to be Asian American, revealed that a White House official referred to COVID-19 as the “Kung-Flu (4).” Trump has continually called the coronavirus the “China virus” during his latest rallies and news briefs.
As we get closer to November 3rd, Trump and his supporters will continue their fear-mongering. For example, during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump stated earlier this month that, “China will own the United States if this election is lost by Donald Trump. Trump referring to himself in the third-person. “If I don’t win the election, China will own the United States. You’re going to have to learn to speak Chinese, you want to know the truth (5).” On August 13, Trump told Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo, “They (the Democrats and Biden) want to tax $4 trillion, it’s going to be the biggest tax increase in history by far. They’re big taxers. It’s just something that won’t work. We’ll have – you will see a depression the likes of which you have never seen. You’ll have to go back to 1929, I guess it doesn’t get too much worse than that (6).” Then there’s the fear of absentee/mail-in ballot fraud. Today, Trump tweeted: “They are sending out 51,000,000 Ballots to people who haven’t even requested a Ballot. Many of those people don’t exist. They are trying to STEAL the election. This should not be allowed!” Fanning fears of stealing the election, and trash-talking the USPS.
Fear. Fear of immigrants stealing our jobs. Fear of Muslims forcing sharia law on Americans. Fear of higher taxes if you elect Democrats. Fear of people of color invading your neighborhood. Fear of communists and socialists. Fear of green energy killing jobs in the oil industry. Fear of deep-state conspirators that worship the devil and have cannibalistic tendencies. The list goes on and on, and gets more ridiculous with each passing day. Fear is what divides us, and fear is what brings nations to their knees.
I’ve been lucky to have been able to travel overseas, especially to countries where the people have much less than we have here in the US. It took a leap to visit these places, countries where I didn’t speak the language, and places where the customs and cultures were so foreign to me. I was afraid at first, thinking that all sorts of sordid things might happen to a white woman from the US. But I’m happy to say that my fears were unfounded. I’ve been escorted by a friendly stranger to my gate in the Delhi airport, he spoke no English, and I didn’t speak Hindi, but he graciously took the time to help me catch my flight. While riding a bus in Istanbul Turkey, a woman in full hijab moved over to offer me a seat next to her on a very packed bus. During a walk through the streets of Kathmandu, Nepal, I chatted with a young man who wanted to practice his English. As we talked about the US and the current president at the time, Barack Obama, I took note that he was listening to Eminem on a portable CD player. I had to smile at that, Eminem playing in Kathmandu.
But perhaps the most eye-opening moment I experienced was needing to use the lavatory while working with a volunteer veterinary organization in Nicaragua. Our group was vaccinating and treating hundreds of horses in the middle of a populated town, and I had to go. So I walked over to young woman sitting with several young children in front of a house constructed of plywood, tarps and sheets of aluminum siding. I asked in broken Spanish for the lavatory, and the young woman smiled at me, and led me to an out-house that consisted of a primitive toilet enclosed by tarps and plywood. After I finished my business, I thanked the woman and offered her some money for her troubles. She smiled, waved her hands at me, and said, “tranquilo, tranquilo.” She wouldn’t accept any money, and I thanked her again. This woman let me, a total stranger, use her lavatory. It may not seem to gracious to the average person, she could have told me to “vamos,” but instead she offered me the use of her facilities and asked for nothing in return. These experiences I’ve had with total strangers, people of different religions, cultures and skin colors from different parts of the globe have only enriched my life. At first I was afraid, I’d never been to India, Nepal or Nicaragua before, I was unfamiliar with their culture and customs. But the lesson I learned is that I really didn’t need to be afraid, because it’s my belief that we as humans all want the same things, we want to be happy, be able to feed our families, we want access to education and healthcare, we want to have purpose.
I believe that in many cases, fear arises from unfamiliarity, from the unknown. America, we don’t need to fear immigrants, they’re looking for a better life in the US, we don’t need to fear Muslims, we don’t need to fear people of color, we don’t need to fear LGBT+ communities, we don’t need to fear things that are unfamiliar. So going back to Shirley’s quote, “fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” Let’s not give into the fear-mongering of the Trump administration and it’s supporters, because it divides us as a nation, and it fans the flames of hate and derision. Let’s not think of ourselves as Democrats or Republicans, as left or right, let’s think of ourselves as Americans who have more in common than not. Next time you’re out and about (hopefully wearing a mask and practicing social-distancing), strike up a conversation with a stranger, you may be pleasantly surprised.
Sources:
1. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-mexicans-rapists-remark-reference-2018-4
2. https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/06/trump-uses-antifa-incite-fear/612670/
3. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/steve-bannon-islamophobia-film-script-muslims-islam
5. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/11/politics/trump-china-biden-learn-chinese/index.html
6. https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/trump-biden-tax-coronavirus-presidential-election