Loss and Dehumanization
Loss is an unavoidable part of living. Children lose innocence and wonder as they age and become socialized. Privileged children may lose a favorite toy and that is a formative experience of loss. The immigrant children who have been separated from their parents upon arrival in the United States have lost more than we can imagine.
It reads like dystopian fiction, or a twentieth century history book, but it is reality for over two thousand children and their parents. Children taken from their parents by Government agents as they cross a border. They are running to the United States from strife and instability in hopes of a better life. Instead they are put in detention centers where brothers and sisters may not touch each other. Where no child may touch another child. In their severe state of trauma, a hug is not allowed. There is no sympathy, only strict bedtimes and early morning wake-up by clanging pans. Toilets need to be scrubbed and trash removed as they begin their day. They do not know where their parents are being held. They do not know when, if ever, they will be released, and rumors swirl. Crying can get you in trouble. They are the collateral damage of a policy of immigration prevention. They have become prisoners of the State in the home of the Free and the Brave.
Their plight strikes a deep chord of fear in me. I have been a proud, albeit critical American. As the daughter of liberal activists, I learned early that this country was settled on land stolen from the Native Americans and its wealth gained by importing slave labor from Africa. But I also learned about the people who fought to change laws so future generations could live in equality. When I entered college in 1985, I thought times had changed, but when my black college friends told me about their experience of America, I lost my naiveté. My friends gently explained that when they enter a store, show up for a job interview, walk down the street, the first thing that is noted is the color of their skin. By 2008, with Barack Obama as president, we white liberals thought that had changed. How wrong we were. Racism is too insidious for one black President to cause a significant change.
The police shootings of unarmed blacks over the past several years have forced me to look at the ways in which I live with white privilege. I am a jew, but I do not walk with a yellow star of David sewn into my clothing. I walk with my whiteness as my badge of entry. My fear is minimal as I walk through the world, enrobed in my white skin. I do not fear the police, I do not fear for my children’s life when they congregate with groups of friends wearing hoodies.
It may seem that I have digressed; but in my mind racial discrimination is closely tied to the discrimination faced by the immigrant children taken from their parents. Racial discrimination is based on dehumanizing the other. The only way it can survive and thrive is through a hierarchy of privilege that even the most underprivileged want maintained. Currently, in the hierarchy of the racially oppressed, being an undocumented immigrant child with brown skin, is possibly the lowest in America. These children have lost basic human rights. They have been taken from their parents by strangers who speak a foreign language. They do not know if they will be reunited with their parents or if they will ever see them again. Their trauma is catastrophic. Their loss is horrific. The fact that they are fed, clothed and have shelter does not take away the dehumanization they have suffered.
This slippery slope towards fascism that America has been on is getting more slippery every day. As citizens, we live by the Constitution of the United States of America. A document written by slaveowners, originally forbidding women the vote and counting black people as 3/5 of a human. Many of the initial injustice was removed from the Constitution with the amendments of the 19th and 20th century. But many of those amendments and the laws they spawned are just words. Laws are not meaningful until they are enforced. Most recently, Trump reminded us of this by blaming the separation of immigrant families on an Obama era law that had never been enforced.
What can we do to stop this social backsliding, this embrace of hatred in our country? What can we do to prevent another catastrophic news event?
We can start by accepting that we all have conscious and unconscious biases and that it is time to look closely at ourselves and how we interact with people who are different from us.
We can interrupt the hatred loop by urging white, tan, heterosexual, able-bodied, U.S. citizens, to attend community events hosted by marginalized groups, to learn about their initiatives and help when possible; as well as by attending interfaith workshops hosted by Churches, Synagogues and Mosques. I realize these ideas are not new and many already do these things, but more of us need to get on board if we want to make significant change.
Grassroots efforts are our best hope. There are so many nonprofits in our country at the local level that work to end discrimination and help underserved populations on all levels: racial, gender, religious, sexual orientation, disability, age, gender identity, poverty, education, immigrants (apologies to the groups I left out). So many small nonprofits work on the same efforts competing for the same dollars. We need these groups, some working in the same city, to work together around common goals and to partner with national organizations when possible. There is power in numbers.
It seems naive to say we can answer some of these issues with our vote in November, but it is one recourse. In addition to voting, volunteer to help a local campaign. There are exciting new candidates running in many states. Find one you like and help them get elected.
I know what we can’t do. We can’t sit back and say, “Oh how awful,” and then go back to our glass of wine and our Netflix binge. If we do, we may quickly go from watching to living the Handmaid’s Tale.
Loss of rights, loss of family, loss of security, loss of respect, loss of love, loss of hope. There are so many painful losses we experience as humans in the 21st century. But not all loss is bad. Let each of us find a way to contribute to the loss of ignorance and hate in ourselves, our families and our communities. Learn about your biases, shine a light on the ugly ways you judge others. We all do it. Acknowledge it and change and then ask those around you to do the same.
