Regarding the Red Hen

 

May 2, 2018

 

The Red Hen incident in Lexington, Virginia, where White House Press Secretary was asked to leave the restaurant, will stand in our historical memory as a difficult yet illustrative moment in our national conversation and discernment of what is right and what is wrong.  And of when the wrong must be openly named and publicly shamed.  This is the Karl Popper paradox: when intolerance is widely preached, and is tolerated by those afraid of being labeled intolerant themselves (let’s face it: that’s being bullied for being a bully, by the bully), intolerance spreads and eventually tolerance itself is dead.  And historically, so also are the tolerant.

I’ve faced bullies in the schoolyard.  I remember all too well how that felt, and to this day I can spot those people coming a mile away.  We’ve got one in the Oval Office.  I remember – and not fondly – those children who declined to stand up for me and others subjected to bullying.  And I remember the adults who looked away.  To their credit, at least, they didn’t blame me when I fought back and put a stop to all of it.  But I’ve never forgotten.  Those of us with such childhood memories understand what people are really capable of, we understand the cruelty and brutality they can idly witness, and that is a frightening thing.

That’s where we are in this country.  My own party has treated politics like a back-alley knife fight for nearly a quarter century, and they’ve been brutally effective.  I’ve watched it happen from the inside, and watched it accelerate from the outside.  I’ve watched us bring out the meanest instincts in people.  I’m seeing friends treat me – and one another – in ways I’d not have imagined possible a few years ago.  I see sadness and anxiety being met with derision and hateful haughtiness by the people in the cohort that either does the bullying or stands by and watches.  It’s happening on my social media feed as I write this.  And there’s no equivocation about both sides doing it.  Can we find examples of invective on both sides?  We can, to be sure.  But the overwhelming volume of anger and personal attack comes from my friends in rural red communities.  After ten years spent with a pretty evenly divided social media network, I’ve watched it go on, day after day, year after year, for far too long to form any other conclusion.  I am calling out my own people here. 

Good people don’t defend a bad man.  Sarah Sanders spends her days defending one and getting pretty indignant when called on it.  So, coming back to Popper: Mrs. Sanders wasn’t tossed out because of her religion, nor her sexual preference, nor the color of her skin.  But don’t think for a second that what she pushes daily from the podium isn’t encouraging that very thing.  It is.  A friend tells me through tears she’s been called “nigger” more in the last two years than during the entire prior 45.  That breaks my heart, and we all know it’s no accident nor coincidence.  Sarah was tossed out because, whether she admits it or wants to admit it, she fights for intolerance.  She fights to marginalize, dehumanize, and separate people who aren’t doing her any harm, but with whom she neither agrees nor seeks to understand.  And history shows that when we start doing this to people, it’s a slippery slope, and ultimately gets far worse for them.  Is that what we want?  It certainly seems so. 

Here’s what I know: the more tolerance and fear I showed the bully, the worse it got for me - until I fought back.  I’m in no mood to be at their mercy again.  Are you?