I have decided that the best thing I can do right now, in today’s divisive climate, is to be kind.
Oh, I’ve always tried to be a good person. As a child, the concept was drummed into me. My Catechism classes focused on the New Testament, and I loved the stories of Jesus healing the sick and turning a few loaves and fishes into a feast to feed a multitude. I may have had some lapses as an adolescent, but at least I volunteered my time helping teachers and tutoring younger students.
Since I’ve spent nearly 30 years as an educator, I am confronted with the need for acts of kindness every day. Consequently, I also have many opportunities to practice it.
But now I intend to ramp it up a couple of notches.
I’m reacting to the extraordinarily negative atmosphere in this country, which seems to be getting worse by the day. The sight of children being separated from their parents and placed in detention camps after they crossed the Mexican border was heartbreaking. The vitriol that arose against these migrants was disturbing—and yes, frightening.
President Donald Trump often uses crude and mean-spirited rhetoric to make his points. I feel that this emboldens other Americans to do the same. It was much the same when President Bill Clinton said he did not have sex with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. This measurably influenced young people’s attitudes towards oral sex. Researchers even called it the “Clinton-Lewinsky Effect.”
Trump has been labeling the media as “the enemy of the people” since shortly after his inauguration last year. At the end of June, five staff members of The Capital, an Annapolis newspaper, were murdered. The alleged gunman had a long-standing feud with the paper, but it’s certainly plausible that the president’s constant drumbeat against journalists fueled his flames.
The president’s rants against immigrants are another example. “You take a look at the death, the destruction that’s been caused by people coming into this country without going through a process,” he said last month. Now, that’s just plain inflammatory. Trump has referred to some immigrants as “animals,” and I’m not convinced he intended that to mean only members of the notorious MS-13 gang.
You can bet I was thinking of his comments the other day, when I was out in my community coordinating a “story walk.” I am a member of our local literacy committee, and we had set up this event on a busy festival day. Enlarged pages from the book, “My Name is Yoon,” by Helen Recorvits, had been placed in the windows of various downtown businesses. Children and their parents read the book as they walked along, and found items related to the story in the shops and restaurants to check off on a list. When they returned their lists, the children could pick out a small prize.
The book is the story of Yoon, a Korean immigrant, who must come to terms with her new identity as an American. It’s a beautiful book. Sadly, our selection riled a passerby who began ranting at us. "Why does it always have to be about those other people? I don't care about those people. They don't belong here! It's always about them!"
Perhaps I’ve just been lucky, but I’ve never come face-to-face with such a racist before.
Violent words beget violent actions. History has shown us that. The Nazis compared Jews to rats. The Holocaust followed.
Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. took the high road. They preached and practiced nonviolent resistance. They are my inspiration.
It does no good to try to match vitriol with vitriol. That only makes situations uglier. That said, I don’t intend to give up calling out injustice and lies. That’s just stating truth to power. But in my everyday interactions, I am practicing kindness.
Because another manifestation of our current toxic atmosphere is the slow and steady decline of civil behavior. People are behaving more rudely, more thoughtlessly. On a very simple level, I have noticed a definite uptick in drivers pulling out into intersections when they shouldn’t. This doesn’t just happen when I’m driving. I’ve seen it when my husband, Paul, is at the wheel, as well as to other drivers who are ahead of me. It is an attitude reflective of Melania Trump’s famous jacket: “I really don’t care. Do U?”
Well, I actually do. I happen to believe that “it’s the little things” that count.
Recently, I was at the supermarket selecting a box of tissues. A blonde woman who appeared to be in her 50s was looking at something on the other side of the aisle, while an older woman--white-haired, with beautiful, rosy skin-- was parked in the middle, looking confused. She asked the blonde woman where the magazines were.
“I think in the food aisle, don’t you?” she said, looking at me.
"No, actually, I think they're right down in this aisle." A display of paperbacks blocked the magazines from our view.
The older woman was not getting it, so I offered to take her down the aisle, but the blonde woman beat me to it.
The older woman said, ”Oh, my, it's taking two people to help me find the magazines!"
I said, "That's fine. You know, it takes a village!"
She thought that was pretty funny and said, "Well, I am 83!"
To which the blonde woman responded: "And you look darn good!"
I believe random acts of kindness do make a difference. And maybe, just maybe, can change things from the ground level up.
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