“They Brought it on Themselves!”
That line is only one of many repeated ad nauseam. It’s spouted like it’s an original thought. Like the people who—when they find out my last name is Capone—ask, “Any relation to Al?” or like when John and I were in the elevator on the Azamara Quest cruise ship a couple of weeks ago and happened to meet the cruise director and I—wide, goofy eyed—asked him, “Just like Julie McCoy?” and he said, “Yeah, I never heard that one before.”
I embarrassed myself. (I also dated myself.)
We’re embarrassing ourselves.
If I hear one more person use the argument, “They need to come here LEGALLY! They need to stop breaking the law and come here legally!” Like they, themselves, own the place. Like they, personally, had to do that. And they might point to an ancestor who actually did do that via Ellis Island. Most of the people decrying, “They have to come here LEGALLY!” have no frame of reference for what it would be like to have to escape through a desert from a terrifying place with a baby under their arm—because that literally is someone’s best alternative. They pontificate, “Let ‘em do it the RIGHT WAY, GET IN LINE WITH EVERYONE ELSE. Like it’s Costco. Like the United States was not actually illegally ripped from Native Americans. Like parts of “our” southwest were not originally Mexico. I have repeated myself so much I feel like just cutting and pasting my previous responses. I’m exhausted. But here I am.
Know why? Because I’m stunned and sad. Because who knows exactly how many nursing babies and new-walking-talking-toddlers and elementary kids and middle school and junior high and high school kids are laying on floors covered like they’re our cold take-out right now—who have no idea where their parents are or if they’ll ever see them again.
I am hearing so many examples of what’s now known as “privilege.” Here’s what Wikipedia says about privilege:
“Whites in Western societies enjoy advantages that non-whites do not experience, as ‘an invisible package of unearned assets.’ White privilege denotes both obvious and less obvious passive advantages that white people may not recognize they have, which distinguishes it from overt bias or prejudice. These include cultural affirmations of one’s own worth; presumed greater social status; and freedom to move, buy, work, play and speak freely. The effects can be seen in professional, educational, and personal contexts. The concept of white privilege also implies the right to assume the universality of one’s own experiences, marking others as different or exceptional while perceiving oneself as normal.”
I’m not a hater. I try to be a lover. I never said I hated Trump. I don’t hate him. Do I think someone who regularly refers to himself in third person, brags about grabbing women in their private parts, aspires to be loved and respected like Kim Jong-un, and has now created a humanitarian crisis is a fine, upstanding man? Hmmmm. Let me think.
I regularly spend time in Central America. That doesn’t mean I know what it’s like to live there. #clueless. I have gotten to know and deeply love my brothers and sisters there. I know someone whose husband was murdered by the police. She and her family still live there and it’s their home.
My paradigm is this. I live in a land that I did nothing to earn. I have freedom and luxury that most of the world does not have.
I recognize it. Some days.
This world is a dangerous place and based on all the ignorant, unloving garbage I see spewed on social media the past couple of weeks, it’s mean. This sure ain’t The Love Boat right now. People are drowning as we sip champagne and are served coconut shrimp from silver platters. We crane our necks a little and can see the people in the water. As we chew with our mouths open, we say rather annoyed, what’s wrong with those people?
Can we right this ship?
Can we turn it toward them? Maybe put down the bubbly and selfish shellfish and pull our tired friends up?
By the way, the Azamara Quest John and I had the privilege of taking a couple of weeks ago? 100% gift.