I think I have reached my limit of understanding.
I cannot look at the pictures or read the stories of what is happening to children at our borders without feeling utter despair.
Try as I might, I cannot understand how anyone can justify this. How anyone can think this is the right thing to do.
Why do I even try, you may ask. Fair question. I try because meeting someone where they are is the only way to make progress. We have too many people yelling at each other from their respective echo chambers. Trying to understand where someone else is coming from never means agreeing with them or condoning them. It means realizing that they have a story, a series of events and inputs that got them to their current state, and just telling them they’re wrong won’t make them listen.
But this. How did we get here? In time, historians will lay out the events that brought us to the Trump presidency and this moment of darkness. But what about now?
Not only do I despair for the children being pulled from their parents’ arms, thrown into cages and locked into buildings, but I despair for my fellow Americans who somehow can look at these atrocities and think, “Yeah, that sounds about right.” Who can go on television and compare the situation to summer camp. Who can tweet and comment about just consequences for breaking the law.
I can make logical comebacks: that most immigrants are trying to cross legally, that conditions are horrible, that there is no law demanding the separation of children, there is certainly nothing in the bible about it (but please don’t get me started on using the bible as a justification for federal law), that even if the parents are breaking the law there is no reason to treat children in this way.
Children.
But this is beyond logic. No one is listening.
How many of us were naive enough to think that we, Americans, of that shining city on a hill, were so far removed from fascism and believed that it took so many evil steps for Germany to descend into Nazism so it could never happen here?
There is only one evil step: telling lies loud enough so that people believe them. And that step was taken a long time ago. People always want to believe when someone in power is telling them what they want to hear. And now there is a whole tribe of blind followers.
We’re no longer debating the policies this country needs to have in place to ensure our borders are safe and that immigration is controlled (whatever that means).
We are instead yelling at each other over the morality of locking children into cages. We are debating something that breaks down to right and wrong, good and evil. We cannot all agree that concentration camps are bad. This is why I despair.
Meanwhile, while we’re distracted, laws are being passed, appointments are being made, meetings are being held, right under our noses, and we don’t have the energy to protest.
I’m writing emails, thanking my MoC, sending donations. But the despair isn’t going away. Because none of those actions change the debate from moral back to policy. A monster has been uncovered and it’s not so easy to push it back under the bed, back into the closet. No, the time for denial is over. Now, we must fight.
I’ve found this page useful for actions to take: https://www.facebook.com/slpnggiants/
There are many places to donate. Please consider here: https://www.facebook.com/donate/490507544717085/10104964615752035/
Please sign this petition from the ACLU: https://go.peoplepower.org/sign/separating_families/
Bank of Erin 