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Hate and Fear While Living In The USA [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-09-04
I am adding my voice in solidarity to those in the USA who feel hatred directed at them due to ethnicity, gender, religion or other identification (including political affiliation and beliefs).
I fear living in the USA. It saddens me that I am more fearful of living in the USA — and traveling freely — than I have been since becoming a US citizen in 1996. The fear stems from other people’s hate. This grief may seem personal: something could happen to me and/or my family. But it could also happen to my friends, my neighbors, my colleagues and my community. One act of hate hurts all of us.
Hate is not a healthy emotion. Hate stresses the human body. Hate manifested physically and/or verbally and stresses other human bodies. Hate manifested ends human life.
In the summer of 1985, I worked some extra hours to buy a vinyl album imported by my local record agent in Minatitlán, Veracruz. The album was by Paul Weller’s latest musical outlet: The Style Council’s Our Favourite Shop (released in the USA under the title Internationalists). The themes on the album center on the devastation to Britain’s working class by Thatcherist economic policies. The first track called “Homebreakers” stunned me: singer Mick Talbot says the following:
All the hate that I feel
No love could put right
To my 19-year-old self, I wondered ‘What could make someone hate?’ What exactly is going on in the UK?
Hate against a system can lead to change. As I studied international politics and history, I learned more about the civil rights movement in the USA. I learned about the Chicano movement in the southwestern USA. I learned about Stonewall. I learned about communities who stood up to hate.
Then, I learned about the atrocities throughout Latin America. I learned about the ‘black hand’ of the USA behind murder, torture and domination in my own home region. And I could start to understand hate. I learned how hate from one group manifested itself on the complete extermination of another. And, the extermination of African-Americans (and Afro-Mexicans), Mexican-Americans (and Mexicans opposed to the ruling classes), people of Asian and Pacific Island descent, Muslim and other people of Arab descent, people of Jewish and/or Israeli descent, and even someone’s LBGTQIA+ identification… the list is endless. I learned that hate is not healthy. Answering atrocities with hate only made me sick. Hate can motivate people and groups to make substantial changes to society but ultimately those changes must be grounded in something positive, something hopeful, something that builds a future rather than divides people.
But this hate we are seeing does none of this. We see end of life — but we don’t see a future. We don’t see a path forward. It reminds me of a student debate in 1984: pro- and anti-Reagan elements on the campus were debating the influence of the Reagan regime and Reaganism in Latin America. One fellow, a pro-Reagan supporter, had only one comment in 90 minutes: Reagan represented, to him, “four more years of force.” Trumpism offers the same shallow reaction. This hate seeks only to exterminate people who are different (or have different beliefs). By villainizing others (and dehumanizing them), these haters justify this behavior.
Personal Background
I was born in Mexico in the State of Veracruz. I first visited the USA in 1986 and moved here at the end of 1988 when I married a US citizen. We have three adult children (two who live in the USA) and three grandchildren (all in the USA). I studied at one of the branches of the state universities in Veracruz and the country of Ecuador (the Universidad Católica de Cuenca) for part of my undergraduate study. While in South America, I spent time in Peru (five years after their military government), Chile (during the Pinochet dictatorship) and Argentina (two years into the post-dictatorship government led by Raúl Alfonsín). Ultimately, working with one of my professors, I met two professors who took me on as a research assistant that took me to Guatemala and Nicaragua mainly but also all of Central America.
Universidad Autónoma Del Estado De Quintana Roo (Photo: www.uqroo.mx)
In 1985, I recall the fears of citizens of their local police. A military vehicle was easy to spot but much of the population recognized the unmarked cars of the authorities. Across the Andes, students whispered about the secret places in Buenos Aires where desaparecidos (the disappeared people) may have been held. I have seen true fear in people’s eyes and heard their stories as they emerged from this dark period.
Often in my travels, I have encountered ‘unhappy’ officials: unhappy with my research or my questions to those I met or the places I visited. Even in 2021 in Guatemala, the Giammattei’s Minister of Education tried to put a little fear into me with pointed questions or searches of my hotel room. They also tried to rattle me by stopping my car for no reason or barging into my hotel room in the middle of the night. They also refused my visa request to visit during the recent elections.
At home? I’ve heard all kinds of insults because of my ethnicity. I have people throw things at my car or scratch it deeply with keys or other objects. I have been told to ‘go home’ two blocks from my house. I have had people demand I speak English, even though I am not speaking to them. I have had fear of road rage – to the point that times when driving home, I take a different route.
A National Gun Disease
And then there are guns. I’ve seen a few flashed at myself and my family when walking on public streets in the middle of an urban area. I’ve seen a few raised by drivers in an act of explicit threat.
Guns are everywhere these days. Gun violence is so common in the news that it takes a lot of blood to get any coverage. I am not opposed to gun ownership (within certain perimeters, including background checks, mental health checks and other common-sense controls favored by over 75% of this country) but I deeply oppose the manufacture and sale of these weapons of mass destruction: assault weapons, semi-automatic (and automatic) weapons. But these weapons are everywhere.
What is an acceptable number?
What percentage of a highly-unstable population that owns assault weapons are you comfortable with? 20%? 10%? 5%? Are there situations you might be in — or my one-year grandson might be near — and say that it is okay if 2 out of the 100 people here are packing an assault weapon and are unstable? Would you take your grandchild to the 4th of July parade in Highland Park last year if you knew one person might shoot 50 people (and kill 7)? Percentages mean nothing when one person can inflict grievous harm.
The Recent (and not-so-recent) Events
The hate crime of Jacksonville, Florida weighs on my mind. So does Daniel Piedra Garcia, the rideshare driver’s murder in El Paso in June. So does the Club-Q shooting in Colorado last November. The Atlanta spa shootings that targeted Asian-Americans. This list is horribly, horribly long. It shouldn’t be.
Back in 2015 and 2016, acting as a faculty advisor, a student group at my school chose to rebrand themselves as Latinx. This was done by their choice as a symbol of solidarity with those non-binary students on our campus. Latinx as a phrase even seems to raise the ire of ‘liberals’ who call it a ‘white-man’s invention’. These students felt it broke us out of the traditional gender identities. And it denounced those who separate us with labels or tell us that some battles are not ours.
The other major choice these students made was to stand with other groups in solidarity against violence, hate and bigotry: Asian/Pacific Islanders and Asian/Pacific Island-Americans, Muslims and Muslim-Americans, people of African descent and African-Americans. (We are an international campus with students from all over the world.) This solidarity is important to break down any differences between our groups as well as recognizing that hate has no place with any of our community.
Our campus has had violence against women as well. When we talk about hate, we need to recognize that gender-based crimes are part of this. It is easy to denounce the ‘entitled white guy’ trope but discrimination that manifests itself verbally and physically against a gender transcends ethnicity, classes and ages. (Yes, my heritage has a long, shameful history of anti-women attitudes and open violence.)
Silence Emboldens Hate
These acts demand a response. They demand a voice that speaks of a positive, moral future. President Biden denounces these acts. He denouncing hate. But, many of those haters hate him. Many of those haters call him illegitimate or brand him as a criminal. I can understand political opposition. I do not understand political opponents who remain silent when these acts are committed. (We saw it on the national scale when the sitting president refused to denounce these actors during a national debate.) Now, politicians and the news media that acts as their cheerleaders remain silent. This silence by national voices only emboldens these act of hatred.
These stories are adding up. In the last week, several national news networks had covered the increase in hate crimes. Some of the national stories worth examining:
Reuturs: Political violence in polarized U.S. at its worst since 1970s
The Guardian: I have never, in my adult life, felt less safe to be gay in public in the US
William Barber: The racist murders in Jacksonville didn’t happen in a vacuum. Words came first
Washington Post: Black Americans more upbeat but fear worsening racism, poll finds
From the above-linked Washington Post story:
Asked about the April shooting of a Black 16-year-old in Kansas City by an 84-year-old White man after the victim approached the wrong house when trying to pick up his younger siblings, 85 percent say it is a sign of broader problems in the treatment of Black people by White people, compared with 54 percent of White Americans who say this.
Haters and hate news sites would call the response of non-whites as racist. They would accuse non-whites (and their white allies) of being the haters and attempting to sow division in a community. Let’s call it ‘PC’ or ‘woke’ or some other made-up cloak of absolution to justify someone’s hateful beliefs. And it only takes one person with a gun to respond.
The Power of the Professor
On Monday, August 28th, I went to work in my campus office (here in the USA — my pictures here are from my Mexican campus) despite school not being in session. I wanted to utilize the campus resources to check in on my graduate students as well as my research assistants here and in Mexico where my next book is being prepared for release. In the afternoon, a security guard knocked on the door. He was checking in on my safety after seeing me sign in hours earlier. He offered to sit with me or outside my office until I left. A quick internet search told me about his concerns: A professor had been shot and killed in North Carolina.
Tuesday and Wednesday meetings with campus leadership told me about their concerns as well. More about fear on the campuses is here: 'Are you safe?' Our Daily Tar Heel cover conveys a fear we all felt.
Yes, I have known many professors who treat their graduate students poorly. I have witnessed some of the most dehumanizing events by these professors. I have known professors that felt that scholarship stopped when they earned their Ph.D. I have known professors that relish the power over the students in such a situation and work as hard as they can to deprive their candidates of admittance into their ‘rarified air’ of doctoral sciences.
Maybe I am a little prudish here, but I have always opposed student-teacher sexual relations. Maybe it goes back to my undergraduate days in Minatitlán, Veracruz when a family ‘friend’ was a part-time professor at my school and exploited his position with the young ladies on campus. I was 18 and I knew that it was wrong. It is still wrong.
Universidad Autónoma Del Estado De Quintana Roo (Photo: www.uqroo.mx)
I have also seen stress. I have seen doctoral candidates pushed to the extreme point of stress that dismayed me. Did that drive this student to murder? Do my students feel such stress? Unlike many professors, I use my graduate students as assistants in my projects as true research assistants. When I revise/rewrite their work, I discuss it. Sometimes, we have healthy disagreements. And, ultimately — and unlike many professors — my work under my name is my own. And, unlike others, I love it when my students step up and become the lead voice on their own. My wife once told me (back in 1988) that someday I would be sitting across the desk from someone like me: a new voice that is brash with dreams and the tools to accomplish them. I relish another voice in the world. My power rests solely in getting my students ready to be that voice.
What are the pressures I may place on these students? That concerns me. The university system concerns me as well. Our leadership has strived to put support structures (everything from emotional to financial assistance) in place but is that enough?
The way forward
Tell me!
How do we stop the hate? How do we build a moral case for the right thing to do?
How do we continue to embrace differences without being branded by a vocal minority as something distasteful?
Writing this and posting it here is like speaking to those who already understand. Each semester, I will spend about 30 minutes in the first class session talking about understanding your fellow students and collaborating with them in a mutually-beneficial way. I will talk about opportunities to discover ideas and approaches that are new to a student, whether it is in the reading material I assign or the discussions with the people next to them. Yes, sometimes I need to intervene. But I also love it when I don’t need to: one person (or several) will do the intervention to stop behavior and change attitudes. These are the adults that I am most proud of. And these people know that their voice means something — it has value as all human voices must.
Once these students leave my classroom, it is their world to change.
After all of this, I still feel unsafe. I feel that one person’s hate can destroy our community. Whether this hate is manifested with one bullet or fifty, it scares me.
[END]
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