Well, the big question is whether democracy is like virginity. Once you’ve lost it, can you ever really get it back again?
Or do you have to lose it to know that you had it?
And do you value it more, having found out how fugitive and fleeting it is?
Questions for a Tuesday morning after a Labor Day weekend…and of course, questions I can’t answer. I could, with a heavy heart, look toward Germany. The Germans bought into their myth, as we have bought into ours. They were the great civilizing nation: they brought us Beethoven and Bach, Thomas Mann and
Goethe.
In the days of my American Exceptionalism youth, Germany’s descent into madness was both inexplicable and unforgiveable. You don’t erect concentration camps like Auschwitz, and the work of every German was to get up and do something about it. All the time. Until the concentration camp is shut down, the prisoners are sent to rest on the French Riviera, and the government apologizes fulsomely.
Wonderful—and what am I doing about Alligator Alcatraz?
It was exactly what I feared. There’s not much left of Trump, beyond the bitterness and the hate. There’s certainly no plan or even a guiding set of principles. At this point, Trump is nothing but a pawn for the very rich, and they’re not fools. They have moved with breathtaking speed, and they have won.
Tuesday morning after Labor Day, and what are we worried about? That Trump will send in the troops to Chicago, just as he has sent them into Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The troops are there because the cities are “awash” with violence, in theory, but we all know what crime is. Crime, to a Republican mind, is anything that will lead to the removal of poor and black / brown people from sight.
I have gone to New York a couple of times a year for most of my adult life. My brother and sister live there, on the upper West Side of Manhattan—I remember New York in the 80’s and 90’s. The city now is Disneyland compared to then.
What’s wrong with New York, and with the entire country, is income inequality—though that may be only the symptom, not the disease. Two years ago, I witnessed the most chilling scene on the corner of 110th Street and Broadway. Because of its scale, that part of New York has amazing supermarkets and stores. Westside Market is one of them, and the amount and quality of the merchandise is astonishing. The store’s customer base is huge, since you can put a lot of high-powered doctors, lawyers, and musicians in those high-rise apartment buildings. So it’s not surprising that the store sells ten different types of smoke salmon, nor is it any wonder that I want to try them all, and that I can’t. The high-powered doctors and lawyers have considerably more purchasing power than I do.
But wait—maybe it’s not the time or place to get too sorry for myself, because outside of the store, directly on the sidewalk, five feet directly in front the store, a man is kneeling.
Yeah—he’s kneeling, but it’s more than that. His hands are clasped together in prayer, his eyes are cast upwards, and the only word that comes to mind is “supplication.”
He’s an older, black man. His possessions are scattered all around him. He kneels motionless for ten minutes while I watch him.
I am the only one watching, as people swerve automatically past him to get into the store. The man is an obstacle, nothing more—they’re busy with their lives, and I get that. Whatever is wrong with the life of this man—well, it’s not their problem. They have kids to raise and briefs to submit. They’re just trying to get to the supermarket, for God’s sake.
A person stops, coming out of the supermarket, and gives the man a sandwich and a Coke. The man pays no attention.
I get this, too. If you come at me with a problem, let it at least be about something practical. I can buy a sandwich; I could even take you home and give you a bed for the night. But I cannot, I absolutely cannot, give you what I think you need. I can’t listen to your problems, or share in your pain. I can fill your stomach but not your heart.
I “pay” for this by feeling guilty. I pay for this by buying sandwiches when I should be providing something that demands too much from me: real compassion. I operate, still, with the vestiges of a moral system. But can that moral system exist in this world? Can I cozen the weak and hearten the defeated and still raise the kids and write the briefs?
The people hurry into the store, and I can tell you why: they’re New Yorkers, and they do everything in a hurry. But isn’t there something else? We are great at not seeing, and a man kneeling on a street corner would be invisible, of course. But a man kneeling in front of Westside Market is impossible to ignore. The fact that I have to veer, and look away (or even buy him a sandwich) tells me that I’m uncomfortable.
They hurry, the New Yorkers, and they’re uncomfortable, as I am, with someone whose needs are so much greater than mine, whose life is so much more difficult, who haven’t received the gifts that I’ve received, and often not appreciated. But sadly, not all the New Yorkers are operating on even that minimal scale. Nor is much of America, at this point.
We have always equated poverty with laziness, bad living, stupid choices. And we have always been tempted to say, “fuck you” to the people who make a demand (or so we think) of our compassion. Nobody stuck a gun to my head and made me drink a bottle of scotch every day. Nobody compelledyou to go out and put the needle in your arm. And nobody has to feel bad because I fucked up my life.
Oh come on, it’s worse than that.
Poverty is a sin in America, and what is sin? It’s something to despise, to avoid, to shun. Your job is to get off the sidewalk, shower and shave, get a job, and run your life the way I’m running mine.
Fuck you, man-kneeling-in-front-of-Westside Market!
The “cleanup” that Trump is promising has nothing to do with crime and only partially to do with racism. It doesn’t even have to do with eliminating “trash,” human or otherwise.
Trump offers a universe where your opponents are sick and evil. Not just that, but a universe where feeling sad for a man kneeling in front of a store deserves your scorn, not your pity. Trump has not only allowed people to be mean and selfish, he has applauded them for doing so. Here’s the Christmas message for me, from my president:
Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics, who are constantly trying to obstruct our Court System and our Elections, and are always going after the Great Citizens and Patriots of the United States but, in particular, their Political Opponent, ME. They know that their only chance of survival is getting pardons from a man who has absolutely no idea what he is doing," Trump declared on Truth Social.
"Also, to the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden. I refuse to wish a Merry Christmas to those lucky "souls" but, instead, will say, GO TO HELL! We had the Greatest Election in the History of our Country, a bright light is now shining over the U.S.A. and, in 26 days, we will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. MERRY CHRISTMAS!" he added.
He was down with this, and I am down with this. We can be enemies, and we can hate each other. You can tear down the homeless encampments under the bridges and over the steam vents. You can send me to Alligator Alcatraz, though it would be a horrifying waste of money.
You can say that I’m just as bad as you, and mea culpa—I’ll feel bad about this, too. I hate what you are doing, and I hate the way you think.
But I’m not sure that I hate you the same way.
I don’t have to—I’m not working off any guilt.
The man kneeling in front of Westside Market wasn’t just kneeling. He was raising the middle finger to all of us, rushing into the store to get our smoked salmon. Buying him sandwiches. Assuaging our guilt. He was saying, really, that my life is not OK if your life is not.
He was claiming his right to exist. On his knees. In front of a supermarket. You have your kids to raise and your legal briefs to write. And if all I have done is to make you mutter, look the other way, and rush faster into the supermarket…well, so be it.
And we hate it.
So the troops are marching into Chicago, and they’ll be there for 29 days, since anything over 30 days means you have to pay benefits like overtime and health insurance. They’ll bulldoze the encampments and move the homeless somewhere else. The city will be no safer, though it might be cleaner.
And you won’t have to look at the horrifying sight of a man kneeling in front of a food store in one of the richest neighborhoods in the richest country on earth.
And you won’t have to look at yourself, rushing into the store to buy food that will not only sustain you but delight you. You won’t have to confront the inequity of having been given so much—a good education, great parents, material goods and possessions.
You won’t have to veer out of the path of the praying figure.
You can just send him to Hell.
After all, the president did….
