Reuniting the Country

It’s a hard world out there right now. Every day the news, be it local or national, seems darker and darker–even though in certain places COVID has quieted quite a lot. 

Riots and looting, however, churn on at high intensity. On last night’s news, I saw a reporter standing in front of a burned out street in Portland. On the corner of the street was a bodega, still standing. The news story indicated that the store was owned by a family of immigrants new to the country, a family just beginning to navigate the waters of the United States. But they had boarded their door shut and painted an enormous sign that said: “Please Don’t Hurt Us!!!

Sitting here in my safe suburban house, I can only imagine their fear as they wrote those words in letters as large as their hands could make. Perhaps they did so even as the sound of gunshots tore around their windows, perhaps as the smell of smoke and the fumes of tear gas crept in. 

In 1968, when I was a teenager, there were riots in Boston during the long hot summer. Those riots quite often sprung up on the coattails of peaceful protests surrounding the hotbed of racial issues that pressed upon all American society then. It was a time not unlike this one. Each day I saw that as my mother read the papers over her cup of coffee, she–who was otherwise fearless–had suddenly become fearful. Anxious, in spite of the fact that she was a firm Democrat on what she called “the right side” of politics: she supported all the Kennedys, MLK, as well as busing and desegregation, and was opposed to the Vietnam war. 

One morning she had what she called an inspiration. Should the rioting and looting come out from the city in our direction, she would hang a sign in our front window that read: “I’m With You, Baby!” That way if there were any looters amongst the peaceful protesters, they would pass by our center hall Colonial.  

Two different pleas, two different times. Naivété and vulnerability, however, run through both. In the end, no looters came to our upscale suburb during the uneasy summer of 1968. Looters have taken over that neighborhood in Portland for two months, and I wonder if begging for mercy saved that family. Does such a quality even exist in the souls of men and women who perpetrate such violence? Or do they just run past their victims–breaking windows, torching cars and stealing from local merchants, filled with nothing but their lust for destruction?

I generally don’t write about anything of a political nature, regardless of its magnitude, because readers can be upset if they disagree with my point of view. But today anger gets the better of me. As the chant of “Defund The Police” moves across our states I find I am tired of being quiet. 

Please Don’t Hurt Us!!! Can you imagine that family, with their children, perhaps none of them speaking too much English, crouched down behind the barrier they’ve erected between themselves and a world gone crazy, hoping their appeal will keep them safe.  Hoping that the person brandishing a flaming bottle bomb will not heave it through their window. Hoping they can save their livelihood–and their lives. 

Their sign implores that men who have no principals and no heart be merciful. Is such a thing even possible? I ask myself how many such families are out there; how many unprotected people live in this kind of fear in a time when the police–too afraid for their own safety–often cannot respond to their calls for help. 

I hope those of us who sit in comfort and watch these events unfold on our television screens will try to help bring respite to those trapped beneath the burning of our cities, perhaps simply by speaking up. Just as we must advocate–in whatever way we feel comfortable–for the protestors who march without violence to carry the important messages of BLM, we must also stand behind those who work hard to stop the agitators riding upon the back of the movement. 

Without doubt, there are many differences among us–but they can be cause for celebration, rather than condemnation. The time has come for us to unite once more. Let’s bring our country back together again.

Respectfully yours,