Racist thugs: can we still be friends?

The article I have reproduced below came out over a year ago, but I notice the Globe and Mail has let it stand. And that shocks me almost as much as the content, which sickens me even more than it did back then.

It was in the form of a question-and-answer, the answer coming from some sort of tin-plated "expert" on something-or-other. The person asking for help had just poured out her soul in a cri du coeur about her literal survival and the safety of her children. The response from this weird Globe and Mail-style political Dear Abby was a bland little chuckle and a few light-hearted, conveniently stress-minimizing bon mots.

I guess by now you've figured out that this was about Trump. I was astonished and appalled at how mealy-mouthed the piece was, how blandly Canadian in the very worst, don't-get-anyone-upset way. Oh yes, I know this disturbs you a little, as it does me! Certainly. But don't, he advises, ever let the people who put this racist, sexist Tyrannosaurus in charge of the free world get you upset. And for God's sake, don't let it break up your friendship! Your friendship matters much more than all this silly political stuff. Use your healthy disagreement as an opportunity for lively debate over a bottle of chardonnay, while wittily quoting Oscar Wilde.

Oh, yes. Racist pigs are always welcome on my friendship list.

This article and its bland reassurance came out before the worst of Trump's henchmen/women oozed slimily out of the woodwork and took over - not just the country, but people's brains. But the anxious person who wrote to this supposed advice columnist could already see it coming. AND SO COULD HE. But he dodged it, hid behind the post, was "nice", and just wanted everyone to get along, no matter what the price. Writing for a Canadian audience, he was Canadian-nice in a way which I think might finish us yet. It's the one thing about my country which I positively hate.

It made me sick then, and it makes me sick now. NO, you cannot separate someone's politics from the rest of them and just "be friends anyway". It's like those "very fine people on both sides" that Trump blathered about. You cannot, unless you completely lack principles yourself. To quote Katie in The Way We Were: "Hubbel, people ARE their principles." This caused Hubbel to groan and shake his head and go punch the wall.

Roseanne Barr has shown her true colors just lately, revealing what a racist thug she truly is, and could I be friends with her? You think? Not even if I did like her as a person and/or find her wildly entertaining, which I do not. I find this "love the sinner and hate the sin" type of thinking to be the most dangerous I have ever seen. Racism, bigotry and thug-like behaviour should never be "topics of lively debate". People who hold these beliefs are frightening and deplorable, what they do and say is morally indefensible and even criminal, and I want nothing to do with them.

Don’t let The Donald come between you and your friend

DAVID EDDIE
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 10, 2016 UPDATED APRIL 8, 2017

The question

I'm writing you from America – from one of what some people derogatorily call "the flyover states." I am so shocked, disturbed, and I would say even frightened that Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States. I feel like I'm living in an apocalyptic movie, and for the first time have a dread for my and my children's future. I can't sleep for worrying about it. I can't understand how any thinking, rational person could have voted for Donald Trump – and all (I thought) my friends and Facebook friends agree. But then I was at lunch with a friend of mine, and she was thrilled at the outcome of the election. She thinks Trump is going to be a great president. I couldn't believe my ears. We had an emotional argument and haven't spoken since. I don't know if I can be friends with her, going forward. What should I do?

The answer

First of all, don't succumb to "confirmation bias."

Confirmation bias is the tendency to hang out exclusively with (and, I suppose it follows, sleep with and marry) people who agree with you, and to read things and absorb only the information that confirms your prejudices and beliefs.

And I think it's really boring. So everyone on your Facebook page agrees with you. Almost half of your fellow Americans, it turns out, don't.(emphasis mine)

Why must we all agree? Vis-à-vis Trump I say: True, he's not my type of guy. Obama was my type of guy – smart, funny, thoughtful, soulful, Fugees on his iPod, Entourage his favourite TV show – though not my favourite politician ever.

Trump is sexist, retrograde, boorish, a "short-fingered vulgarian"– well, enough ink has been spilled and hot air expelled to describe him. He's Trump: need we say more?

But give the man a chance. He might just surprise/shock everyone by
doing well.

I've been around long enough to remember when Ronald Reagan threw his hat in the ring, way back in the 1980s.

The media were aghast, despondent, horrified and full of eye-rolling mockery: He's an actor! He was in a movie with a chimp! How's he going to be president of the United States (now glorified with the acronym POTUS)?

(Overlooking the fact he had been governor of California for eight years.)

But Reagan famously went "over the head of the media" and appealed directly to the common folk. And at least as far as conservatives are concerned, Reagan worked out well – left the U.S. and A (as Borat might say) and the world a more peaceful and prosperous place than when he entered the fray as POTUS.

Anyway, the point is not what you think of Donald Trump, or even Ronald Reagan.

The point, I believe, is: it's important to hold on to and passionately argue for your beliefs, but not to go all ad hominem with them – i.e. not make it personal.

I'm always amazed at friendships, or any other kinds of relationships, that go pear-shaped over the fact the two parties don't see eye to eye on some particular issue.

I know of more than one marriage south of the border experiencing "Trump tension," i.e. one spouse likes him and the other doesn't, and one or the other doesn't want to admit it.

But why should it be so personal? Why should it not rather be a fun and energizing topic of debate?

I understand Trump is a polarizing figure. I understand his rise to power (first-ever president without any political or military experience, just for starters) is odd, unusual, shocking, etc.
But that's precisely why the ramifications need to be discussed among citizens in a cool, calm, compassionate manner. Take a cue from the concession speeches of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – I particularly liked Obama's comment (I'm going to miss that guy) to the effect of "this was an intramural scrimmage … We are Americans first."

You and your friend are Americans first. It can be hard, I think, particularly for Canadians to understand, but America is, at heart, I believe, a rebellious country, a country that began in rebellion – a punk country, if you will, and Donald Trump was a punk choice for president.

So it's definitely difficult to process, but shouldn't cause a rift between you and your friend. When one Oscar Wilde character says accusatorily to another "You always want to argue about things," the other character says "That is exactly what things are made for."

I've often felt the truth of that. And never more so than with Trump. Go ahead and argue about him until you're blue in the face and the bottle of chardonnay is empty.
 
Just respect the fact not everyone will always have the same opinion as you. And never, ever let it get personal.

OK. . . I was going to leave it here, but I am gasping like a beached fish even after more than a year away from this bilge. For one thing. . . OK, there is no "one thing", which is why my highlighting escalated to the point that nearly every sentence he wrote was marked. This guy's flip, light-hearted, "hey folks, there's nothing really wrong here, you're just upset, OK? You're overreacting" tone sickened me, when the initial question was posed in an entirely different tone of fear, terror, dread.

Mr. Fix-It here completely let her down. He wriggled out. He began to speak in another language, breezy and dismissive, as in "oh, we've seen this before and it turned out great" (which is irrational in the extreme: if ONE thing goes great when we initially dreaded it, it doesn't guarantee the next thing will. And if he had to use the Reagan administration as an example of a dubious candidate who turned out to be a winner, then I have trouble believing anything he says.)

I don't know, I can't let this go, and didn't even know what images could begin to sum it up.
I decided to choose the absolute horror of Charlottesville to illustrate it, since I was really too overwhelmed to pick anything else. I wonder now, does this gentleman still feel Trump is "not so bad" and we're overreacting (and in my conspiracy-conditioned mind, I now wonder if he's "one of them", a spy infiltrating the fusty old Canadian institution of the Globe and Mail) and that people should only debate about him in a cool, rational, detached manner while slowly getting more and more pissed? I hear the sound of genteel, probably phony laughter, Oscar Wildean witticisms flying through the air, while the world as we know it slowly and inexorably sinks.

Make America sane again - PLEASE

I REALLY was not going to start here, because once you start, it's hard to stop. But some things come to mind that are hard to ignore.

"America First" is an alarming slogan, with its Third Reich simplicity and utter self-assurance, as if there is no other way to think. I am ashamed to say that Canadian writers have tiptoed around Trump from the start. One "journalist" wrote, "Hey, guys! You're great already, you don't have to worry about becoming great again!" The placating (shit-eating) tone of it was something you'd use trying to fend off a crouching tiger with a popsicle stick. 

Another "memorable" piece (these were in the Globe and Mail, not the Raccoonville Gazette) claimed that you should not allow a friendship to be compromised just because the other person is a Trump supporter. It was a call for civilized debate rather than argument, an agreement to disagree. This stuck in my throat then, and makes me want to vomit now. Agree to disagree about allying yourself with THIS. This. The piece went on to say you should have a lively discussion about the issues over a bottle of good wine (no, this wasn't satire!), like the literary discussions of old where disagreement was just a spur to yet more - 

OH CRAP.

The writer concluded that we should look at it this way. America is a "punk country" which has always gone its own way (unlike Canada, which is sitting here trying to figure out why Americans are suddenly aware of our existence). A "punk country" is drawn to a "punk leader", someone who's "sort of out there" but who may match the spirit of the times. So it's OK if your friend has alt-right sentiments lurking beneath his or her Trump fanaticism.

NO.

I don't know, maybe my Canadianness is showing through. I am as guilty as anyone of trying to send up Trump and make him look ridiculous (not that it's hard to do). I realize humour makes him a little more bearable, but it also keeps us from doing anything to change the situation. Religion used to be the opiate of the masses. Now it's satire. Satire makes us feel like we have some sort of control over the situation by laughing at the king. 

NOT.

Not not not not not. We don't. We don't, and we will not. Not until he is OUT of there. 

Why they cancelled the KKK

The Klan

by Alan Arkin and David Arkin, 1951

The countryside was cold and still There was a cross upon the hill This cold cross wore a burning hood To hide its rotten heart of wood Father I hear the iron sound Of hoofbeats on the frozen ground Down from the hills the riders came Jesus, it was a crying shame To see the blood upon their whips And hear the snarling of their lips Mother I feel a stabbing pain Blood flows down like a summer rain Now each one wore a mask of white To hide his cruel face from sight and each one sucks a little breath Out of the empty lungs of death Sister lift my bloody head It's so lonesome to be dead He who travels with the Klan He is a monster, not a man Underneath that white disguise I have looked into his eyes Brother, will you stand with me it's not easy to be free

I'd say I don't know why this song came into my head again, after something like 50 years, except that I DO know.

While I was watching the Scientology series on A & E (and I will confess to a total fascination with cults in every form), an ad came on - a weird, perhaps overdramatic but nonetheless chilling preview.  At first I thought it was for a dramatic series. Then came the title: Generation KKK. It depicted people in white robes with the ghastly pointed headpieces, holes cut for eyes, and the voiceovers were something like: no, the Klan is not dead, it's just moving into the next generation. Children were depicted hand-in-hand, standing around a big fire.

I felt queasy. If this was "real", why was A & E giving these people any air time? It seemed too horrible to be believed.

Then that was it. I didn't see anything more about it, and kind of hoped I'd imagined it.

But I hadn't.

Just yesterday, I saw a whole slew of news items about the series. A & E had been getting a lot of flak on social media for it, so they solved it by changing the title from Generation KKK to Escaping the KKK, to make it match up with Amish and Mennonite and all those other horrific organizations that lynch black people.

Uhhhhmmmm, yeah. 

Not so, as it turned out. The series has been abruptly cancelled. There are several stories about this. One is that the producers (demonized by A & E executives, who seemed to want to distance themselves from the whole thing) had been paying KKK leaders to do the show. Another, more suspicious, yet more believable rumour was that the KKK leaders were being paid to say and do whatever the producers wanted. Which was, according to those leaders, bullshit that did not reflect anything that actually went on.

Eye -yi-yi-yie.

If so, then A & E has sunk to new levels of depravity. Not only are they funding the KKK with their bribery, they're telling them exactly how to BE KKK members. Of course the actual Klan will try to play down their atrocities, while A & E will do the opposite, ramp it up to the maximum, because it "makes good television".

In any case, the show is canned, and the fallout is - we'll see. The problem with all this is that a lot of people will say, "Good for them! At last, someone in reality TV is showing a little moral fibre." But was the whole thing staged from the very start, to whip up curiosity for the NEXT "reality" show?

Had they begin filming on this already? Had they finished it?  I think it was all set to go to air. Let's hope someone will leak it onto YouTube so it can be poked with sharp sticks and ridiculed into the ground.

Meantime. . . the song. My brother Walt used to sing this during the folk boom, when everyone played guitars and sang, but then it sort of sank out of sight. It was hard to find the lyrics, and I found only ONE recorded version of it by Richie Havens. He turns it into a Richie Havens song, but it is the same one, believe me.

The Richie Havens lyrics were way different, by the way. So I had to dig some more to get to the bedrock.

The song was written by Alan and David Arkin (yes, THAT Alan Arkin, the actor). I don't know how many songs he wrote, if it was a sideline or what, and right now I feel like I've been run over, so I don't want to look it up. It was all wrong on message boards: people kept saying things like, oh, it was Malvina Reynolds, or Pete Seeger. It wasn't.

I don't know what inspired Alan Arkin and his father to write this, but if A & E can get everyone in a lather by faking a show about them, then the KKK supposedly have some sort of relevance beyond Birth of a Nation.  Of course there are supposed ties to Donald Trump. I would imagine they'd go for him more than for Hillary Clinton, but they'd elect a basset hound sooner than Hillary Clinton.