...Concerned American

November 2018

Recently, the San Antonio Street Art Initiative beautified our city by turning concrete support beams into incredible works of art.  Like a museum, there are styles for many tastes: abstract, cultural, pop, realist, etc.  As all good art does, I found myself liking some more than others.  I fell in love with the grayscale “growing up” piece whose artist used all four sides of the beam to depict a scribbling toddler turned tutued girl turned backpacked college co-ed turned star-bound female astronaut.  The message was clear: reach for the stars, little one, reach for the stars. 

Some more wandering took me to a back corner with a beam that required more time to process.  The theme was bricks – some like an old brownstone; some red, white and blue in an American flag shape framing a phrase: WAKE UP.  I paused and took a breath.  Politics.  In this moment of beauty, I really did not want to confront that – not after weeks of negative ad campaigns, endless Facebook posts, robocalls, etc.  WAKE UP.  I turned slightly, ready to walk away, and noticed this beam was not solid like the rest.  Rather, it held a space like a 3D wishbone, and in its inner sanctum, the artist continued his or her thought.   Inside was a tiny plastic child’s chair and above it a simple framed inscription: Hope was here.  This message was clear, too.  Both of them.

I am usually the last to speak about politics and politicians.  I’m not a fan of general statements about parties or people.  I don’t relish confrontation, and I certainly do not have answers to the troubles our country and our world face.  But I was struck so profoundly by the debacle during the White House press conference this week that I find myself wide awake. 

All politics aside, the exchange between President Trump and Mr. Acosta (CNN) and Mr. Alexander (NBC), as well as the continued fall out, was intense.  President Trump’s name-calling and ad hominem attacks on Mr. Acosta were painful to watch but were salved somewhat by the humanity of Mr. Alexander, who rose to the defense of his colleague and competitor when, at his own peril, he didn’t have to. 

I was struck by Mr. Alexander and was reminded of a garden I walked through about a year ago in Jerusalem called The Garden of the Righteous Among Nations.  This garden is planted at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum.  The trees and flowers reflect the life that is and can be as the monuments and engraved markers honor the countless people who risked their lives to save others when, at their own peril, they didn’t have to.  Germans, Poles, Czechs, and more had woken up to what was happening in Nazi Germany and made a choice. 

We subsequently learned that Mrs. Sanders, on the order of the President, revoked Mr. Acosta’s press pass.  Rumors are circulating now about doctored footage regarding Mr. Acosta “handling” the female intern who tried to take the microphone and his revocation being attributed to this supposed behavior.  Such reinvention of the truth – the original video - is simply not acceptable.  Wake up.  Revoke his press pass but do so honestly. CNN will replace him.  And her.  And him, and her, and her, and him, and her, ad nauseum.   Because that is what freedom of the press and freedom of speech is all about.

Until or unless it isn’t.  Until or unless there are so many Executive Orders and executive temper tantrums that we somehow, like the Animals in Wicked, lose our ability to speak. 

Wake up. 

Why am I now just waking up?  Who knows.  Maybe I’m naïve.  Maybe I’m an optimist.  Maybe I just don’t have all the facts.  Maybe what I’m seeing just isn’t real.   But here’s what my now awake brain says:

First, he came for the women.  And it was okay to grope and fondle them.

Then, he came for the Mexicans. And it was okay because they were rapists, criminals and dangers to society.

Then, he came for the Muslims. And it was okay because they were terrorists.

Then he came for the Press. And it was okay because they were liars.

Then he came for….

And then it dawned on me.  I’ve heard this repetitive cadence before:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out –

            Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out –

            Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –

            Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

-        Martin Neimoller’s quotation (US Holocaust Memorial Museum)

Maybe I’m just now waking up because I haven’t wanted to see what is really bothering me: I’m afraid.  I’m afraid, as a Jew, that anti-Semitism is on the rise around the world and even in the place I should feel safest. I’m afraid, as an American, that our president’s erratic behavior negatively impacts how the rest of the world views and treat us. I’m afraid, as a human, that our country’s leadership is so destructively postured that it threatens the world’s safety.   But mostly, I’m afraid of what this beautiful country of ours is becoming right in front of our faces, and there are seemingly no reigns to grab onto.  I’m afraid because we scream at each other instead of talk.  I’m afraid because compromise seems to mean defeat. 

I’m afraid.  I’m afraid because “hope was here.”   And today – the day after yesterday – the verb is in the past tense.