Do we really have to go through all this again?

I was watching the Ken Burns documentary about the Holocaust a few nights ago on PBS. He covered a lot of history - from the rise of Nazism to the persecution of the Jews to the expansion of Germany into Austria and Czechoslovakia prior to WW II.

Jewish immigrants arriving in America before the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924. The number of Jewish refugees, trying desperately to escape Nazi Germany, was severely restricted after this law was passed.

They make the startling observation that much of what Hitler did in Germany was copied or emulated from America. Our campaign of genocide against the native people who inhabited this land, our expansion from the east coast to the west so we could build a great nation, even the anti-semitism of the early 20th century (which I knew nothing about). Yes, Jews were denigrated in this country, at least those trying to immigrate from Eastern and Southern Europe.

All the while people in Germany, back in the 1920’s, kept thinking ‘it can’t get any worse than this’ - but it did. It ended up in death camps for millions of people. And not just Jews, it was gypsies, communists, disabled people, homosexuals, pacifists, criminals and whoever else was thought to be polluting the purity of the Aryan race - white Northern European Protestants in other words.

Map of Germany’s eastward expansion prior to World War II as they annexed Austria and then Czechoslovakia.

The sad and shocking truth is that we did the same right here in America. Reference ‘we killed off all the buffalos’ and read all about it. The story of an American genocide, the decimation of the buffalo herds in the 19th century (which were the physical and spiritual sustenance of the Plains Indians), Andrew Jackson evicting tens of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral lands and sending them across the Mississippi river to Oklahoma, a land they didn’t know and weren’t prepared to survive in. Thousands died on the journey and the white settlers ended up with the fertile river bottom farmlands in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee. I’m still mad about it and I wasn’t even there.

Map of America’s westward expansion as Indian lands were annexed in the Southeast after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The ‘Trail of Tears’ routes to Oklahoma are also shown...

And now it’s happening again. The Proud Boys and the Patriot Front and other extremist groups seem to have the tacit approval of a major political figure who controls a major political party. Their subtly racist rhetoric has infected our national politics. Somehow it’s now become acceptable to espouse violence in order to further one’s political agenda. January 6 and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene expressing support for assassinating Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are but two alarming examples.

What are we to do then? Watch this cycle repeat all over again?

My conclusion is that racial equality and social justice and a stable, peaceful society does not begin in the halls of government, it begins with me and you and how we act and think every day. The smallest act of kindness can have a monumental effect on someone. It can change their life and the life of other people that they meet.

I recently volunteered as a ‘Soul Friend’ at Haven for Hope, the downtown homeless shelter in San Antonio. I have permission to hang out with the folks in the courtyard and commune. It’s quite a community. The stories and the interactions that happen there are amazing and powerful. Without compromising the confidentiality agreement with Haven for Hope, I think I can say . . . people’s lives get changed. Just by engaging in conversation. Mine certainly has.

The Charis Collective is a collection of caring and compassionate people operating as part of the Sunset Ridge Church ministry. Their website reads, “We have a vision to create a community that collectively works toward the flourishing of one another and our neighborhood”. They happen to be in my neighborhood so I can brag on them. They actively manifest their caring and compassion through a number of projects: transforming a parking lot into a neighborhood park, creating a place for shared work spaces and the Rose Hip Cafe, a place where I hang out and have a lot of interesting conversations.

Every cafe you walk into, really, has the potential of facilitating a transformative conversation. It was another PBS show I watched that was talking about the history of beer and they made the point that it was in the pubs and cafes of New England that the American revolution was fomented. People having real conversations.

Real conversations are when people talk AND listen, where people learn and explore and have fun, where there is a sense of . . . common unity. This, I think, can change the world.

What’s your sense of it? Do we really have to go through all this again? The dumbing down, the castigation, the denigration, the singling out of people who don’t have the right to the same privileges that we do. I just write from my own limited perspective about things - I need and want and ask for yours. Maybe you see it differently.

That’s the amazing thing about being at Haven for Hope. The people I meet there are not from my socio-economic-racial-cultural background. The most fun I have is just saying hello to someone, how are you, and initiating a conversation. Often all I have to do is keep my mouth shut and listen, offer an occasional comment. They have so much to say.

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