Recently, hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets to protest the latest example of our country’s backsliding into old, shameful behaviors.
Protesters organized more than 700 marches against President Trump’s racist and inhumane immigration policy which was horrendous enough early on in its implementation, and then descended into a full-on horror show when agents were ordered to start separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S. border with Mexico.
As a young man, I spent close to two years in Mexico – one full year as a student at Universidad de las Américas Puebla. While there, I was introduced to the beauty and godliness of our Mexican neighbors. I learned how devoted they are to family. I learned how very much they love this country and the people in it. I went back there many, many times because I fell in love with the people. I saw myself in them.
So many times in the last few weeks I have wondered: How is it that so many look at the beautiful, hardworking people fleeing Mexico from poverty and danger and somehow miss that connection? How are they so blind to the very humanity that connects us all?
Consider: A woman was recently caught on video calling Latino landscapers “rapists,” “animals,” and “drug dealers” – opinions she said she learned from President Donald Trump.
Seth Grossman, a GOP candidate for a House seat in New Jersey, called diversity a “bunch of crap and un-American.”
And despite a groundswell of disgust at Trump’s family separation policy, some 2,000+ children remain separated from their parents, with what seems like very little urgency to unite them. In fact, instead of expressing remorse at the damage their xenophobic zero-tolerance policies have caused, Attorney General Jeff Sessions doubled down and sneered, “if people don’t want to be separated from their children, they shouldn’t bring them at all.”
What is wrong with some people?
New York Times columnist David Brooks attributes some of the problem to “wokeness” – a coined word that is about as derided in some circles as the phrase “social justice warrior.” Liberals and conservatives alike, Brooks says, are too woke.
“The modern right has its own trigger words (diversity, dialogue, social justice, community organizer), its own safe spaces (Fox News) and its own wokeness. Michael Anton’s essay “The Flight 93 Election” is only one example of the common apocalyptic view: Modern liberals are hate-filled nihilists who will destroy the nation if given power. Anybody who doesn’t understand this reality is not conservatively woke. The problem with wokeness is that it doesn’t inspire action; it freezes it. To be woke is first and foremost to put yourself on display. To make a problem seem massively intractable is to inspire separation — building a wall between you and the problem — not a solution.”
On the contrary, I would say many Whites – conservative and liberal alike — are not woke enough.
Here’s why I say that.
For generations, Whites have been de-humanizing the “other,” making it all too easy to pillage stolen lands, rip babies from mothers’ bosoms, sell children off to the highest bidder, lock fathers away in for-profit prisons. They have committed these atrocities in the name of maintaining power, a feat at which they’ve, unfortunately, largely succeeded. But now, our country’s growing diversity makes them violently afraid of losing that power.
All this seething hate we’re witnessing from some Whites is both a throwback to the past as well as a defensive posture against what they see barreling down the tracks ahead.
A recent study showed that deaths now outnumber births among Whites – which means the browning of our country is happening at a faster rate than demographers once predicted. No wonder columnist Charles Blow said many Whites seem to be suffering from “White Extinction Anxiety.”
This racist and hate-filled mentality that made it possible to lock Latino toddlers in cages and turn a deaf ear to their cries is tied to a misanthropic trope that will not die – and that is that diversity, people of color, anyone “other” is to be feared.
If you’re living in that fear, you are not living up to the American values and beliefs that have made this a great country.
Societies with castles and moats to keep the “others” out? They’re gone. It’s the societies that have blended that are thriving today.
When David Brooks says “wokeness” doesn’t inspire or motivate, he doesn’t understand the unique action that’s underneath the word. When you’re woke, you are springing into action. When you’re woke, you are empathetic and you embrace differences.
When you’re woke, you do things differently – not the same fearful, family-destroying way you’ve done them for hundreds of years.
There was a period of time when Republicans ostensibly stood for globalization and now they’ve about-faced. If there’s anything we ought to be going back to, it’s that. We need the world in all its colors and religions and languages and cultures. Diversity is a good thing – when peoples learn to work together and engage socially, the fabric of a country is strengthened – not weakened.
The beauty of our country is the tapestry that makes us whole. If we’re just one thread, that thread is going to be frayed very quickly. It takes many threads, of many kinds, to keep us strong.
I admit: Sometimes it has been hard to be hopeful as the progress we’ve made in this country has been picked to pieces by people who are afraid. But the crowds in the streets on behalf of little Brown babies warmed my heart. I hope the marches of this weekend stir something in our current leaders. I hope the cries of the multitudes move them to wokeness where the cries of the Mexican children could not.
Already, we’ve seen some signs of empathy and a growing backlash.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Thomas Homan just resigned. In a scathing recent column, longtime defender of conservatism George Will said he was leaving the Republican party and urged his fellow conservatives to vote against President Trump in the 2020 election. And Steve Schmidt, an adviser to Sen. John McCain and a Republican pundit has renounced the Republican party to which he’s belonged for nearly 30 years – and said he’s now working to support the Democrats.
The racist immigration policies may or may not have played a role in these men’s decisions. I can’t know for sure.
But I do believe that it’s clear that they’re becoming more woke to the problem of pitting groups of people against another. They’re becoming more woke to the hatred and the discrimination that is tearing this country apart. They’re aware that the Republican party is no longer what it used to be.
I predict that the longer the Trump administration operates out of fear — grasping at nihilism, bigotry and violence as ruling tools — the more Homans and Wills and Schmidts will jump ship out of a revolution to Administration policies.
When I watch the footage of Latino families trying desperately to cross the border for the floss-thin prospect of a better life, I don’t see “others.” I see the strengths of the children and the strengths of their parents. I see their resilience.
Too many people think those who flee other countries need us. But the truth is, this country needs them as much or more. We need resilient people who can succeed in the face of failure. I know, because I’ve made my life’s work about creating opportunities for Black and Brown children who have been handed spools full of failure and, with love and hope – and help, not handouts – have spun them into success.
Pope Francis recently said on Twitter: “Woe to anyone who stifles [children’s] joyful impulse to hope.”
The callous and cold calculations of sending messages of closed borders to those fleeing for safety and improved lives on the U.S.-Mexico border is the ultimate opportunity gap – stifling hope and stealing dreams. Unfortunately, the ultimate effects of these calculations could cause irreparable damage to a nation that is historically strengthened economically and culturally by refugees and immigrants.
Let’s not inspire woe unto ourselves with backwards impulses and behaviors. Instead, let’s all aim to be more and more woke in support of national mobilization for improving lives in our nation as well as others. A world based on love, respect and commitment to human justice is a world that we should all strive to attain.
Eric J. Cooper is a Stamford resident and president of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (www.nuatc.org).