Meanwhile, the Frog

 I know you’ve heard this bit of folklore, but I’m going to tell you again. It bears repeating:

If you drop a frog into boiling water, it'll react instinctively and jump out right away. But if you put that frog in comfortable water and heat it up slowly, degree by degree, the frog will adjust to it, degree by degree. And he’ll just sit there not noticing the deadly danger it’s in until it's too late to jump out and save itself.

We’re so used to suffering of others that it’s commonplace, and our commonplace response to suffering is to adjust by degrees. We look away. At least until something happens that brings the suffering home. Until it’s too late.

As Nazi propaganda scholar Dr. Randy Bytwerk said every summer in his presentation to teachers at our Michigan Holocaust education seminar, “If you picked up the newspaper one Sunday morning and read that there was an earthquake in China the day before that killed a million people, and then took your dog outside and it ran into the road and was hit by a car, only one tragedy would make you sad, and it isn’t the million people who died in the earthquake.” 

In all the years he made that point, not one person disagreed with him. It’s understood, the heart just works that way: it cares first about what it holds closest.

But the other thing we don’t want to admit about the suffering of others is that it is useful to us in the way we’ve structured our lives in this country. Even necessary. Even comforting. In a system built upon competition, winners and losers, even social Darwinism, we need to see and know that others are worse off than we are. If we can see misery somewhere, and it’s not our misery, then our suffering is mitigated. Our country, our way of life, our national psyche, needs people who are losing - the homeless, the hungry, the desperate - so others know that though they may not be winning the game, neither are they coming in last. We just need to be able to look down on someone. 

In recent years it has become even worse, and whole business plans are built around division, hate, and anger. Look it up, it's called the Rage Economy, and it's a huge part of our national economy; algorithms of social media platforms need people miserable and divided and at each other's throats. Your fury is their profit. As a result you don't have neighbors any more in this economy, only two tribes: us and them. And the people who are "them" must be miserable, dominated, even destroyed. 

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What was written above was written this morning as the beginning of what was to be a political piece asking for anybody who read it to think about what’s going on in this country right now, to join me in the work of waking up to the violence unfolding in our country, degree by degree, while we all boil to death. Dr. Bytwerk instructed us about Nazi propaganda that its brilliance was making hatred and violence acceptable by degrees. I am learning now his instruction wasn’t purely academic. It was a warning. That was to be my essay. 

And then I got the news that my son was shot to death in Minneapolis today by federal immigration agents in the second murder of an American citizen in as many weeks; federal agencies such as ICE and Customs & Border Patrol have been acting as unrestrained, untrained, paramilitary forces without regard for the rights and responsibilities enshrined in law and the Constitution of the United States. They are the unrestrained paramilitary force of a lawless president and his advisors and administration. They act with violence and impunity. 

The victim in the shooting is not my actual son. But when I saw an image from the shooting I was hit in the gut. He looks like my son: tall, bearded, handsome, bright-eyed, exercising his rights, and well-intended. If my son were there, it could have been him. And my son has been there, not in Minneapolis, but in Kalamazoo and Chicago, marching in support of his rights and the rights of others, providing water at Black Lives Matter rallies, and looking out for his friends in Chicago over the past year who are brown or black or who speak Spanish. 

I also realize as I write this the benefit of distance I've had as a white man raising white sons in this country. And as the son of a good police officer; I was raised by my father to respect the police, and for good reason. I saw in my father and others in my family and the circle of police officers around them the dedication and professionalism of police officers dedicated to the credo of "serve and protect." But the exceptions to this have been deadly for far too many people, killed needlessly. Executed. And this has been especially true for black and brown men.  

The danger of violence at the hands of unrestrained law enforcement is something my black friends have had to live with as they've raised their children. To be cautious around law enforcement, even when you're not doing anything wrong. To be deferential to a deadly power that can act with impunity. I spoke to two friends about this over the years who have raised their black sons as I've raised my white ones. Our conversations about power and the police were very different. 

And now, here we are. We're not even talking about police officers with these federal agents. We're talking about a paramilitary force that's badly trained and hostile, politically motivated and politically loyal to one agenda and the person behind it, not the Constitution and not the rule of law. In fact, federal agents at the scene did not allow the rightful, lawful police in Minneapolis to access the crime scene; the police force in Minneapolis stands with the citizens they do protect and serve against the lawless, reckless actions of federal agents. This is the second murder in a row by federal agents of a Minneapolis citizen where the true police force is not allowed to investigate the murder. Here we are.

The victim in the shooting is not my actual son. But he could be. And he could be yours. It could be another Renee Good, one of our daughters. Welcome to America where the law doesn’t matter, only power does, and the power can and will do whatever it wants to those who stand opposed. Even murder. 

And it will continue to do so as long as we accept it.

It will be my son next. It will be me. It will be your son. It will be you. The water is deadly now. Federal agents are now openly killing American citizens.  

There are lessons we should learn from the frogs.