Charlottesville Response: Options and Unity and Tina Fey
There are two major perspectives I can easily appreciate about how to respond to the impending white nationalist/Nazi/KKK gatherings scheduled in the Bay Area and across the nation. Given the events in Charlottesville last weekend, it is clear that these people are organized, energized, and a force to be reckoned with. It is difficult to argue that they can just be ignored.
The historical perspective on this that it should be actively met with direct resistance. The original Nazis began as a small movement and were considered outliers and thugs who were not to be taken seriously. We know how that turned out.
Never the less, it is difficult not to believe that today’s Neo-Nazis et al aren’t looking for a fight. Given that they so clearly wish to provoke a violation confrontation, it seems like it might be foolish to give them what they want. One of the most challenging lessons I had to learn as a teacher was to maintain my composure with confrontational or difficult students. I remember the colleague who explained to me that “they want to see you lose your composure. That’s how they know they got under your skin. You can’t give them the satisfaction.” Certainly, I know that the issues of disciplining disruptive high school students is different from the issue of confronting racist organizations. But I do think there is a similarity in that the immediate objective is to cause an individual distress.
We can also make a comparison of these domestic terror organizations to foreign terror organizations. Terrorists are able to use victimization to their advantage. Part of their objective is to provoke their adversaries into attacking them so they can demonstrate how they are victims of a more dominant culture. This tactic is utilized in the extreme by terrorists who launch rockets from civilian locations like hospitals and schools, hoping to create casualties in the eventual retaliation. Terrorists create advantages by forcing their adversaries to make difficult decisions by effectively saying: “Either ignore us and let us attack you with impunity, or fight back and hurt us and we will be the victims of your aggression.” Either one of these outcomes is satisfactory for the terrorist agenda.
The challenge we are facing is whether or not to fight back and to what degree. How much should we engage terrorists who want us to engage? How much should we feed the trolls?
If we completely ignore them, history suggests we run the risk of normalizing such behavior. If we aggressively confront them, we provide them the attention they crave the opportunity to present themselves as a victimized minority. To complicate matters, in Charlottesville we saw how one of these terrorists wounded dozens of counter-protestors with a car, ultimately killing one them.
I can’t say what the best thing to do here is. I don’t have a clear answer as to how to best respond to this activity. I don’t think it’s good to feed the trolls. I don’t think it’s good to ignore them either. I support individual decisions about how they choose to respond to this type of hatred and terrorist display. If you choose to go the aggressive route, please take proper care. You could potentially take a very serious risk. Please make sure you are safe and that you are aware of your surroundings. Be careful about how much you choose to engage people looking for a fight. If you stay home, please provide emotional support to those who choose to confront this aggression. If you take the middle ground and choose to attend a counter-protest or celebration away from these Nazi/KKK gatherings, please remember what it is we’re fighting for (or against).
I think it is important that we support each other and our different ways of resisting. It’s often been argued that the right is more unified than the left. I think there is some truth to this. I am a little disappointed that something like an SNL sketch could be cause for fracturing amongst the left. But it seems that is the case. I’m not suggesting that we all honor the words of Tina Fey. But I don’t know if mocking and ridiculing someone who shares the same aims as us but chooses to pursue a different method. Obviously, I’m not suggesting that you should like or dislike the sketch. But I think that animosity towards others who advocate different tactics is potentially more destructive than helpful to what are largely common goals. I do acknowledge that I mostly fall under that protected category people often mention as a middle-aged white guy (to some degree or other). I can’t ever fully appreciate the issues from the experience of a person of color. As a Jewish person, I do have many thoughts and feelings about how to confront these things though. I don’t claim my ways are superior or the only way. I do think that there are many different ways to resist and fight racism and terrorism.
Whether you choose to stay home, or go and confront the opposition, or attend a counter-protest somewhere else, I hope we all remember our common objectives.
