The Talk

Sunday, August 20, 2017   8:30 AM

The outside world is enveloped in fog.  At the mailbox, I notice cobwebs I didn’t see before.  The neighborhood is silent.  Last night’s storm has felled a large tree limb, which lies dead in the side yard.  My Black Lives Matter sign is there but less visible from the street because of the fog.

On this morning, it seems like the world has become a haunted house, or perhaps an abandoned museum exhibit. Is this just a suburban housewife’s imagination, or is it a metaphor for American democracy? (Because these days, every suburban housewife has American democracy on her mind, all the time, right?) Have we put our democratic ideals in the museum now?  Is any challenge to injustice visible from the street on a tiny cul-de-sac in suburbia?

* * * * * * * *

Several days before that foggy morning I sit my younger daughter down to have a talk with her.  I was hoping to avoid this talk, but the events of Aug 12^th in Charlottesville, Virginia make it necessary.  In this talk I must tell my daughter that there are people out there, more people than I thought possible, who wish her harm for being herself, for being something she cannot change.  There are people out there who now are unashamed to say out loud that they wish to throw Jews in the ovens. And our country’s leaders, in the highest offices of the land, equivocate and call these haters “some fine people.”

God help us. 

I know that this talk I am having with her is not unlike the very real, very scary talk that people of color must have with their children, at a much earlier age than 18.

For years my husband has said, occasionally, that it would be entirely possible for Nazi ideology to become prevalent in the United States.  In the past, I would toss away this idea as a groundless fear.  We can call this my WASP privilege, if you like.  Woven into Jewish identity is a strong sense of transience borne out of the historical truth that Jews have always been despised by someone, simply for being Jews.  My husband, a Jew, expects threats to his existence.  Here is a conversation we had back in January, shortly after the presidential inauguration:

Me:  The president is a pathological liar, and very insecure.  He keeps telling lies.

Husband (making a natural Jewish leap in thought from insecure pathological liar to Hitler*):  You know, the first people that Hitler got rid of were the intellectuals.  But it’s okay.  I’m Jewish.  We’ve been through this before.  We’ll wander around.  We’ll carry our Torah with us.

Younger Daughter:  It’s the end of the American empire.  It’s inevitable – every great empire in history collapses.  The Roman empire didn’t last, but we still have Rome.  The British empire doesn’t exist any more.  But Britain is still there.

Husband:  Britain is still there?

Younger Daughter:  Oh. My. God.  Why do you count as an intellectual?

So, a few days before I send my daughter off on the uncharted path which is freshman year of college, I tell her that there are people who are out to get her.   It is white privilege that I have been able to postpone this talk until now.  My yard sign in white suburbia saying Black Lives Matter is more a wish for the future than a truth, in our foggy abandoned museum exhibit.

 

Staged photo, showing both the big tree
limb and Black Lives Matter sign.
Yes, I dragged the tree limb around the yard
in the dark, to get both of them in the frame.
I did it for you, Dear Reader.

Obeying the prime rule of parenting, which is to remain calm in all situations, my daughter and I discuss the events in Charlottesville in measured tones. I make sure she understands that some of these people live near us.  That there are few of them but they are powerful and violent.  That these people would be of far less consequence if they were not receiving thinly veiled encouragement from the Divider-in-Chief. Then she asks me:

“How will we know when it is time to be afraid?”

How does a parent answer that question?

*Update:  Please note that this post is not meant to imply in any way that our President and Hitler are like each other.  One of them is not shrewd enough.